Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

[Tango whispered to you] Come meet me at my starter base tomorrow at noon.

Zed was slightly nervous as he reread the message for the fifth time. He was supposed to go over in half an hour. It wasn't weird for Tango to invite him over, but that was usually in the late evening, at the frozen citadel. Something about meeting up in a secluded area midday sent signals of worry throughout his brain. Then again, Zed had always let his anxiety get to him a bit too much.

[Skizzleman joined the game]

Okay, yep, definitely some alarm bells ringing. Zed worried his bottom lip. What happened to cause this meeting? Was Tango upset about something? This must be serious if he'd called non-hermits onto the server instead of just talking to them over comms.

[SolidarityGaming joined the game]

Zedaph had to take a deep breath, feeling his anxiety start to restrict his lungs. He hadn't even properly met Solidarity in person before. They'd been in the same group chats, and he's heard a lot from both Tango and Grian, but being face-to-face was a wholly different thing.

"Calm down, Zedaph. It's probably good news. Tango just wants to have a reasonable talk with us all. Maybe he just wants some reassurance again. Yeah, it'll be fine," Zed mumbled to himself, shaking the tremble out of his hands. He took a few more steady breaths before putting his comm away and shooting into the sky with a rocket.

Better to be early than late. He hated having so many eyes on him whenever he was the last person to show up to a hermitcraft meeting. Touching down in front of the slightly spooky themed base, Zedaph paused. Standing less than ten feet in front of him was Solidarity, a lot taller than he had expected. The blonde avian was almost as tall as Skizz, and that's definitely saying something. The angel is a freaking giant.

Zed involuntarily flinched and looked away when the non-hermit turned around. He didn't want it to look like he had been staring. Footsteps were audibly approaching now. Zedaph inhaled and exhaled calmly, before meeting eyes with the relative stranger.

"Hi there," Solidarity was smiling softly back at him. "You're Zedaph, right? You can call me Jimmy."

"Ah, um, yes. Just Zed is fine," he nervously took the extended hand for a brief shake. "It's nice to finally meet you in person."

"Yeah, you too," Jimmy let go and glanced back at the base. "I suppose we should get in there. We can talk more later, if you want."

"Sure," Zed made a dismissive gesture with his hand, following behind the avian as they made their way inside.

Tango was sat at a relatively large table, hands in his lap and expression almost impossible to decipher. He blinked away the distant look in his eyes when he noticed them come in, putting on a soft smile to welcome them. Mostly, Zed decided, Tango looked nervous.

He tried to comfort the blaze with a quick hug. Tango leaned into it but kept his hands firmly in his lap, under the table. "Have you two talked yet?"

"Just introductions. We’ve talked over messages some, since double life." Jimmy spoke up from the side, Zedaph silently nodding in agreement.

"That's good," Tango sighed and looked off into nothing again. He must have a lot on his mind. Zed quietly took a seat across from him, Jimmy being waved to do the same. It didn't take long for Impulse to show up, Skizz directly on his tail.

"Hey Jimmy. It's good to see you again," Impulse smiled sweetly. He had that aura to him where he could sense the tension and was subtly trying to ease it. Tango quietly gestured for the two to also grab seats where they could all see him easily. Once all four of them were sat down, the room fell silent.

Tango's breath was shaky as he took a deep inhale and slowly let it out. Only three words left his mouth. "Don't freak out."

In one carefully calculated movement, the blaze lifted his closed hands from his lap and set them in the middle of the table. He was visibly shaking. After another deep breath, he opened his hands and pulled them back towards himself. Something light and plastic dropped onto the wood.

Zed leaned forward a tiny bit to see the mystery object and his breath caught in his throat. He heard someone else inhale so sharply they started coughing, another softly gasping. The pink and white plastic was incredibly daunting. It's insinuations had Zed's heart racing. He glanced back up to see an incredibly anxious look on Tango's face.

Skizz' voice carefully broke the tension, speaking slow. "Do you know-?"

Tango shook his head, killing the sentence before it was even finished. They all knew what he was going to ask. The blaze looked on the verge of tears. Zed wordlessly pushed his chair back from the table and stood up, walking right over to Tango and wrapping him in a tight hug. He collapsed into the embrace, burying his face in Zed's chest and clutching onto his sweater. They all let him cry as the group collectively struggled to process what they were just shown.

Gently, trying not to startle Tango or upset him further, Impulse asked something much more important. "Do you want to keep it?"

Tango let out a muffled whimper, nodding slowly against Zed's form. There was another long moment of silence, slightly less tense than before.

"Hey Tango? Can you look at me?" The less familiar voice was Jimmy. Tango slowly peeled himself away just enough to turn and look across the table, resting the side of his head against Zedaph. "I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm not at all upset with you. If you're sure about this, than I'd be happy to help in any way I can. It doesn't matter whose DNA they have."

"Agreed," Skizz smiled reassuringly. "It's your kid. That's all that matters."

Impulse nodded. "Whatever you want to do, we'll always support you."

Tears were steadily seeping into the cotton of Zed's sweater, but he couldn't care less. Tango cautiously looked up at him, waiting for his response. Zedaph placed a very loving kiss to his forehead. "I'm gonna be completely honest. I'm a bit nervous, but I'm happy as long as you're happy."

A smiled twitched on Tango's lips, but fell immediately after. He gave Zed an almost sympathetic look. "It's- not yours."

His expression screamed guilt and Zed just couldn't have that. He hugged Tango a little tighter. "That's okay. I won't treat them any different than if they were. I don't need blood relation to be their parent- if you want me to, of course. As long as I can be there to help and spend time with the kid, then it's okay if I'm not referred to as a parent."

"Sorry if it's a bad time to ask, but I'm just confused," Jimmy shyly spoke up. "How do you know for sure that he isn't the father? Is it instinctual?"

Tango shook his head sadly. "I wish my instincts could tell me stuff like that. I just know that it had to have happened during Limited Life. The timing lines up, and... Hermitcraft has some blockers for things like this. It's a bit of code that keeps anyone from getting pregnant, to prevent any unwanted surprises. You can ask to have it removed if you want to actually try for kids, but I never said anything like that, so I'm assuming the rule doesn't do anything if you technically get pregnant while off server."

Jimmy reached across the table and took one of Tango's hands into his own, running a thumb over his knuckles soothingly. "I guess that makes sense."

The attention was brought back to the others as Impulse spoke. "How do you feel about all of this, Tango? I know you've vaguely mentioned wanting kids in the future, but you always spoke about adoption. Do you think you'll be alright actually carrying one? Your mental health is extremely important, for both you and the future child."

Zed noticed Skizz had picked up and was inspecting the pregnancy test. A gentle frown sat on Tango's face. His eyebrows furrowed in thought and he sighed after a moment. "I think I'll be okay. I know that some days will be rough; especially if my dysphoria decides to kick in real hard... and I'm sure it will. Maybe just check on me occasionally? I'll try to tell someone if I'm feeling super down- oh void, I'll need to tell everyone, won't I? I don't- Only half of the hermits even know I'm trans." Tango's voice got very quiet, breaths becoming significantly faster and shallower.

Impulse quickly jumped in at the signs of his distress. "Hey, shh, you're alright. Try to breath with me, okay? Slowly. In... Out... In... Out. That's it. You have plenty of time before you even have to think about that. Nobody is forcing you to publicly come out before you're ready."

Tango's breathing gradually evened out. He was still frowning, but seemed a little more calm about the situation. "I'd still have to tell them. It's not like I can hide a full-on baby bump."

