Present time…


Eight hours or so had passed since he’d woken up contracting, and Ash was in so much pain that he was sweating and couldn’t see straight. Through it all, Jinxx and Sammi were by his side, CC standing watch outside the front door, especially after the text Jake sent to the multi-instrumentalist. As much as he wanted to see Andy, wanted him by his side as he delivered their daughter, he didn’t want him anywhere near his house, much less him, while he was enraged.

With the start of another contraction, he groaned in pain as he splayed his hands over his small bump, feeling the child within try to kick against the pressure futilely. He honestly felt like he was dying right now, even though he knew he wasn’t, because the pain he felt now was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Not even the pain of being penetrated for the first time could compare to this.

As he pressed a pillow over his face to muffle a blood-curdling scream moments later, he heard a commotion at his front door. Jinxx jumped up and ran to the living room to see what was going on while Sammi stayed loyally by his side, grabbing his free hand and squeezing it reassuringly. It was moments later that the commotion moved down the hall toward his room, and he could hear multiple people cursing and fighting against each other. He could only assume that it was Jake, Jinxx, and CC trying to fight Andy off and get him out of the house, fearing that he’d hurt him in his enraged state.

“Oh, my Godsmack… Ashley,” the frontman breathed, dropping to his knees beside the bed.

“A-Andy,” he panted, the contraction ending. He reached out to him with a shaky hand, his eyes glazed over and body coated in a sheen of sweat from the pain he was in.

“What’s wrong with him?” he demanded to know, scared for his lover.

“Move aside, sir,” Erica said forcefully, crawling onto the bed. “Assume the position, Ashley.”

Nodding as best he could, he pulled his feet together and up toward his pelvis, grateful that she’d started the promised hot bath and spread a towel over him for modesty’s sake.

“Nine centimeters,” she announced. “Almost done, hun.”

“What a…relief,” he sighed, squeezing Sammi’s hand.

“I won’t ask but one more time…what’s. Wrong. With. Him?” Andy demanded, pausing between each word to drive home the point.

“I’m pretty sure you’re smart enough to figure it out,” Jinxx said, sounding a bit haughty.

“Jinxx…don’t,” Jake begged. “I’ve already got a black eye and busted lip from not wanting to cave. Save yourself the pain.”

“I’ll do no such thing. If he weren’t an idiot, he wouldn’t be in this mess,” he snapped. “Something I’ve told him countless times before.”

“Jinxx, CC, I need your help moving him to the tub,” Erica piped up to disperse the growing tension.

Nodding, the two of them came over to the bed, effectively pushing Andy even further away. With a cry of agony, the bassist allowed them to heft him up and carry him from his bed to the bathroom, where they gently settled him in the tub. Before allowing anyone into the room with them, the midwife took out the little hand-held Doppler she’d been using all day and pressed the end to his belly.

Within moments, he heard the comforting sound of his daughter’s racing heart, relieved further when the midwife told him that it was right where it should be. Moments later, as yet another contraction started up, he heard the love of his life enter the bathroom alongside Sammi. Unable to help the scream that tore from his raw throat, he grabbed the first hand he felt and instantly knew it was Andy’s because of how big it was. He squeezed it so tight that he swore he felt and heard a crack, but that was nothing in comparison to what he was going through. Hell, it was no less than he deserved for putting him in this mess.

Several curses and names he never would’ve called the frontman otherwise spilled out of his lips as the contraction reached its peak, but he knelt there silently. Once the contraction had ended, he slumped into the hot water as if all life had been drained of him, panting heavily as he looked up at his lover. In those icy-blue eyes he loved so much, he saw confusion mixed with love that only mirrored his own. A smile graced his lips as Erica entered the room again.

“This the one you were calling ‘he-who-shall-not-be-named’?” she asked, gesturing to Andy.

“Y-yeah,” he panted.

“If you wanna stay in here, strip to your boxers and get in the tub behind him,” she instructed. “He’ll need someone to help prop him up for this.”

Confused, the younger man did as he was told.

“Oh, my Godsmack!” Ash screamed, his eyes flying open as another contraction started. “Erica, for the love of all that’s unholy! Hurry up!”

