All he knew was pain for a very long time. The pain occasionally changed form and intensity, but it was pain all the same. It was his existence, so large and so broad that it became his identity, an entity outside of the realm of mere feelings.

There was the first pain, which was rather dull and large and frequent, as if he had been punched very many times by someone who worked out and had probably clenched a weight in their fist even as they were pummeling him.

Sometimes the pain burned from very deep inside. Sometimes it was localized, while at other points it seemed to encompass his entire being.It ebbed like the tide and waxed like the moon, sometimes manageable but gradually growing worse as time went on. Then there would be a new pain, a pinprick of pain, and everything would grow manageable again.

After an eternity of pain, other things began to break through. Hazy darkness and light, random colors. Mostly white. Occasionally red. Low, even voices that murmured strange things in an alien tongue.

Most often was a distinctly male voice that he seemed to remember, though the name was on the tip of his tongue—and since he couldn’t quite operate his mouth yet, as that part of him hadn’t rejoined with reality—he couldn’t manage to say it. But Irwin knew the voice, so calm and smooth and sweet, seeming to coax him up out of the haze. Unfortunately for the speaker, there was more pain up there in the light, and Irwin wasn’t very interested in dealing with that.

Sometimes he slept, but most of the time it was hard to tell what was wakefulness and what was dreams. The only way of knowing was to pay attention to how much hurt he felt at any given time.

He thought about things in the hazy, painful dark, though his thoughts were incoherent and mostly composed of fleeting images.

Then, at one point in time—days, weeks, he couldn’t say—something new happened.

He felt, and there was no pain. Only warmth and gentle pressure on the part of himself that he could now identify as his hand.

The warmth made something inside his soul stir around. Some slumbering part of him stretched its limbs, testing its forgotten capabilities. The pressure became a point of focus, a thing beckoning him up and out of the dark and into the light. He wasn’t hesitant at all because though that was where the pain lived, the call of the warmth was more important. Much, much more important.

Though he wasn’t sure at all how he did it, he surfaced slightly and found an entirely different realm up there in the gray. He couldn’t open his eyes just yet, but he was very aware that his eyelids were glued together with the fuzzy remnants of exhaustion. His wrist ached and felt restricted for some reason, and he could feel something in his throat and his nose.

He smelled cleaner, the harsh lemon kind, and medicine, and something else much more welcome.

Dagwood, he thought, and it was the first coherent thing to come to his mind.

His strength gave out again and he was sinking, but not before he heard the soft beeping of machinery. It seemed that he was in a hospital, but he was already fading again and couldn’t dwell on the idea.

He drifted again for a time, like an infant, like a sleeping shark, always half-aware and waiting for something.

Another touch of warmth woke him to the surface at some point, and he emerged out of the dark even more than before, enough to realize that the pressure on his hand belonged to someone else’s hand. He could feel the four individual fingers, and the strong curve of the thumb. The thumb stroked ever so tenderly over the back of his hand.

Then he heard a voice, though it took him a long moment before he could put the words together.

“…don’t know what I’m supposed to say. You seem to respond when I...when I touch you. At first the doctors didn’t want me to, but I guess now they decided it’s a good thing. They won’t tell me, but I think they’re getting worried about it. Like you’re having a hard time pulling through. God, I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t even know if you can hear me.”

I can hear you, Irwin tried to say, but the words didn’t want to leave his lips. He could feel the sore muscles in his throat working but they could produce no sound, only a faint hum that was easily overlooked.

Dagwood paused for such a long time that Irwin wondered if he was fading away again. Then, the words started up once more, hesitantly, carefully. “They say some patients can remember what they heard during surgery. Or maybe it was in a coma. I don’t really remember. They say you aren’t in a coma, though. You’re just…fighting.

“Please keep fighting for me, Irwin. I love you. I want to see our pup. I want to take you away to my home. I live in the high desert in Nevada. I never told you that. I’m telling you now. I’ll take care of you, and you can brighten up my life. If that’s what you want. And if it isn’t, I’ll go wherever you go, as long as I’m with you. I love you.”

The next time Irwin came out of the dark, he was surprised to find that he hurt a lot less. Either it had been a long time between, or else he’d been too scared to push his luck and made a bigger deal out of things than he had a right to. Either way, he was out. For good. His eyes opened. The world was blindingly white, too full of lights, but as he blinked he gradually started to sort out details and shapes, hints of shadows. Everything stayed blurry around the edges, but at least he could see.

He was looking right at Dagwood, who stared at him with his eyes so wide that they were nearly falling out of his head. His face had gone as white as the pristine hospital room, so white he was nearly blue. “Are you awake?” he breathed.