Zedaph rubbed soothing circles against the blaze's upper back and shoulder, keeping him secure in their embrace. "That's still months down the line, and we'll be there to support you every step of the way."

"Yeah, and dipple dop can beat up anyone that has mean things to say about it!" Tango could feel a small smile tugging at his lips from Skizz' infectious energy. There was a comfortable pause, the tension easing out of the circle.

"So... Group cuddle session?" Impulse suggested, pulling a bed from his inventory. Tango silently nodded. He still wasn't sure how he felt about everything, but it definitely helped that none of his boyfriends were upset about him not knowing who the other father is.

Tango may have had a panic attack when he first saw the results of the test. He almost had a another one, too, after confirming with a second and third test. The idea of eventually having to physically give birth was absolutely terrifying. Still, Tango knew he wanted kids at some point. It seemed wrong to give up the opportunity being handed directly to him, just to adopt later on. His code wouldn't have dealt him the challenge, if it didn't know he was ready. He could handle a single pregnancy if it meant having a little spark of his own.

Chapter Text

It was understandable that Tango had started acting different, considering the news he had just shared with his boyfriends. Jimmy had to go back to his own server after a day or so, and Skizz was politely asked to leave following a full week of praise and as much cuddling as Tango could handle.

The netherborn was very quickly getting antsy with his boyfriends all being a bit overprotective, even if they didn't realize they were doing it. Tango needed to get back to decked out, or he would explode from anxiety. Everything was probably broken. The wardens were surely dead. Some ravagers likely needed replacing too. As soon as he got back to the citadel, he was shutting it down for a full maintenance check.

Tango was immediately proved right, by a sign placed on the shard barrel, announcing how it had broke on someone. Thankfully, the problem was an easy fix. Pain was also missing again. Tango spent the next hour fixing and tweaking things throughout the dungeon. Once that was all finished, he reopened it for runs and flew down to the giant black box that was level four. Tango rolled up his sleeves and very quickly lost himself in the intricate redstone.

Many hours had passed before he finally zoned back in to the rest of the world, feeling strangely tired, given that he had been mostly stationary as he fiddled with every inch of machinery over and over again to get it just right. His hands were completely caked in redstone and skulk. Getting up and straightening his robes, he flew back to his storage room.

Tango started sorting his inventory into multiple chests when he noticed something bright in the very corner of his vision. He hummed in curiosity while he turned and reached up towards it. His hand bumped something smooth and skinny, wrapping his fingers around it. There was the tiniest sensation in his chest as he pulled the floating object away from its initial position. It was extremely delicate and round, like a thin glass tube.

Tango watched as the glow he had seen quickly simmered from bright blue to a more neutral orange. The blaze rod was much thinner and lighter in weight than usual, fragile enough to break with even the slightest force.

A feeling of brief understanding crossed his mind before immediately being replaced with shock and confusion. He just shed a blaze rod. That hadn't happened since he was a teenager. The extra care it required was normal in that case. Hybrid blaze rods were much thinner and weaker than average, thanks to their humanoid bodies. It also started as the color soul flame blue because of Tango's appearance.

An unconscious attachment formed the second he removed it from it's alignment, feeling a need to protect it from breaking at any cost. The urge was rather annoying, given how it was literally useless now. The only practical use was to break it and collect the blaze powder inside. Still, Tango couldn't bring himself to do so. He looked around until he found a bit of wool, carefully folding it around the rod and laying it inside of his ender chest. He would deal with it once his emotions stopped preventing him from doing so.

The next couple of days found Tango slowly amassing a collection of his own blaze rods. He officially had a stack of five once he passed the third day. Exhaustion was creeping up on him as well. Suddenly, sleeping underneath the frozen citadel caused a crushing sense of loneliness. He just had to finish the redstone for level four. The hermits were finding Easter eggs left and right, and he didn't have much more time.

Around midday, Tango was called up to fix a problem with the deck return system. Some of Grian's cards were missing after he died during a deadly run, and the dungeon was unofficially shut down by the avian to make sure that the issue got sorted. After a bit of studying and a minor adjustment to the system, the netherborn sent through a test deck that included the cards Grian was missing. He pressed the button and opened the barrel to watch for the shulker box.

Tango could feel Grian leaning over his shoulder to join him in staring at the barrel. They were still waiting for the ding when there was a loud squawk right next to Tango's ear, the avian jumping back like he was really startled by something.

Tango winced at the loud noise and reached up to rub at his sensitive ear, hand hitting against a warm object. He sighed heavily and pulled the blaze rod from it's floating state. That made six. The object was carefully tucked into a pocket on the inside of his robes, before he turned around to meet eyes with a recently jump-scared Grian. The younger was holding a hand to his chest and his wings were spread out wide.

"Sorry," Tango sounded much more tired than he had intended to. "They've been annoying me all week."

Instead of any of the responses that the blaze's fatigued brain could come up with, Grian just blurted out an awkward question. "Since when can you make blaze rods?"

"...Puberty?" Tango cringed slightly at his immediate response. "That was rhetorical, wasn't it? It started again... three days ago, I think. I'm not sure why. It's not like they actually do anything for me except get in the way."

Grian slowly calmed down, folding his wings behind his back again. "Do they work like normal blaze rods? Like, can you use them for powder?"

Tango felt his hair momentarily flicker with flames, a breathy rasp forming in his lungs and throat, creating a sound similar to a blaze's rattle. He flustered a tiny bit as he realized that he essentially just growled at his friend, apologizing immediately after. "I didn't mean to do that. My instincts are just crazy when it comes to shedding."

"Shedding?" Grian didn't seem bothered by the rattle. Being a hybrid himself, he understood how overwhelming instincts could be.

"Oh, yeah. We call it shedding. It's like how you lose your feathers or demons lose their scales. It's just really rare for a blazeborn. It only happens like once or twice. Actually, it's more comparable to how players lose their baby teeth." Tango reached into his robes and pulled the delicate blaze rod out into the open again. "My instincts don't take too kindly to the idea of them breaking, so when you brought up the powder inside, I got really protective."

"Huh," Grian curiously looked over the shed object, without getting any closer. "Why would you lose them twice, if they're like baby teeth?"

Tango shrugged calmly. "I'm not sure, but it's halfway done already. There's only ever twelve at a time, so it happens pretty fast." Perfectly timed with the end of his sentence, the noteblock finally chimed and Tango removed the test deck from the barrel. He quickly checked through the shulker before confirming that everything should now be in working order. "Let me know if you get all of the right cards next time. I'm getting pretty tired, so I'm probably gonna take a nap. You can keep running all you want."

Chapter Text

Tango felt hot. Not in an attractive way, but in an 'I am standing inside of an oven' kind of way. It was uncommon for him to get fevers, or just generally feel heat unless directly near fire or lava. And even then he would feel more pleasantly warm than actually hot.

That being said, he was working on the FROZEN crypt. By all means, he should be cold. Probably the most concerning part was that some of the ice closest to him had started to slowly melt.

The blaze couldn't spend too long in one place, but moving around was quickly wearing him out. Tango was tired, and sweaty, and his whole body was starting to shake. Even the word exhausted felt like an understatement. His head hurt and he wanted nothing more than to just curl up in a cozy little ball and sleep. Unfortunately, there was still work to do.

The opening of the burning dark was admittedly a bit messy. Hazard traps broke after just a couple of runs. Cub already found a way to get where he wasn't supposed to. Jevin's run was a complete disaster. Even the level three wardens somehow managed to all fall into a one by one hole.