“Feeling the need to push?” Erica asked, kneeling down beside the tub.

“Yeessss!” he screamed, slamming his head back onto his lover’s shoulder. Intentionally or accidentally, he was going to cause him as much pain as he could manage for this.

“Go ahead. If you’re not already, it should help you reach ten centimeters,” she told him.

“Ahhh!” the bassist cried, curling up and bearing down.

“W-wha—” Andy started, still letting him hold his hands.

“You still haven’t figured it out?” the midwife asked, yanking on a set of latex gloves.

Unable to speak, he merely shook his head.

“He’s delivering a baby,” she snapped. “Your baby, from what I’ve been told.”

Flabbergasted, the younger man sucked in a breath in a sharp gasp as he processed the news. “Now’s not the time, Outlaw, but when this is over, we’re having a long conversation about this.”

Letting out another blood-curdling scream, Ash bore down again, feeling the baby move toward his opening slowly, but surely. Erica encouraged him to hold his breath and bear down hard for ten seconds at a time, and although he tried his best, the pain was too much and he’d make it to only eight or nine, at best. Sammi stood by with a clean towel to wrap the baby in once it was born, an aspirator to clean out her nose and mouth, clamps for her cord, and a pair of scissors. Jinxx, on the other hand, worked with CC to get his bedroom set up as a makeshift warming table and recovery room.

Before long, the bassist felt her head get stuck on his tailbone and knew she wasn’t going to make anymore progress, no matter how hard he tried. The midwife helped him sit up, knowing it was even more painful now that she’d gotten lodged in his hips, and helped him turn around to face his lover. Almost completely zoned out because of the pain, he let his head fall forward onto Andy’s shoulder.

With the next contraction, he bit down on said shoulder so hard he tasted blood, unable to hear his lover’s gasp of pain as he bore down get again. He released a sigh of relief when he felt the baby’s head move, though the relief didn’t last long as his entrance began to burn like the flames of Hell. Erica slowed him down a bit so he wouldn’t tear as he delivered, prolonging the pain that much more, and he groaned miserably when he felt her head finally emerge.

After checking for her cord to make sure it wasn’t wrapped around her little neck, she gave him the go-ahead to push again, telling him to make it gentle as her shoulders emerged. Ash clamped his teeth down on his lover’s shoulder even harder, groaning and screaming into it as his little girl finally emerged to her waist. He could tell that Andy was fighting an inner war between being amazed at what he was doing, and completely disgusted, not just because he was giving birth, but because he was doing so through his ass. However, he pushed those thoughts aside as he gave one last hard push, finally welcoming the little girl who’d grown beneath his heart for the past nine months into the world.

“It’s definitely a little girl!” Erica announced, a smile on her face.

Panting, the bassist released the grip he had on Andy’s shoulder with his teeth and turned his head to look over his own. “Happy birthday, Princess.”

“You got the clamps and scissors, Sammi?” she asked, turning to the other woman after cleaning out her nose and mouth.

“Right here, Erica,” the wild child answered, nodding as she handed them over, the baby now screaming.

“Do you want Andy to cut the cord, or is he not to be allowed such an honor?” the midwife asked, quickly clamping the baby’s cord.

“I think…he might be…too confused,” he panted.

“No, I’m not,” Andy cut in, giving the midwife a hard look.

“Let him,” Ash told her. “He deserves that much, at least.”

Nodding, the midwife handed him the scissors and held the baby just a bit closer since his range of motion wasn’t very high right now. Awed at seeing his daughter for the first time, the younger man had to fight back tears as he cut her cord right between the two clamps that’d been placed on it. As soon as the tie between mother and child had been broken, Sammi whisked her out to the bedroom to clean and wrap her up. Rebecca and Erica had already spent months training her on how to do that, although the final assessment would be up to the midwife once she was done caring for Ash.

The only thing left to deliver now was her placenta, and the contractions he felt leading up to that weren’t nearly as excruciating as his actual labor. He continued to kneel in the bottom of the tub, his legs on either side of Andy’s, as he waited for the placenta to detach from his womb. He heard the midwife say something to someone, but he was too tired to care what was going on.

