Rafael's labor was much shorter than he expected, unless it wasn't, and he had simply lost his relationship with time somewhere between breath and pain, with Marin telling him, for the fifth time, that he couldn't argue with biology.
Rafael remembered fragments more than a clean line.
The modern quiet of the room. Ether humming through the walls like a second heartbeat. Gregoris's hand locked around his with the kind of grip that said, 'I will not let you fall apart,' even if Rafael had, at several points, been fully prepared to fall apart just to spite him.
Marin's voice, steady and unimpressed, announcing numbers like they were boring.
"You're doing fine," someone had said, and it was probably a lie, because Rafael had been doing murder in his head.
"Breathe," Gregoris had murmured against his hair.
Rafael had, at one point, managed to croak, "If you say that again I'll…"
"You'll what," Marin had asked mildly, "deliver the child slower out of spite?"