Tango knew that if any of his boyfriends were there he would definitely be getting an earful about overworking himself. Even more so now that they knew he was just over one month pregnant. Thankfully he didn't have to deal with any morning sickness, and his shedding only lasted six days.

His hand was shaky as he grabbed some rockets and flew out through the ceiling, sighing heavily as the powdered snow melted from his elevated body temperature. The brief moment of contact with the cold substance didn't even feel nice. Tango landed clumsily in his storage system and fumbled a new bucket of powdered snow into his inventory. After patching up the hole and flying back for his bed, he crashed right into a wall of chests. He really needed some proper sleep.

His head felt fuzzy from his high temperature and everything went blurry for a moment. Tango stumbled towards the water elevator to the citadel, placing his hand against the wall to keep himself upright as he made his way through the following hallway. His landing was just slightly steadier on the platform into the main hall.

Gem and Pearl were laying in those little nooks in the wall when Tango passed them. He pulled out an unusually heavy feeling axe and removed the temporary maintenance sign. His arms made the laborious swing down to break the remaining block covering the barrel, when everything suddenly went dark. All Tango could think about was his body burning up and his exhausted limbs tingling as he vaguely registered hitting the floor.

[GeminiTay] SOS at decked out!
[GeminiTay] Tango just passed out and he burned Pearls hands when she tried to move him
[PearlescentMoon] we think he's sick
[Cubfan135] omw
[XisumaVoid] he probably got ill from overworking himself. let me know if anything seems especially concerning.
[XisumaVoid] and don't try to lower his fever unless it is draining his health. you can use fire protection to keep from getting burned.
[ZedaphPlays] I can bring some!

The three other hermits were nervously hovering above Tango's unconscious form when Zedaph showed up, unsure what to do while they couldn't actually touch him. Zed grabbed a potion of fire resistance, took a step back, and threw it on the ground. The particles quickly dispersed and charmed all four of them with its effects.

As soon as it was safe, Cub crouched down and carefully turned Tango from his side onto his back. The blaze looked exhausted. His teal hair had faded slightly towards its more traditional yellow-orange, and his unnaturally pale skin had regained a bit color. It looked like his body was struggling to hold on to the frosty glamour.

"Do any of you know how to remove another person's glamour?" Pearl questioned, frowning softly at his appearance. The four hermits all glanced between each other.

A few pairs of eyes landed on Cub, who shook his head. "Dressing up is Scar's thing. I never bothered to learn the magic behind it."

"I wish it was just as easy as removing your own glamour," Gem lifted a hand to her chin with a hum. "Staying like that is probably wasting a lot of his energy."

Cub nodded silently. He turned back to Tango and placed the back of his hand against the blaze's forehead. Even with the potion, it felt like resting his hand on top of a lit furnace. His brows furrowed and he looked over at Zedaph. "Do you think it will help to bring him somewhere hotter?"

"Hotter?" Pearl spoke up immediately. "Is that a good idea with him already burning up like that?"

Zed stared down at his boyfriend for a moment, trying to remember anything he'd been told in the past. His voice was hesitant and he spoke slowly, afraid to say the wrong thing and make the situation worse. "Maybe? Getting him out of the cold areas around Decked Out will probably help. I think his body is trying to stabilize itself, so bringing him somewhere warmer will cause him to spend less energy? At least, I'm pretty sure he's said something like that before."

"Alright," Cub took in a deliberate breath and looped his arms around Tango's limp body, doing his best to ignore how he immediately started to sweat from the heat. "Can someone help me carry him?"

"Oh! I've got it." Pearl quickly circled to their other side and grabbed the blaze's arm to shift him into a sitting position. She winced slightly from the temperature, but wrapped one of her arms behind his back and moved her other arm underneath Tango's knees, lifting him into a cradle carry.

"We need to get him out of the building first. If the sunlight doesn't work, then we'll try the nether." It wasn't a suggestion, Cub taking the lead as the official doctor of the group.

Pearl nodded, spreading her lunar moth wings before stopping herself and frowning. "I can't fly Tango out. He's short, but he's still too heavy for me to fly with."

"Then we'll have to walk," Gem noted, turning on her heel and pointing towards the citadel entrance, like a marching band conductor. "He's been doing okay so far. It's not like we're in the actual ice caves or anything."

"Right," Cub agreed with a nod. He started a swift pace in the direction of the main doorway. Gem immediately followed, and Pearl joined the group with a sigh.

After a fair few steps, Gem turned around and stopped. A frown crossed her face, moving back in the opposite direction as Cub and Pearl continued their walk. She gently rested a hand on Zedaph's shoulder, causing him to jump slightly. "He'll be okay. Tango's tough. Besides, X doesn't seem worried, so it's probably just a bad cold."

Zed sighed, wringing his hands as a nervous stim. Normally, he'd be a lot calmer than this. He looked directly at Gem and mumbled a soft "Sorry."

"It's fine, Zed. If it makes you feel any better, we could always just force a respawn- as a last resort, of course. That usually clears up any basic sicknesses... Zed? Sorry, that probably wasn't the right thing to say." Gem reassuringly squeezed the blonde's shoulder.

Zed didn't initially realize that tears had built up in his eyes, feeling a drop trail down his cheek as he blinked in an attempt to clear his blurry vision. He immediately felt like he was overreacting, once he noticed. The sheep hybrid rapidly wiped at his eyes, trying to stop the sudden crying. "Sorry, I'm just worried about the- about Tango."

Zed averted his gaze and bit his tongue to shut himself up. He almost outed a secret that wasn't his to share. His hands were trembling slightly. He really wished that he wasn't such an emotional person. That horrible voice in the back of his mind was just supplying him with all of the worst possible scenarios. What if they do kill Tango for a respawn? What would that do to his fetus? What would that do to Tango? He needed to make sure that wasn't going to happen!

Gem's response didn't even register, Zedaph suddenly jolting into a sprint after their friends. He could vaguely hear someone shouting after him but it wasn't important; not right now.

Pearl let out an exclamation of surprise and clutched the netherborn closer to her chest when Zed suddenly showed up at her side. Cub whipped around to see what could have startled her, sighing at the sight of the blonde. Zedaph nervously looked over his sick boyfriend. Tango's expression was blank. He didn't look peaceful in the slightest, form flickering briefly between his dungeon master glamour and natural warm colors.

"Please..." Zed hesitated, voice a little shaky. "Don't let him die."

Pearl mostly just looked confused, but Cub decided to calmly reassure the other, assigning himself as damage control. "We wouldn't do that unless it is the only choice we have left. Nobody wants him to go through a rough respawn, Zed. Respawning while you're sick is awful. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Come on, we need to keep going."

Zed nervously bit his bottom lip, falling into step with the others. Gem caught up and the four of them quickly made their way to the Decked Out nether portal. Pearl stopped at the edge of it, looking down at the unconscious hermit in her arms.

"I could probably glide to the ground with him, but going to the nether would be easier, if you think that'll help."

"That seems like the best option. We should take him to the Astral Library. Hopefully the nether heat won't do any damage by raising his temperature too fast," Cub stated. He took the first step into the portal, followed immediately by Gem. Pearl slightly readjusted her hold on the blaze before joining them.

Chapter Text

Zedaph locked his eyes on Tango the second he made it into the nether, trying to keep up with his taller servermate. Pearl spread her wings to at least slow their fall. She landed by the tree in the center of the hub and carefully laid Tango down on the soft grass. Now there was nothing to do but wait and keep an eye on him. Zed lightly stepped onto the grass and sat down beside his boyfriend, anxiously watching over him.