Irwin took a moment to assess himself, or at least as best as he could while lying flat on his back. The pain at his wrist was revealed to be some sort of enormous IV needle, hooked up to a drip. Various other parts of him were also fused with machinery, such as the tubes in his throat and nose. Straps held him in place, which made him wonder if he had been moving around too much in his unconscious state.

The rest of his body, he couldn’t see. Thin white blankets were pulled up to his shoulders, tucked in around him.

But it didn’t matter. He could see all sorts of details that the dreaming mind could never hold onto. He was awake.

Speaking was still impossible, so he nodded as best as he could. His neck creaked at the slight movement.

Dagwood let out a high-pitched sound, almost like a moan, and then sprang up to his feet. He leaped out of the room, throwing himself through the doorway. His voice echoed distantly. “Nurse! I need a nurse over here!”

Irwin lay back in his hospital bed, feeling almost drunk at all the new sensations flooding through him. The bed was soft. The flowers on the table by the bed were a beautiful shade of purple, vibrant splashes of color in the washed-out room. Sunlight streamed in through the slats in the window, creating a pattern on the sheets. What he could see of the floor was tile.

So many new things, so little time to look at it all. Soft, swift footsteps approached and here was a nurse in a dark blue smock, a faint smile on her face.

“Well, well,” she said. Her voice was like music to Irwin’s ears. “Good morning, Mr. Price. Can you hear me?”

He nodded for her. It was easier this time.

She lit up and nodded back, clasping her hands together. “Good, good! Let me just check a few things here, and then I’ll get the doctor in for you, okay? If he says you’re good, we’ll get that nasty breathing tube out and make you more comfortable. Just hang on for me.”

Dagwood sat at his bedside all through the nurse’s brief examination, his own hands clasped together so tightly that his fingers had turned white. Irwin tried to look at him reassuringly, but he was too distracted by all the interesting things being done to him. His heart rate was checked, his blood pressure measured, and his limbs were carefully manipulated and examined.

Most of these things weren’t entirely new to him, since he’d had a few physicals in his life, but they all seemed so much more fascinating right now. Even more so, he was being given a glimpse of the damage that had been done to his body by whatever bad turn of fate dropped him here in the hospital.

His arms were covered by clean white bandages, which wouldn’t have been too concerning if the amount of padding wasn’t so thick. When the nurse moved his arm, checking his joints, he felt stitches stretch and pull on his forearms. However, his skin was pink and healthy.

His legs were free of bandages, though there were gauze pads taped here and there. Other, apparently less-serious wounds hadn’t been covered; these all had stitches, as well.

His torso was still hidden from view by the hospital gown, but as his body woke up he realized that most of the pain was localized around his chest.

At last, the nurse took a step back. “Well, Irwin, you seem very stable right now. I think you’ve pulled through!”

Irwin thought this announcement deserved a damn good deal of cheering, rather than the silence that followed.

“I’ll get the doctor in here to see what he thinks. It won’t be that much longer.”

As soon as she was gone from the room, Dagwood picked up Irwin’s hand and pressed his cold lips to it. Then, he held it to his forehead, closed his eyes, and muttered, “Thank god,” over and over in a stunned voice. He kept it up for the 15 minutes it took the doctor to arrive. When he did, Irwin was thankful. Dagwood was beginning to get on his newly-restored nerves.

The doctor introduced himself, though Irwin could never remember later on whether he was a Harrison or a Henrichs. He was a middle-aged man slightly older than Dagwood, with a streak of gray running through his hair from his temple. He ran through all the checks that the nurse had, followed by a few more. He shone lights into Irwin’s eyes, his ears, his nose, and basically every other possible crevasse to be found on the human body.

“Follow my finger,” he instructed, and then waved it back and forth through the air at varying speeds. Irwin obeyed. Finally, Dr. Harrison-Henrichs leaned back and gave a grave nod. “Young man, you are extraordinarily lucky. Do you feel up to talking or would you like to sleep for a little longer?”

Irwin hesitated. On the one hand, he was really starting to hurt. If he said he wanted to sleep, he figured they would have to give him some pain medicine. But, on the other hand, he was greatly annoyed by that fucking breathing tube, and he wanted it out.

“Left hand for talking. Right hand for sleeping,” Dr. Harrison-Henrichs said.

Irwin lifted his left hand.

After another long period of time, a nurse arrived and the tubes were removed from Irwin. He pulled in his first unassisted breath, tasting canned, thick hospital air, and thought he had never enjoyed being alive more than he did right now. His throat felt even more raw and uncomfortable than it had when he tried his first cigarette, but it was so worth it.

