Welcome to Gaia! ::

"You should use it," Youko said, padding through the livingroom with a load of clean laundry folded in his arms. He headed towards Omi's room, his tail thwacking against the back of the couch as he passed by the woman curled there. "I didn't buy it so that it could collect dust."

"It's not collecting dust," Yeande said, glaring at the 'easy to use' plastic stick that lay on the table, mocking her. It was right next to the pink and white box that proclaimed 'Fastest test results!' in big, friendly lettering on the side. Truth was, it really wasn't collecting dust. Omi had found it earlier, shortly after Youko had set it there, and pulled open the box and packaging, wondering what kind of 'marker' didn't have any ink.

Raven snorted Pepsi out her nose for that one.

Sighing, Yeande ran her fingers through her hair and stared at the stick. This couldn't be the problem... it just couldn't be. Talon couldn't have kids. She wasn't even sure if SHE could have kids. She was just sick and tired of being... well... sick and tired. Yeande seemed to spend more time losing her lunch than she did eating it lately, and she'd caught herself snoozing on the couch at least three times in the past week alone. She never took naps. Ever. Now, it seemed to be all she wanted to do.

It was Raven that had first mentioned the likelihood, having seen these symptoms in women at the GMFC quite often. Yeande had dismissed it, but Youko had gone out to the Five and Dime, coming back with the annoying box that was now staring at her from the table. He'd been pestering her about it ever since then, egging her to just try it. Well, there was only one way to shut the fox up once he started on a tangent... so it was with a heavy sigh that she finally picked up the 'marker' and headed off towards the bathroom.




Raven knocked on the door a while later, a towel over one arm as she leaned against the door to the Japanese bathroom. "C'mon, Yeande, you've been in there over an hour!" She banged on the door a couple more times, growling inwardly. "Dammit, use the other bathroom!" she yelled, getting extremely upset that the one GOOD bathroom in the house had been confiscated by someone who wasn't even taking a bath.

"Hey Raven?" came the voice from the other side of the door. "What's today?"

"Saturday."

"The date, I mean." Yeande didn't even sound as though she'd heard the foxcoon's tirade.

Rolling her eyes, Raven frowned as she glared towards the light shining from under the door. "The 14th. NOW can you get out of there?"

Yeande leaned against the sink, staring at the stick in her hands. "Uh uh..." she whispered, shaking her head faintly. "Yesterday was the 13th, this thing's wrong." She tossed the stick in the trash, reaching for the box once more and pulling out the second stick. Up until now, she'd laughed when she'd seen the 'two-packs' of pregnancy tests. "One for the mother, one for the daughter," she'd joked once. Now she was grateful for it.

The only problem was that a few minutes later, she had yet another stick in her hand with two vertical pink lines staring back at her. She put the stick down and picked up the paper insert that had come with the test. "Maybe I messed up on it," she muttered, reading over it again.

"Or maybe you should get your pregnant a** out of the bathroom!" Raven yelled, her fist hammering on the door again. "OW!" One hand came up to rub the back of her head where Youko had just braindusted her so hard, he'd almost smacked her into the door.

"Language," he growled, giving the girl a glare that sent her skittering for the other bathroom in the house. After all, showers were just as good, and it meant she'd be out of range when he found out she'd sworn twice.

Youko sighed, knocking on the door. "Yeande, I'm coming in," he said, testing the door and finding it locked. He'd expected as much, and used the trick he'd done when the twins were infants and had locked themselves in. He took an ice pick in one hand and slid the pointed tip into the hole at the centre of the knob on his side of the door. Smacking the handle with the palm of his hand, the lock snapped open and so did the door.

He paused when he saw the poleaxed look on Yeande's face, and walked over to pick up the test stick. He didn't need to say anything... the expression she had was enough to say it all. He simply nodded and moved to pull her into a hug, thinking that was likely what she needed about now.

"I'LL KILL HIM!" she yelled, making Youko jump back with the volume as she happened to be RIGHT near his ear. Grabbing up the stick in one hand, she stalked out of the bathroom then, heading for the back door. "'Can't have kids...' he says... 'We don't need to use anything,' he says. 'Don't worry it's just the flu,' he says..." Yeande was snarling to herself the entire way through the yards to Karma's back door.

"TALONFAUST!"

So much for the peaceful evening. Yeande banged on the back door, not really caring what time of night it was. On another day, she'd likely have tried to be quieter... or just gone to his window. Now, however, shew as PISSED and wasn't thinking clearly in the slightest. The plastic stick in her hand tapped against the door each time her hand hit it, adding its own $0.02 to the sound.

"Open this door!"

"You tell me," came the snarled answer, Yeande's anger obviously focused elsewhere. As she spoke, she dropped the stick into Karma's hand and brushed past her into the house, stalking towards Talon's room. Part of her HOPED he was asleep, just so that she could yank the mattress and upend him onto his antlered HEAD.