Tango's expression slowly melted into a more peaceful rest, but his body was still visibly trying to fight off his glamour. They all waited for quite a while, Zed only growing more anxious the longer it took for him to wake up or even fully settle into one appearance. Gem was pacing as Cub finally broke the tense silence.

"I'm gonna contact 'suma. He should be able to remove the glamour with an admin command." Cub pulled out his communicator and sent a quick message to the voidwalker.

It took a few more minutes before Xisuma glided down to the group on his elytra. He turned to the other four and spoke in a calming voice. "You guys can leave. I'll handle everything from here." They all exchanged looks, Gem and Pearl agreeing to leave on the grounds that they would get updates about his condition on their communicators. Cub seemed much more hesitant.

"I think I want to stay. It will be good to know what's going on in case something like this ever happens again. I'm just gonna observe, if that's okay." As a server doctor, Cub reasoned that he could be able to help better if he had all of the information.

Zed shook his head stubbornly, taking one of Tango's hands in his own. He wasn't about to just abandon his pregnant boyfriend when he was sick enough to warrant admin intervention. Xisuma only nodded and lowered himself into a crouched position, so he was closer to the unwell hermit. His hand reached out to hover near Tango's body and Zed could see admin screens lighting up on the visor of the other's helmet. Dark purple particles briefly covered the netherborn's body, taking away his glamour as they disappeared. It was strange to see Tango in his dark robes with warm colors underneath, but he looked much less uncomfortable now that his appearance had stabilized.

Xisuma left his hand where it hovered as he presumably searched through the other's blanket code. It didn't seem like anything bad until a concerned look suddenly crossed the admin's features. Zedaph sucked in a nervous breath at the expression. Most of the admin screens disappeared, leaving a single panel up on his visor.

"What- what's wrong?" Zed squeezed his boyfriends hand to reassure himself that he was okay.

"I'm not one hundred percent sure," Xisuma admitted. "There is a small abnormality in his code, although it appears to be benign. No matter what this abnormality is, it isn't causing his sickness. He should be perfectly healthy after some rest and heat therapy."

Cub spoke up once the group went quiet again. "Do you have any idea what the code issue could be? I'd think it's even more concerning if it isn't related."

Xisuma was silent for a moment. He blinked away the last admin screen and looked over at the scientist with an unreadable expression. "I've seen something similar in the past, but that scenario wouldn't be possible for Tango. My best guess is that it is just a minor glitch. I would like to have a talk with him about it, once he is feeling better. If it is a glitch like I believe, it should eventually correct itself."

"So... He's okay?" Zed brought Tango's hand up to his face, eyes wet from worrying.

"Yes, he should be fine. The fever is likely because he's been spending so much time in the cold. Netherborn species are not made to withstand freezing temperatures for very long. Tango's workaholic tendencies are definitely a factor as well. A bit of fire therapy and proper sleep should clear everything up with time." Xisuma pulled back his hand and stood up. "I'll keep an eye on his code whenever possible, to make sure nothing changes. Please tell Tango to message me once he is well enough for a serious conversation."

"Will do," Cub nodded. "Thanks for taking a look. We were all getting concerned. I'll tell the other two about his condition."

"Could you keep out anything regarding Tango's code, for now? I don't want anyone else worrying, since it isn't harming him." Xisuma finally gave them a gentle, reassuring smile.

"Wait-" Zedaph cut in before the admin could leave. "Is it okay if I tell Impulse?"

X seemed hesitant but slightly nodded. "Nobody else, though. Please make sure that he knows it isn't dangerous. If anything gets worse, don't be afraid to contact me again." He waited for an affirmative before heading off.

"I'm going to get some things to help warm Tango up. I'll be right back," Cub calmly announced as he tucked away his communicator.

Zedaph nodded, watching the scientist fly off, leaving him alone with the sick blaze. He softly kissed Tango's hand and whispered that he would be okay. Whether he was assuring Tango or himself wasn't important. All that mattered was that he was going to get better.

Although Xisuma insisted that whatever he found wasn't a big deal, Zed couldn't stop himself from worrying. What if it was just waiting for the right conditions to attack? Nobody seemed to know what the glitch is, which means that none of them know if it could become dangerous. The sheep hybrid let go of Tango with one hand, keeping his other hand entwined with the blaze's. He used his free hand to bring out his communicator and send a short message.

[you whispered to impulsesv] I am in the nether hub with Tango. He is still asleep but getting better.

After a moment of thought, he decided to continue.

[you whispered to impulsesv] I have something to tell you. We are at the bottom of the tree.

Zedaph bit his bottom lip and moved his gaze back to his boyfriend. At least he looked somewhat peaceful now. The communicator in his hand went off and he quickly checked the response.

[impulsesv whispered to you] I need to put some things away and then I'll come find you

Zed decided to reply with a simple "ok" before setting his communicator on the ground beside him. He needed to keep calm, if not for his own sake, then for Tango and Impulse. If his tone came across too anxious, he would make Impulse worry more than he should, and the last thing they needed was to stress out Tango when he was already sick and pregnant.

Impulse would come meet them, and Tango would wake up with just a fever, and everything would be okay. He just had to keep calm and remind himself that they were all together and safe. The glitch would turn out to be nothing and Tango would be back to normal with a perfectly healthy pregnancy. All Zedaph could do was repeat that to himself, keeping the netherborn close until he awoke.

Chapter Text

Tango could feel a pleasant warmth radiating up his arm. He took stock of his current state and found that his head hurt, along with a dull ache in one side of his body. Very gradually, he willed himself to move, head turning to the side and eyes slowly fluttering open.

The pain in his head throbbed and Tango immediately squeezed his eyes shut again. Everything was far too bright. He could vaguely hear someone talking nearby, but none of the words registered as each sound sent a sharp stab into his skull. It took him a second to register that he was making a noise himself -a pitiful whimper that was barely loud enough to catch the attention of whoever was around him, silencing the bothersome sound of conversation.

The warmth against his arm started to gradually fade, traveling across his collarbone and then up to his face. He couldn't stop the shudder that coursed through his body when the pleasant heat brushed over his aching forehead and warmed the tips of his ears. The radiating warmth slightly soothed his headache as it grazed his temples.

A different sensation reached him through the fogginess shrouding his mind. The gentle touch of skin on skin was comforting in it's own right. Someone was holding his hand, the one opposite of where he felt the warmth begin. There was also the barely noticeable weight of another touch on the top of his leg.

Tango absorbed all of the tactile sensations surrounding him and melted into the warmth. It made him feel safe, the comforting process threatening to lull him to sleep, despite no longer feeling tired. Instead, he simply kept still and let everything else move around him. The warmth was seeping into his body and it soothed the aches in his side. His headache decreased following the stretch of silence.

Finally, he pried his eyes open again, into a squint. The light hurt much less this time, although it still left a dull thrumming at the back of his skull. The first thing he registered probably explained the unusual brightness, as he found himself staring at something pure white. He forced his gaze away from the piercing color, which turned out to be a lab coat, specifically one belonging to a very close proximity Cubfan.

Tango's head rolled to the other side and briefly filled with a light brown before a section of short blonde hair fell in front of his face, drawing his attention. His expression scrunched up into one of dazed confusion as his mind was struggling to catch up with everything that was going on.

The air smelled of fire and crimson hyphae, telling him that he was somewhere in the nether. His memory was a little fuzzy. He was entirely lacking the explanation of how he ended up so far from the citadel, where he last remembered being, and now it looked like his hair had somehow lost it's vibrant blue coloring. Overwhelmed and disoriented, he opted to close his eyes again as he processed things bit by bit.

