"Hey, it's been a minute!" Logan said, ushering Sebastian into his apartment with a grin. "What have you been up to that was more important than shitty food and truly terrible movies?"

Sebastian bent over to drop his backpack on the floor and winced as his kidneys twinged violently. "Some of us have work to do," he said through gritted teeth.

"Yeah," Logan said with a muffled laugh. "Me."

"You can leave it all at work though," Sebastian reminded him, trying to surreptitiously rub his lower back.

"Are you insulting my work ethic?" Logan said cheerfully.

Sebastian wrinkled his nose. "Yes."

"Insightful as always," Logan chirped and grinned. It was the kind of grin that took his face from regular to dazzlingly handsome. Sebastian ducked his head and grumbled internally. He'd been having thoughts like that a lot more often lately. Probably it was hormones. Everything seemed to be hormones, or at least that's what people kept telling him.

That is, when they weren't reminding him just how vigorously his internal organs were about to be rearranged. Sebastian had a hard time imagining that. For one thing, he already had enough mysterious aches. If he was about to have more, he had no idea where he was going to put them.

He scowled, trying to casually stretch out his shoulders. "Don't even talk to me about work," he snapped. "Not unless you want to finish my algorithms for me. There's about four hundred thousand of them left to go." Or at least, that's how it felt when every one of them was taking a million years to individually finish. Sebastian distinctly remembered being able to sit at his computer for hours without getting up, but that level of focus seemed to have vanished in the breeze, along with the joy of never having to think about how hunched his back was. Getting up every thirty seconds to stretch and try to remember what he was doing was absolutely killing his productivity, but there wasn't really anything he could do about it. Not without giving up on the project, and right now that seemed like the last tether Sebastian had left to the life he thought he was on the verge of living. Nothing was going to make him give that up.

"Don't get shitty with me about it," Logan said, raising an eyebrow. "Complain to your group members if they're making you do all the work. I had fuck-all to do with dividing up your shit. "

"Yeah, right," Sebastian mumbled. Firstly, he knew with guilty certainty that he was only barely managing to do a third of the work and his friends were keeping quiet about it already. Secondly, it had a lot to do with Logan, even if Logan didn't understand why. Logan wasn't involved in the computer science group project, but he was definitely leaving Sebastian alone to do all the work of pregnancy, as well as all the work of dealing with his parents about it. It was enough to make Sebastian want to explode all over Logan's stupid smile and his stupid hallway.

Instead, he restrained himself and hobbled into the living room, settling himself on the couch with exaggerated care and a faint sigh of relief.

"You sure you're doing okay?" Logan said from where he was stopped in the doorway, watching Sebastian with an unreadable expression.

"Just fine," Sebastian said, unable to keep his annoyance from creeping into his voice. "It's not your problem anyway, right?"

"Okay?" Logan said slowly, his voice raised questioningly. "You want to pick the movie while I go start dinner? I got us some steaks..." He trailed off as Sebastian looked up and past him, still distracted by his own grumpiness.

"What's the occasion?" Sebastian said vaguely.

"Just tired of takeout," Logan said, not meeting Sebastian's eyes. "Trying to be healthy, you know. Get that...iron, I guess?"

"What the fuck?" Sebastian said, suddenly furious. "Are you trying to say I'm not healthy now? Are you blaming me?" He rose partway to his feet and then sat down abruptly as his back twinged again. He'd heard enough about how poorly he was taking care of himself from his mom and the doctors. He wasn't going to stand for it from Logan too. He glared up from his seat, his voice rising. "Let me tell you something–"

He stopped himself short, seconds away from saying too much, and the silence in the room seemed to grow until it was almost a physical object lying between the two of them.

"Oh, yeah?" Logan said as the tension reached unbearable levels. "Tell me what?"

"Never fucking mind," Sebastian said through gritted teeth. "It's not your problem."

"Why don't you tell me and let me decide if it's my problem or not?" Logan said. He was struggling to keep his annoyance out of his voice, but Sebastian had known Logan way too long for that kind of half-assed deception to work on him. As if Logan had anything to actually be annoyed about.

"What, my word isn't good enough for you anymore?" Sebastian said, leaning forward in his seat, his whole body stiff with tension.

"You're my friend," Logan said. It didn't sound like it, from the way the word leapt out of his mouth as if shot unwillingly from a cannon.

"Yeah, exactly," Sebastian spat. If Logan only wanted to be his friend, then he sure as hell wasn't going to get anything more out of Sebastian. "You don't need to know."