She likely wouldn't have been so angry if Talon hadn't assured her that there was no way in hell they'd wind up like Karma and Youko, scrambling to figure out just how they'd managed to get twins out of a one night stand. Granted, this was far from a one night stand... and part of her was amazed that this particular issue hadn't reared its head far sooner. She pushed open the door to Talon's room, not even bothering to knock.

((Double post because I screwed up))



The test pelted against his chest as his hands instinctively went up to shield himself or catch it. He succeeded in neither as it bounced off into the nest of blankets. He looked after it a moment, looked to her, then back in the direction it had gone before fumbling through the covers until he found it and held it up, squinting at it.

He was not a stupid man, not usually anyway, but damned if he had any reason to acquaint himself with feminine products and their functions. This thing she'd thrown at him may as well have been a strepthroat test. Somehow he doubted that would have pissed her off quite this badly, though. That and she was obviously yelling too well to have a sore throat, as his ringing ears attested to.

He turned it over in his hands curiously and then read the back of it. "EPT" it boasted. And then in tinier print, perhaps for the abyssmally moronic (or male), it translated the mysterious acronym. "Early Pregnancy Test"

Pregn--PREGNANCY TEST?? He turned the applicator over again, nearly dropping it and gaping at the two red lines. Oh, no. Not just no, but HELL no...!

What the ********...?? He looked up at her, knitting his brow and waiting for the punchline. Because she had to be joking....HAD to be.

"I don't...I...." he faltered, having had the rug neatly yanked out from beneath him. He didn't know her to change moods so suddenly....usually nothing sort of armageddon or chocolate ice cream could get her off of the warpath once she was on it.

And on top of that, his mind was still working furiously to wrap itself around the object he was still holding in his hand and not having much success. And so, the next stage of loss set in and he shifted into denial.

"These things aren't very reliable." he said, trying to sound moreso reasonable and less desperate. He'd heard that somewhere, right? Right...he was sure of it. "And besides that, its not possible." he insisted, moving to get out of bed, hesitating, and then putting his pants back on from the rumpled heap they were in beside the bed. If she decided to get angry again, he didn't want her to have easy access to something sensitive.

"They told me at my first physical that I wasn't shooting with a loaded gun, remember?" She had to remember...she'd made fun of him about it for about a week afterward. His eyes stole to the pregnancy test sitting on the edge of the bed as he fastened his slacks as though it was some sort of poisonous spider.

Talonfaust did not have women's intuition, but he had a fight-or-flight instinct that worked just fine. And at the moment his hands trembled with unspent adrenaline and his stomach fluttered as she told him that she'd taken two tests with the same result. So much for sleep...

"Right." he said quickly, his voice cracking a bit and betraying his nerves. "Right." he said again, after clearing his throat. He hesitated and then put his arms around her and hugged her to him. "I'll even go with you if you want..."

Because I'll be damned if I sit here all day waiting to be surprised until you get an answer. he finished in his mind. This was all just a misunderstanding, he told himself again without quite as much conviction as before...but it was all he had at the moment. To be perfectly frank, he hated children. The idea of having one of his own terrified him in ways that little else did.

That was why he'd been happy to hear that it wasn't something he'd have to worry about. That THEY wouldn't have to worry about...

His teeth sank into his tongue as he promised himself he wasn't going to panic. At least not in front of Yeande and not until they knew for sure. He held her a little tighter.

His mind was going in about fifteen directions at once, or making a valiant effort at it, at the least. He felt the slight shift of her hand moving and looked down to see it resting on her belly.

s**t.

He knew some women cried pregnancy liberally and at the drop of a hat. Yeande was not 'some women', though. In fact, she was rarely wrong...especially about things regarding herself. And from the look of it, she'd resigned herself to the idea already that she was with child.

His child.

Panic began to well up again and he started talking in hopes of making it recede. "I'm not going anywhere." he assured her, his tail twining around the same leg her tail had to keep it from lashing. He knew she hadn't suggested that he might leave, but he wanted to n** it in the bud before she could even address it. "Whatever this is..." Please God, let it be nothing... "...we'll make it work, okay?"

Another day...

Yeande knocked at the door of Karma's house again... this time, more subdued than she'd been in the middle of the night. It was now nearly 3pm and she was pacing back and forth across the small porch as she waited for an answer. Her eyes kept wandering to the slightly crinkled paper in one hand, declaring that which she'd inwardly already known.

She was pregnant.

There were two other papers as well... one for a prescription of pre-natal vitamins and another stating the time of her first 'official' appointment at the clinic with Dr. Jenkins. The woman had been very understanding with her, and didn't seem to flinch at the Ijiuo's appearance. That alone was worth commending the woman.

Then again, Karma had gone to the clinic before as well, so if a foxcoon could get away without a glance, then a woman with wings and a tail shouldn't raise too many eyebrows.

Now she just had to break the news to Talon and pray he didn't wind up in a gibbering heap in the corner.