Soft, violet eyes were looking him over with worry when Tango eventually pulled himself together enough to sit up. The warmth he was feeling turned out to be a lit torch, hovering above his body, the fire just barely grazing his legs. Looking around, Tango saw that the person holding the torch was Cub. Zedaph was sitting right beside him with a hand on his arm and Impulse was sat next to his legs. The netherborn's ear twitched as a gentle voice pulled him from his thoughts.

"Tango, how are you feeling?" It was Zedaph, rubbing his arm in a comforting manner.

"Uh, fine, I guess. Just a bit confused." Tango's voice was slightly rough from disuse, like one would sound when just barely awake. "What happened?"

Cub was the one to answer, putting out the torch and stashing it in his inventory. "You passed out from cold exhaustion. Pearl carried you here so we could warm you up."

"Oh," the word escaped Tango's mouth without thought.

"Pearl left a while ago, so did Gem." Zed spoke up before he could ask, noticing him looking side to side.

"X also stopped by, to see what was going on," Cub added. "He's the one that figured out the cold exhaustion. Oh, and he did have to remove your glamour. I wouldn't recommend wasting your energy on that right now."

"That explains the blonde hair," Tango responded, humming in recognition. His hand was slightly shaky as he raised it to run his fingers through the strands. He hadn't realized that he was trembling so much.

"He wants to talk to you later, but your current health is top priority," Cub informed. "Do you still feel cold at all? Dizzy or nauseous?"

Tango checked in with his body again, but decided that he felt fine other than his headache and a bit of soreness. "My head hurts a little, but I think that's it."

"Okay, good. Headaches are extremely common with heat -uh- cold exhaustion. Sorry, I mix them up sometimes," Cub apologized dismissively. "I recommend you stay in the nether for a while. It'll stabilize your body temperature. Other than that, you should be good to go. Don't forget to contact 'Suma some point soon."

Cub stepped back and gave a soft smile. "Alright, I'll be off then. Hope that headache goes away quick for ya." He waved and shot off down the west tunnel with a rocket. Silence fell over the trio, once Cub got too far away to hear.

Tango let himself lean back into the grass again, laying down. Zedaph and Impulse both stayed quiet for him. The netherborn kept himself distracted by counting the nether stars that are scattered across the ceiling, waiting for the constant ache behind his forehead to die down.

After some time, most of the pain subsided and Tango's body eased out of its distressed state. As soon as he became relaxed enough, he could feel his stomach rumble. He'd been so caught up in his work that he hadn't taken a break to eat for hours, plus however long he was unconscious for. Tango needed to get better at self care if he was going to keep this baby healthy.

There was a soft chuckle from beside the blaze, and he turned his head to the side, catching Impulse' amused but fond expression. The demon patted his knee in a weirdly reassuring manner. "Hungry?" He pulled some golden carrots from his inventory with an affectionate grin.

Tango huffed at his laughter but went to accept the offer, pausing half way to reaching the food. A single thought placed itself directly at the forefront of his mind and he didn't bother questioning it, just calmly relaying the idea. "Do you have anything sweet on you? Like cookies or something. Scar gives those out a lot, right?"

"Uh..." Impulse seemed briefly surprised but mostly just confused. He did a quick scan through his inventory and shook his head. "No, sorry. Zed?"

Zedaph appeared to be doing the same, brows furrowed in concentration like they often did. "Weirdly enough, I do have a singular churro. Would that work?"

Tango lit up and his stomach growled again, moving his hand vaguely in Zed's direction. "Ooh! Can I have it?"

His boyfriend easily relinquished the sugary snack and Tango sat up to take a big bite of it. He hummed in satisfaction at the overload of sweetness, trying his best to savor the treat despite his body protesting it's lack of nutritional value. He was half way through the churro when a different food crossed his mind, one with much more substance.

"Oh, can you get mushroom soup? I don't think this is enough," Tango requested with a somewhat Doe-eyed look.

Impulse sighed softly but pushed himself onto his feet in compliance. "I'm sure I can get some from Pearl. Do you need anything else while I'm out?" Tango hummed in thought but ended up shaking his head no. "I'll try to be quick then." The demon set off to fulfill his boyfriend's request without complaint.

Zedaph was grinning widely when Tango looked back towards him. The sheep hybrid seemed excited for some reason, Tango raising a brow at him in questioning as he took another bite of his churro. Zed only smiled brighter. "Do you know what this is?"

"What what is?" Tango spoke between bites.

"You're not usually a fan of sugary stuff. You pretty much only eat pork chops. Tango, I think you're already having cravings. The baby likes sweets, that's so cute!" Zedaph was nearly ecstatic at his thought process.

Tango could feel his face warming just slightly and he looked down at his choice of food. That made sense. He hadn't really thought about it until Zed pointed it out. A lot of things were typically too sugary for his tastes, but just the image of sweet desserts made his mouth water. This was certainly gonna be a dangerous craving if he had it too often. There was no way to make that much sugar beneficial for him.

Well... Maybe he could indulge in these foods sometimes. He just needed someone to make sure he didn't go too crazy with it.

Tango shrugged after his long pause to think, taking another big bite of the practically pure sugar in his hands. Zedaph only laughed in response.

Chapter Text

It was quiet in the nether hub as Tango sipped at the last of his soup. After he finally convinced his boyfriends that he was doing fine, they were shooed off and Impulse had to drag Zedaph away with him. The blaze wasn't too worried, but Zed made it sound like there was something seriously concerning going on. It was sometimes difficult to tell if he was overexaggerating or not. Impulse didn't seem overly concerned, though, so Tango chalked most of the panic up to Zed's severe anxiety.

Still, there was slight worry that planted itself at the back of Tango's mind, regarding this meeting with Xisuma. He wasn't told much other than that he found something in his code and wanted to talk in private. Whatever that meant could be anything from a single extra digit to a permanently code altering virus. The wording was extremely vague. He just had to hope for the best, while still being prepared for the worst. Although he honestly didn't know if he could really handle any bad news right now. His headache had only just petered out.

Tango fidgeted with his DM robes as he waited. It didn't take too long for Xisuma to arrive. The admin seemed calm, though it's always difficult to tell for sure, because of his helmet. Xisuma made a short casual hum to get across that the conversation wasn't something to be scared of.

Tango could hear the gentle smile in Xisuma's voice as he offered his gloved hand to help pull him up off the grass. "Here, let's go somewhere more private."

Tango silently nodded and trailed behind Xisuma when he started walking again. The quiet was making him nervous, pulling his tail close and mindlessly fidgeting with the soft tuft of fur on the end. The other must have noticed because he decided to fill the air with a bit of small talk.

"So, how is everything going with Decked Out? I heard you recently opened level... Four, was it?" The question was very obviously made just to redirect his nerves, but Tango appreciated the distraction.

"Oh, yeah. Things were a little bit chaotic at first, I'm not gonna lie. It was somewhat stressful, 'cause the main hazard trap totally broke. Not to mention how the stupid Wardens kept getting lost and stuck in some places. I swear, they're even worse than ravagers! Okay, maybe not that bad, but it's very close." Tango smiled softly to himself as he recalled some of the first Burning Dark runs. "It did end up paying off though, just getting to see people's initial reactions. I'd been looking forward to it for so long."

The blaze had easily lost track of their surroundings. He let go of his tail to animatedly wave around his hands as he continued to ramble, excited to share his passion project with the voidwalker, since he hadn't played in a long time. It always brightened his mood drastically when people seemed genuinely interested in his ramblings. His words slowed to a stop as Tango noticed that they were pretty far away from the hub.