The nurse left and the doctor sat down on a stool, wheeling it over to Irwin’s bedside. “First of all, don’t worry. I am very aware of your unique condition.”

Irwin had forgotten about that particular concern, that he might end up being treated by a human doctor with no knowledge of shapeshifters, but he was glad that it had been resolved on its own. As time went on, keeping the existence of shifters was harder and harder, but there were people in the know who helped to regulate such things. If someone was a shapeshifting cop, they were placed alongside a shifter partner; a shifter patient would be given to a shifter doctor, or a human who was in the know.

It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was the best anyone had come up with thus far.

“Now, with that out of the way, I’ll repeat that you were lucky. Very lucky. Do you remember what happened? Yes or no.”

He didn’t want to remember, but he did.

After receiving three calls in a row to gently inform him that he just wasn’t the right fit for what this or that business wanted, he went out for a walk to relieve some of his frustration. The Taurus needed more gas but he wanted to put off that particular expense for as long as possible, so he walked. He ended up at a small nearby park, which was so destitute that it no longer had an official name, as the sign blew down one day and no one bothered to replace it, and then no one else could remember what it had been called.

But no matter how pathetic the park was, he felt that it would be a better place to be miserable instead of his apartment. He started off on the single path that curved around the entire park, not really noticing anything in particular except for the fact that all the trees seemed on the verge of death.

Then, the first shot rang out. He could recall the sound so clearly, somehow much quieter than it had been in the Macy’s. The pitch was higher as well, not diluted and deepened by all the echoing. It felt as if he had been punched in the chest and all the breath went out of his lungs. The ground rushed up to meet him and suddenly he was sitting on his ass. More shots. He couldn’t remember how many. They all seemed to blur together after that initial burst.

Then, he was on his back. The sky seemed dull. Someone crouched over him, a distinctly familiar person with a wild brown beard and flat brown eyes. Sharp, sharp pain in his arms, like he’d been clawed by some animal. Wetness and a warmth that gradually turned cool.From that point on, there had been only the pain.

“Yes,” Irwin croaked. “I remember.”

He was trembling. Fear knotted tightly in his gut even though he knew it was only memories, that he was in no danger.

Holding Dagwood’s hand provided some comfort, but not enough. He wanted to be held but he didn’t think that would be possible just yet.

“Alright. Good.” Dr. Harrison-Henrichs nodded gravely. “You were shot four times. Two other bullets were found, one in the pavement and one in the side of a building over 30 feet away. All four shots hit you in the chest. Yet, somehow, here you are. I almost don’t believe it, and I wouldn’t have believed it at all if I hadn’t treated you myself. Somehow, every single shot missed your heart and lungs. Two passed cleanly through. The other two had to be removed. Several of your ribs were cracked from the impact, and your sternum was bruised. So was your ass. You sat down pretty hard.”

Irwin gave a wobbly smile at this bit of humor.

The doctor continued, almost casually. “The shooter then approached you and began to inflict a series of deep penetrating traumas with a knife. Most of these injuries occurred on your arms, though he also attacked your legs. Like I said, you are very lucky to be alive. Maybe it’s what you are. Maybe it was a result of your youth or the fact that the weapon was only a handgun. But the fact that you are this coherent, this soon, is astonishing.”

“How long has it been?”

“Twelve days. But let me tell you right now, Irwin. Full recovery is very, very far down the road for you. I’ll be frank and say that it will be several months, if not a year, before you are without pain. Probably longer.” The doctor sighed heavily. “Your pregnancy is going to be…difficult for you.”

Pregnancy?

Now that he thought about it, what had Dagwood said? Something about a pup with Irwin? Since when were children anywhere in the picture?

“The fact that you didn’t lose the baby is…miraculous.”

“Wait,” Irwin said, weakly. “Stop a sec. Pregnant? Baby? I don’t understand.”

Irwin was no longer the only person in the room who looked astonished. Dagwood seemed downright thunderstruck, as if he had just been told that Santa Claus was real all along. His composure was nowhere to be found, as the doctor recovered from his surprise sooner.

“I see. You didn’t know. Let me tell you, it was a very complicated matter to be treating you, to operate on you, once we discovered this. I hope I won’t be the bearer of bad news if I’m the first one to inform you that you’re pregnant. You’re about a month along right now. Approximately. Dating shifter pregnancies is difficult, since your term lengths are unreliable.”

Most of this information went right over Irwin’s head. He could barely breathe. How could any of this be happening? How could there be a child inside him? He knew the biology of it, that he had unprotected sex with Dagwood, but it just seemed…impossible. He was hardly more than a kid himself, and now he was growing one?