He gasped as he felt a hand on his belly, rubbing gently right next to his navel, and he could tell by the size and calluses that it belonged to Andy. The younger man murmured soft, soothing words in his ear, encouraging him to push gently when Erica grabbed the remains of the umbilical cord and tugged on it just as gently. Moments later, he felt its weight finally slide out of him, and he collapsed on his lover in an exhausted, almost unconscious heap of limbs and hair.

Jinxx and CC soon entered the bathroom and pulled him up, somehow gently cradling him between themselves, while Jake waited until they’d vacated to come in and help the frontman up. He thanked his brother for the help, closing the bathroom door as he stripped off his boxers and climbed in the shower, wanting to rid himself of the essence of his daughter’s birth. Even though it’d been a beautiful sight to take in with his own two eyes, he felt disgusting now and wanted to get clean. After showering, he pulled his jeans back on, deciding to run around commando under them, but left his shirt off since he was more comfortable that way. Dressed as well as he planned to be, Andy quietly entered the bedroom again.

“You wake him up, and I’ll rip your dick off and run it through a garbage disposal,” Sammi growled, gesturing to a peacefully-sleeping Ash.

“I wasn’t planning on it, Sammi,” he assured her. “Hell, I don’t know what I was planning on doing.”

“Taking care of your daughter would be a start,” Jinxx said, sounding testy. “Or maybe finally admitting that you love him.”

“What if he thinks I’m only doing it for the baby’s sake?” Andy asked worriedly.

“For the love of all that’s unholy!” the multi-instrumentalist growled. “It’s no damn wonder he cut you out of their lives the day he found out he was pregnant.”

“And that’s another thing. How can I even be sure this baby’s mine?” he asked. “We all know what a man-whore he used to be.”

“With women,” his friend growled. “Ash told us about the night you two went at it last May like rabid, drunken monkeys. Not in any detail, mind you, but enough for us to get the gist. Besides, when have you ever known him to take it up the ass before that night?”

“Never,” the frontman admitted.

“Besides, she’s got your eyes and skin tone,” Sammi added.

Since he hadn’t noticed before, he took a long, hard look at the baby she held. The little girl definitely had his skin tone, which was far lighter than the bassist’s, but until she opened her eyes, he wouldn’t know whose she had. Moments later, as if sensing that he wanted answers, she opened her little eyes and looked up at the woman holding her, then over to him. Sure enough, she had his icy-blue eyes.

“This explains the dreams I’ve been having recently,” Andy said softly, sitting down in the rocker next to the bed.

Curious, the couple cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Ever since the end of the Buried Alive Tour, I’ve been dreaming of a baby girl that was identical to Ashley, but had my eyes and skin tone,” he explained. “I didn’t know what to think, so I kept my mouth shut, but his being pregnant with my daughter explains everything. She’s almost identical to him, but has my eyes and skin tone. I can’t say she’s not mine and be telling the truth.”

“I should hope you plan on having something to do with her, then,” Jinxx told him.

“Of course. The minute Ash wakes up, I’m telling him the truth.” He drew a deep breath and sighed heavily. “What he does in regards to my feelings afterward is up to him, but I wanna be there for him and our daughter.”

Finally satisfied, the multi-instrumentalist uncrossed his arms and smiled at him. “And that’s the one thing you had to do to get back in my good graces, Andy. As long as you’re making an effort, that’s what counts, in my book.”

Now that he was back in Jinxx’s good graces, Sammi walked over to him and offered to let him hold his daughter for the first time. She knew that, so long as her fiancé was okay with it, considering that he’d been by the bassist’s side as much as she had the past eight months, Ash wouldn’t have anything negative to say. Startled, Andy almost couldn’t believe that they were giving him this chance, but he accepted it, nonetheless.

The little bundle he cradled to his chest was almost like a baby doll, but so soft and warm that he knew she was a living, breathing being. She looked up at him with the same eyes that he’d been complimented on many a time over the years, and he felt tears well in his own. He’d never thought to have children of his own, especially not after admitting he was gay, but this just proved that miracles really could happen. Even though he was choked up from the love he felt for this little girl and her mother, he began to softly sing the song Saviour to her as his promise to always be there for her.

Notes