Xisuma had paused his walking and looked back down the tunnel where they came from. Just in front of them, the man-made area abruptly changed into naturally generated netherack. Xisuma looked directly at Tango for a brief moment before trekking forward, signaling for him to follow.

The blaze couldn't help but question why they were traveling so far away from everyone else. Maybe Zed was right to be concerned. This must be something serious if the admin was going this far with the whole privacy notion. After another short hike, Xisuma seemed to decide that they were safe to stop and talk. He wordlessly grabbed his pickaxe and mined out a little room with short ledges left on opposite walls. Once he was finished, he brushed off some netherack debris and took a seat. Tango looked around briefly, with a slightly puzzled expression, but dusted off the other ledge and folded his legs up beneath him like a pretzel.

"So... we're definitely in private now," Tango offered awkwardly. He curled his tail into his lap and resumed fidgeting with his fur.

Xisuma's body language read as a reassuring smile. The blaze had slowly learned to understand him without having an easily visible face to emote with. He placed his hands softly in his lap, to convey a sense of calmness and safety, before breaking the silence. "I don't want you to panic, so I'm going to immediately tell you that nothing dangerous is going on with your code."

Tango carefully nodded, observing the voidwalker for any signs of untruthfulness. Xisuma showed none as he went directly to reassuring him and making sure he was alright.

"I just have some questions for you, as your admin. I know that some of this will feel uncomfortable, and I want you to know right now that this conversation is entirely confidential. Anything you say while we are here is just between us. I pledge to the coders, under admin law, that I shall not share a single word of your personal information with anyone else unless given permission by you directly."

Tango bit his bottom lip anxiously. He hadn't had a talk like this since he first joined Grian's life series. It felt kind of like being in court, but also like a regular doctors appointment. Admin talks always scared him. Keeping health or code based secrets from your Admin was technically grounds for a temporary, or even permanent, ban depending on the severity. It took a lot of practice to learn how to step around certain questions without actually saying a lie. His own experience with admin training in the past was basically the only reason he could keep any big secrets to himself. It felt like an interrogation.

Xisuma must have noticed his sudden spike in anxiety. He made a sympathetic gesture to show that he at least felt kind of bad about dragging him into this without a warning. "I'm sorry, Tango, but this is important. I don't want to overstep any of your boundaries. I know that this feels like it should be none of my business, but I care about you. I want you to be as safe as possible, and to do that I need to know the truth." Tango winced and tensed up his whole body. He could feel himself sweating.

Xisuma reached up towards his head and carefully felt around for a moment. Tango heard a soft click or two before the admin gently removed most of his helmet, leaving only the mouthpiece to continue filtering air for him. The expression on his face was nothing but care and concern. His mildly unsettling, void-like eyes met Tango's with pure, familial love. He wasn't sure if it was just the hormones taking over, but the blaze was almost tearing up just from that look alone.

Xisuma set the head piece upside down in his lap and methodically removed his gloves as well, placing them inside of the helmet. He ran his fingers lightly through his wavy brown hair to make it appear more natural. Xisuma smiled with his eyes, letting Tango actually see his expressions and connect with him on a more emotional level. It made the serious talk much less scary.

"Tango, you know I love you, right?" The familial context was clear, seeing the admin meet him as more of a friend and father figure. "I care about you and only want the best for you. I think you know just as much as I do that Hermitcraft is a safe place for everyone. I want you to feel comfortable talking to me about things. I completely understand that some things are hard to discuss, and that fear is a powerful sensation -no matter how hard rationality disproves it- but I need you to be straightforward with me. This is about your health and safety."

Xisuma held out his bare hand, an offering if Tango wanted to hold it for reassurance. "I took a look at your code earlier today and found an extra strand attached just after the blanket genetic segment. It's a small sequence of eight digits, early in development. If you can confirm what I believe is true, than I'll know that everything is normal, and I will completely drop the subject if you'd like me to. I have no intention of banning you or judging you in any way, and I won't share a speck of this with anyone. All you need to give me is a yes or no." Xisuma paused for a moment to let everything digest.

"Are you, or could you be, pregnant?"

The question itself made Tango squirm. A lump formed in his throat and his mouth instantly felt dry. He hated that he could feel tears building up in his eyes. His anxiety screamed at him to deny everything, but he so badly wanted to just stop hiding. Xisuma was like an adoptive father to him. Tango didn't have a reason to keep lying. He's seen Xisuma openly support Cleo using she/they pronouns. The admin even helped Iskall to figure out that they're nonbinary.

Feeling a tear slip down his cheek, Tango weakly nodded, pushing himself forward and wrapping his arms around the admin with a quiet sob. Xisuma immediately returned the hug, moving the gear off of his lap so he could hold him closer. A cold hand lovingly rubbed up and down his back as Tango hid his face against Xisuma's chestplate. The voidwalker said nothing while Tango worked through his emotions. Once he had faded into soft sniffles, Xisuma carefully pulled back so he could see his face.

Xisuma smiled encouragingly at the netherborn, gently resting their foreheads together as he softly spoke. "I'm proud of you. Thank you for being honest with me. I hope you know that this doesn't change what I think of you. You're still the same smart, outgoing, and creative man that I invited to be a part of our family. Your code looks perfect for someone in early pregnancy. I'm so happy that you're safe, and if you want me to drop the subject entirely, then I won't say a peep. Just know that I care about you deeply, and if you want me to help with the pregnancy going forward, I will be more than happy to monitor the growth and make sure nothing abnormal shows up in your code. We can go somewhere private again, whenever you want, and I can check over any concerns you might have."

Tango held back more, happy tears with a sniffle. His tail coiled around Xisuma's leg as a sign of affection and a way to comfort himself. "I think... I'd like that. It'd be nice to have reassurance that nothing's wrong with my baby-" Tango felt his breath catch for a moment, then allowed the tears brimming his eyes to fall. It was the first time he'd said that so confidently. This was his baby. He was going to have an actual child of his own. It felt crazy to say out loud without thinking.

Xisuma hugged him closer again, gently rubbing his back in reassurance. "You can come to me for anything you need. I assume you're keeping this a secret for now, so I won't say a single thing unless we're in private. Do your partners know?" Tango nodded against his shoulder. "Good; I'm so happy for you, Tango. Congratulations. Let me know if I accidentally upset you in any way."

After another short moment of comforting silence, Tango pulled back from the hug. He felt Xisuma cup his cheeks and lovingly wipe away the salty water with his thumbs. "Thank you, X. I promise you haven't upset me. These are happy tears."

Xisuma was always like a parent for the hermits, so it felt good to have him accept the situation so openly. He even offered to become Tango's doctor, so he wouldn't have to go see a stranger or come out to anyone else before he was ready.

"Is it-" Tango paused to collect his thoughts. "Can you check on the baby now? Just to make sure there's nothing wrong. I know you said you already checked my code, but now that you know what you're looking for maybe you can see more details?"

Xisuma smiled at him softly. "Everything looked good when I checked earlier, but I can go over it again if that's what you want."

"Please?" Tango shyly returned the smile.

"Of course," Xisuma moved back just a little, so he could place his hand between them without physically touching it to Tango's chest. "Oh, I almost forgot." He chuckled softly to himself and picked up his discarded gear, clicking the peices of his helmet together again, so the admin screen could properly display on his visor. He didn't bother with the gloves.