Not only that, but it had survived the stress and trauma of gunshot wounds, surgery, recovery, and everything else that went along with it?

As horrified as he was by the realizations knocking against him like storm-addled waves, he had to be impressed, too. This was one fucking tough kid he was incubating.

Dagwood’s kid.

“I think I’ll leave the two of you alone for a moment,” the doctor said, standing. “I’ll have to alert the police that you’re pulling through. They very much want to speak with you.”

Irwin watched as the doctor left the room, and then he turned his gaze back on Dagwood. Never before had he seen a man who looked so absolutely downtrodden, crushed by a stampede of emotions. He was still pale, his dark hair seeming much too black in contrast. He had new patches of gray in his beard, and a few peppered spots on the hair at his temples. Worried wrinkles dragged down at the corners of his mouth, furrowed his forehead.

And yet, Irwin thought he still looked damn good.

“Irwin,” Dagwood said. His voice choked.

Reaching out to him with the hand that wasn’t hooked up to an IV, Irwin said, “I love you, too.”

Dagwood grabbed onto his hand, gripping it tightly. Still riding the wave of semi-euphoria at being able to have coherent thoughts again, Irwin marveled at that powerful grasp. For as long as they had known each other, it was Dagwood who was calm, collected, and comforting. Now that strong man was depending on him, requesting reassurance even if he didn’t quite realize what he was doing.

“I’m sorry,” Dagwood said. His eyes glittered, tears gathering like dew drops on the boughs of a powerful oak. “I should have realized something was wrong. I shouldn’t have left you. Not for so long. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

Irwin shook his head a little, then reached out and placed his other hand on top of Dagwood’s. “The only thing that’s your fault is the fact that I’m pregnant. You’re a baby daddy now. Are you happy?”

Dagwood sniffed and then smiled at him through a rain of tears. “I can’t believe it. How could it even have survived? It’s gone through so much already and it hasn’t even been born yet.”

Irwin shrugged. Of course, he ended up shrugging the shoulder that hurt the worst and he winced. Dagwood noticed and jumped up, knocking over his chair. “I’ll get the nurse!” he said.

“Stop,” Irwin said. “I’m okay. Just moved wrong. There’s going to be a lot of that in my future, you know.”

“No, there won’t. I’m going to staple you to your bed so you can’t move at all.” After hesitating at the door for a few moments longer, Dagwood set his chair up and perched on the edge of it.

“And then my muscles will atrophy and you’ll have to carry me around forever after that.”

“You know I’d do it.”

“You’re one lovesick puppy.”

“You know that, too.”

So am I.

Bringing Dagwood’s hand to his mouth, Irwin pressed his dry, cracked lips to the back of it. “Our kid is going to have one hell of a story to tell when she grows up.”

“She?”

“If it’s not a little girl, I’m sending it back with the stork. I’ve been a little boy. We are terrible, terrible people, and I don’t want anything to do with that.”

Dagwood laughed softly. “I agree with you there. I’d rather deal with learning how to do hair and reading pretty pony books, than keep our little bundle of joy from jumping off the roof.”

“But what if she grows up to be a professional skydiver?”

“Then I will be one proud but terrified father, and she will be the death of me before my time.”

Irwin giggled and pressed another kiss to Dagwood’s hand before releasing it. Then, he pursed his lips for a real kiss. Dagwood complied, standing up to lean over him. They gazed deeply into each other’s eyes, savoring the warm contact of their mouths. After being apart for so long, they were together yet again.

When they parted, Irwin found that his eyes wanted to stay closed more than they were inclined to stay open. He relaxed back against his pillow and let them slip closed. “Just have to rest my eyes for a bit,” he murmured.

Soft fingers riffled gently through his hair, easing away a tangle. “You do that, Irwin,” Dagwood whispered. “Does this mean you’re okay with having my baby?”

“I’m scared shitless. I can’t even think about it. It’s just…unreal. Everything is.” Irwin sighed, cuddling deeper under the bedsheets as if they could protect him from the future. “I’ve hardly even been in a relationship, and now I’m on the verge of having a baby. It’s all going so fast.”

He could feel Dagwood working up an apology, so he continued as quickly as his sleepy mind would allow. “But I don’t think there’s anyone else I would rather go through this with. Just do me a favor?”

“Anything, baby,” Dagwood said, after letting out a sigh of relief. “Anything at all.”

“Kill that son of a bitch Kevin.”

Dagwood nodded and bared his fangs, which were whiter even than the hospital room walls. “Anything for you.”

Irwin fell asleep to that reassurance.