"Why are you pushing me away like this?" Logan said, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, his face shifting away from anger into confusion. "You know you can talk to me about anything, right?"

"Can I?" The words were out of Sebastian's mouth before they'd even crossed his mind.

"Yes, you can!" Logan said desperately. "Why are we dancing around this? We both know you're pregnant with my child."

The room was suddenly silent again, except for Sebastian's heartbeat throbbing in his ears like a ticking time bomb. Logan stepped forward across the grubby carpet, leaning down slightly as though he was trying to meet Sebastian's averted gaze.

"What?" Sebastian said, over the rush of blood that pounded in his head.

"You didn't think you could hide it forever, did you?" Logan said, pleading. "Why couldn't you tell me what was going on?"

"How do you know it's yours?" Sebastian said, skipping over the biggest lie and right into his worst fear.

"Of course I know," Logan said, his mouth quirking into a gentle smile as he reached for Sebastian's hand. "I'm your best friend. That's why you came to me in your heat, wasn't it? I wasn't going to miss something that important about you. I've been in love with you for years."

Sebastian yanked his hand away, blinking hard as his eyes suddenly filled with hot, itchy tears. "You've been what now?" he said, disbelieving.

"In love with you," Logan said. He looked a little shocked himself, as though this wasn't how he thought his evening was going to go. "Since forever."

"What?" Logan's eyes were like deep pools, unrelieved by his usual flashes of humor. Sebastian was drowning in them, unable to look away. "That can't be true."

"It is," Logan said simply. He reached for Sebastian's hand again. This time, Sebastian let him take it.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" Sebastian demanded. He didn't know if he wanted to prove that Logan was lying, or force him to reveal everything. This was too much, coming at him too fast.

"Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?" Logan retorted, a shadow of hurt crossing his face.

"Don't start in on that again," Sebastian said. "You first. You said this has been true forever. I've only been pregnant for a few months."

Logan gave him a knowing look and Sebastian could feel his heart melting at the comforting familiarity of it in the middle of this weird situation. "You said you never wanted an Alpha," Logan said, shrugging his shoulders. "You said that wasn't what you wanted out of life. I figured you had enough people telling you that you did want it without me getting in on it."

Sebastian's tongue stumbled over his reply, the words bouncing out of his mouth in short, sharp bursts. "I didn't– I wasn't– That isn't– You aren't that. You know that, right?" He squeezed Logan's hand. "That wasn't about you. You're not one of the assholes my mom was all over me to marry. You don't count."

"There's a baby in there that says I kind of do," Logan said, gesturing apologetically to Sebastian's belly, swathed as it was in his thickest sweater.

"That's not– That's not what I meant!" Sebastian said, curving his free arm unconsciously around his abdomen. "You're Logan." Wasn't it obvious? Did he really have to spell things out like this? "You're different."

"Thanks, I guess?" Logan said, puzzlement in the crooked corner of his mouth and the tilt of his head.

Sebastian glared at him.

"So, can I ask why you didn't tell me about the baby yet?" Logan said, teasingly affectionate.

"It's all so new!" Sebastian said, a smidgen defensively. "I was going to. Eventually."

"It's been a while," Logan said. He was staring Sebastian down like he could see straight through all of his bullshit. He probably could. "Pregnancy lasts for a long time, but not forever. When exactly?"

"I don't know," Sebastian said, looking away. It was harder to be honest than to joke about it, to let Logan see him at his least certain, his most insecure. "When I'd moved away forever?" He tried to laugh like it was a joke, but the dry gasp that came out of his mouth only seemed to underline how much he'd meant every word.

Logan's expression shifted, and for a second Sebastian was certain he was about to see anger mar the love in his best friend's face. He started to look away, and found himself smothered against Logan's chest, Logan's arms tight around him as though he was never going to let go. "I'd have come after you," Logan murmured into Sebastian's hair. "Absolutely. However far you tried to go."

Sebastian didn't have any words for that. But he squeezed Logan back, as hard as he could manage. It would have to be enough.

For one thing, Logan had always understood Sebastian better than Sebastian had understood himself.

Nose pressed into Logan's shirt, Sebastian inhaled deeply to steady himself. Instead, the memories of his heat came flooding back, leaving him flushed and dizzy, clutching at Logan for support as well as love.

"Are you okay?" Logan's voice seemed to be coming from miles above Sebastian's head.

Sebastian leaned forward in Logan's embrace, laughter bubbling up in his dry throat. "Yeah," he said. "I think I am."