Now placing his hand between them, hovering just inches away from Tango's robes, he pulled up Tango's code. The blaze studied what he could faintly see of Xisuma's face as he scanned. The admin hummed lightly, as he meticulously looked it over, to show he wasn't concerned by anything yet. He blinked away the screen when he was done. It barely took any time at all since the baby's code was still so little.

"Everything looks good," Xisuma raised his hand to rub Tango's shoulder. "All of the proper sequences for a healthy fetus are present. It looks like the baby might become a mixed hybrid, between you and your partner. I can't tell by the current sequence what exactly the baby will present as, but I can clearly see two different hybridizing numbers. That's exciting. Mixed hybrids are pretty rare, since a baby usually takes after just one parent. The only mixed hybrid I've gotten to know so far is Doc, being both a creeper and goat hybrid. I'm quite excited to find out what hybrid traits the baby will develop."

"Oh," Tango sounded surprised, "I didn't even think about that. I guess I just assumed they would take after me. That's kinda cool. How long does it take before you can tell what hybrids they are specifically?"

"It's hard to say for certain, since some strands look extremely similar to other hybrids. If I can get my hands on a device for it, we should be able to get an actual image of the fetus itself. Physical hybrid traits typically start developing as early as six weeks, but the larger traits like wings or tails only become fully distinguishable by weeks eight or nine. Smaller traits like horns and claws can take until the end of the first trimester, as late as twelve weeks, to become distinct enough to see. Given the current length of code, I'd estimate you're at about... week five? Does that sound correct?"

Tango patiently listened, struggling to retain all of the numbers given, but understanding the general order of things. He snapped out of his accidental staring when the question registered. "Around one month, so about four weeks, yeah."

"Still too early to tell anything else then," Xisuma stated. He brushed some netherrack dust off of Tango's robes as he tacked on, "I will try to find an imaging device when I go to the hub world soon. I'll keep it in my enderchest when I get back, so nobody will know it even exists except you and I, so don't worry about that. Your secret is safe with me, and I will be right there to support you when you decide to share the good news."

"Thank you. You're amazing. Thank you so much."

Chapter Text

There was conversation going on throughout the Frozen Citadel's main hall. A group of hermits had gathered around a row of shulker boxes as they eagerly chatted about today's event. Nobody, however, could possibly be as excited as Tango himself. His other boyfriends were finally going to be able to play Decked Out! Some other non-hermit friends were joining in as well, which was equally as exciting, but Tango was really looking forward to being with Jimmy and Skizz in person again. He hadn't gotten to see them since their meeting about a month and a half ago now. The netherborn was practically buzzing with anticipation.

[inthelittlewood joined the game]

Tango perked up at the little chime that came from his communicator. He silently released a breath to keep calm and neutral when he checked the message. It was just Martyn... That was okay! Good even! Tango probably should be more excited to see their friend coming to experience his brain child of the season. He tried to share the same enthusiasm, but his fingers were itching to greet his boyfriends with a tight hug and kiss each.

[smallishbeans joined the game]
[ldshadowlady joined the game]

Tango barely noticed that he was tapping his foot, to release some impatient energy. He saw Martyn walking towards him and tried his best to pull himself together. The other blonde waved as he approached, greeting Tango with a wide grin.

"This place is so cool, dude! No pun intended," Martyn huffed a short laugh, nudging the blaze's side gently with his elbow. "I'm really excited to get to play Decked Out for real. Thanks for inviting me, man."

"Yeah, yeah, of course!" Tango somewhat awkwardly laughed back, attention slightly scattered. He dragged all of his focus to the man standing in front of him. "How could I not invite you after your help with that fundraiser a while ago? I'm just super excited for you guys to experience the dungeon yourselves."

His communicator buzzed in his pocket, but Tango held himself back from immediately grabbing at it, worried that he would come out as disrespectful and a bad host. Still, he couldn't stop himself from peeking over Martyn's shoulder in an attempt to see if anyone else arrived. Whatever words were uttered next completely dissolved from his hearing as Tango spotted brilliant blue eyes in the distance. He went back to anxiously tapping his foot and his tail flicked side to side in barely contained excitement. He was pulled from his thoughts at the sound of laughter. He turned to the noise and gave Martyn a slightly perplexed look, getting an amused huff in return.

Martyn shook his head affectionately and stepped off to the side. He pat Tango's shoulder twice and gestured with his head in the direction of the newcomer. "Go on then. We can talk more later." He chuckled, tacking on, "love birds."

Tango didn't bother arguing, running and all but tackling Skizz. He threw himself at his boyfriend, who grabbed his waist and picked him up slightly off the floor, spinning them around playfully. The blaze giggled happily and pressed a chaste kiss to the angel's lips once he was set down, tail wagging like an excitable puppy.

Skizz gave him a big squeeze before releasing the hug. He laughed softly when the blaze didn't release him in return. "You seem awfully excited to see me -not that I'm complaining or anything. It's good to see you too, TangoTop."

"Hey, what about me?" Tango turned to the new voice and detached from his hug with Skizz, actually tackling Jimmy. The avian let out a surprised chirp and spread his wings as he immediately lost balance, falling backwards onto the floor with the giddy netherborn laying on top of him.

Laughter filled the air around them as Tango rested his head against Jimmy's chest, his tail playfully swishing back and forth. Jimmy gave him a hug and affectionately draped his wings over the blaze for a moment.

He released the hold, looking around with a nervous chuckle when Tango showed no signs of getting up any time soon. "Uh, guys? A little help?"

Skizz laughed at his predicament but managed to wrap his arms around the netherborn and pull him off of their avian boyfriend. Tango whined at first, but quickly relaxed when he realized it was Skizz holding him. He looked around once his feet were set back on the floor, breaking into a bright blush as he saw everyone else staring at them. An embarrassed laugh fell from his lips. Tango cleared his throat as he urged his tail to settle and stepped away from his boyfriends.

"Uh, sorry about that. I may have overreacted a bit." He made a dismissive gesture with his hand and only continued when less people were looking at them. "Sorry for tackling you. Are your wings okay?"

Jimmy just chuckled as he pushed himself up off the floor, shaking his wings out before folding them behind his back again. "You're all good. I have an instinct to spread them when falling for that exact reason. It only hurts if I land fully on top of them."

Tango turned around after a bit more conversation, straightening out his robes and running his fingers through frosty blue hair, when he heard his name being called from elsewhere. "Whelp, it looks like the dungeon master is being summoned. I promise I'll give you guys all the time I can while you're still here. I'm looking forward to seeing your runs!" The blaze pushed up on his toes to give his two tallest boyfriends a quick kiss on the cheek. He blew an extra kiss for good measure as he backed away, giggling when he saw Skizz pretend to catch it in his hand.

Tango headed over to the group of hermits that were gathered together. He spotted Bdubs making an exaggerated gagging gesture at the PDA. Tango smirked and made sure to ruffle Bdubs' hair as he walked past, just because he knew it would annoy him. Exactly as expected, the shorter hermit made an offended noise and swatted at his hand. In a moment of true, adult level maturity Tango stuck out his tongue at the other. Bdubs immediately responded by sticking out his own tongue in retaliation, earning a light smack upside the head from Etho.

"Ow! What the heck, Etho! You're supposed to be on my side!" Bdubs angrily pouted and crossed his arms.

The Canadian rolled his eyes, shaking his head disapprovingly. "I'm not taking anyone's side. You're acting like a five year old in front of our server guests."

"Tango started it!"

"And you just proved my point," Etho said with a sigh. Tango snickered at the interaction. Bdubs glared at him, pointing two fingers at his own eyes then flipping his hand to point at Tango in a 'got my eyes on you' gesture. The netherborn shrugged it off with barely contained laughter.

There was a bit of general discussion about how things would go, along the lines of organization and time management. Everyone grouped up afterwards to let the guests choose their hermit mentors, with a bit of nudging on Tango's part when it was Jimmy's turn to pick. With all due respect and love, Tango knew the Avian would need a bit of help and Grian definitely wasn't the person to do so. He was glad they could all laugh it off and smiled at seeing that Jimmy wasn't really offended.

The guidance turned out to be a great idea, as well, considering Jimmy had managed an impressive burning dark run. They were waiting for the dungeon to reset when Impulse pulled Tango aside. Skizz was standing off in a corner waiting for the two of them and, to his surprise, so was Xisuma. Tango looked between them all questioningly but followed along until they were in a private little group in the corner.

"What's up?" Tango questioned as he and Impulse joined the other two, head tilting just slightly with curiosity.

Skizz was the one to speak up. His voice was quieter than usual but not quite a full whisper, which told Tango that this conversation was supposed to be secret but they didn't want other people to get too curious from whispering and try to spy on them. "So, DippleDop and I were talking for a while and since this is probably my only chance to play on the active server, I thought it would be really fun if we could run together."

"Oh, you and Impulse? Sure, it's not like this counts towards the competition going on, so-"

"No, no," Skizz cut back in, scratching the back of his neck as a nervous habit before bringing out a familiar looking coupon. "I meant us, Tango. Impulse had some extra Lackey coupons and offered one to me. We were talking about it and since you told us that -uh- X now knows... Y'know, I thought it was a good time to ask something that's been bothering us a little."

Xisuma stepped in to clarify, "he was asking about the respawn mechanics, and I can assure you that nothing serious will happen if your body goes through a standard respawn. You might feel some lingering pain or dizziness, and there will probably be some nausea, so it's up to you if you feel comfortable willingly putting yourself in that position. I'm sorry if you've been worrying about that previously. I should have mentioned it when we first talked. It's perfectly safe to respawn, just like normal, with no lasting effects. Our respawn system can't alter player code through any ordinary use. It would take deliberate, malicious hacking to make it even remotely dangerous, and all of the other respawns from today have been exactly as expected, so there is absolutely no need to worry."

It felt like a weight was lifted off of his chest. Tango hadn't even realized that he was so worried about that until now. A sigh involuntarily left his lips, the corners turning up into a grateful smile as he looked over to his boyfriend again. "Okay, yeah, sure. That sounds fun, Skizz."

"Sweet! Thanks, Top!" Skizz grinned widely, pulling the blaze into a quick side hug. Tango softly chuckled and went to return to his place as he heard the speakers in the other room announce that the dungeon was ready to be played again.

Impulse placed a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look back at the demon, noting his mildly concerned expression. "You sure you're okay with it? You heard X about the nausea and stuff, right?"

Tango just smiled and calmly removed the hand from his shoulder. "Relax, Impy. I can handle a little sickness just fine. I want to spend more time with you guys, and I won't get to do anything fun if you all keep worrying about me. Trust me, I feel no different than before all of this."

It wasn't a lie. Yes, he was thinking about it a lot and had the occasional symptom, but overall nothing changed so far. It was still way too early to worry about back pain or general aches from carrying any extra weight. If anything, he felt a bit sluggish and got tired easier, though that could just as easily be exhaustion caused by the constant maintenance of the Dungeon.

"I have to go help Joel now. We can talk more before Skizz's run, if you want. I promise I'll be fine," The blaze hybrid assured his boyfriend, as he headed over to Joel and Grian.

Xisuma was right. Tango cringed at the gross, sour taste in his mouth, bile burning as it clawed it's way up his throat. His ears were still ringing, and he could feel an aching pressure in his skull, from the sonic shriek that took him out. He's blaming this entirely on Pancakes. At least, that's what Tango swore to himself as he leaned over the side of the bed to throw up.

Lesson learned: respawn sucks. There was no reason for Tango to throw himself into certain death anymore, but he still refused to take back what he said to Impulse earlier. He could still have fun without dying. Nobody needed to walk on eggshells right now. As long as Tango kept some party poppers on him, everything would be just fine.

Speaking of which, Tango immediately raided his chests for an extra totem or two. Just as promised, Xisuma was also waiting for him in his storage room. The admin was holding a water bottle which Tango promptly used to get rid of the acrid taste in his mouth.

Xisuma smiled reassuringly, even though it was barely visible through his visor. "Are you doing okay?"

"Just peachy." Tango couldn't help the sarcastic response that automatically left his lips, following it up with a quick "sorry."

"It's fine," the admin brushed off the crass remark. "Can I do a quick check on you? Just to be safe."

"Sure," Tango responded but walked immediately over to a group of shulkers, sifting through it for a health potion before turning back to the voidwalker. He gestured for him to go ahead as he took one swig of the overly sweet liquid, not wanting to fully chug it, in case it made him vomit again.

Xisuma just ignored all of the sudden movement and pulled up the netherborn's code, now that he was standing still. He hummed to fill the silence as he scanned. "Yep, all ten digits perfectly in order, just as expected."

Tango downed the rest of the potion and sighed. "Thanks. I don't think I am ever doing that again. My ears are still ringing."

"At least now you know it's safe," Xisuma offered optimistically, "in case it happens again on accident."

"I guess so. By the way," Tango rubbed at his ears in a useless attempt to stop the insistent ringing, "when is the next Hermitcraft meeting? I know that the season is ending soon, and I want to go over some things with you that we could maybe find a way to bring up at the meeting?"

Xisuma nodded and thought for only a brief moment before answering. "I believe the next meeting is scheduled for this coming Wednesday. I'm always open to different suggestions, if there's something specific that you want to talk about. What's up?"

Chapter Text

The last few people settled down in their seats, Xisuma standing up, causing all conversation to peter out. The admin smiled politely as he looked around the table, making sure that everyone was present. Once he finished the head count, he clapped his hands together.

"Alright, it looks like everyone is here, so we can get started right away. First, we have some news about..." Xisuma's voice seemed to dissolve until it all sounded muffled. Tango's leg bounced anxiously. Eyes flitting all around the table, they eventually landed on Impulse, who gave him a reassuring smile. Finally, the word Tango was waiting for immediately snapped him back into focus.

"-some requests regarding the possibility of inviting new people to join us for Hermitcraft season ten." There were a few cheers around the table. Xisuma grinned at the enthusiasm but made a gesture for everyone to calm down. "That being said, we are still honoring the usual system. You all know how this goes. The vote must be unanimous in order for anyone to become a Hermit. If even one person objects, we move on to someone else. It is possible to cast a re-vote, but only after we consider others that have not yet been voted for.

"The first group we need to discuss are those from Empires. I have seen firsthand how some of them fit in extremely well among you all. Plenty of them were already familiar faces, whom I would feel comfortable welcoming into our family. There are a few names that I have heard tossed around a lot and I would like to open the floor for further discussion. Would anyone like to start?"

There was silence for a while. Eventually, Etho raised his hand, surprising pretty much everyone. The snowy-haired hermit was almost always quiet throughout each meeting. He sounded unsure of himself. Nervous, maybe? "I think Joel could blend in pretty well. He's a really good builder too."

"Oh, yeah!" Grian decided to chime in. "It would be really cool to have him around more often. Maybe we could invite Lizzie too. They would totally like it here."

Various noises of agreement bounced around the table. Xisuma was typing something out, when Tango looked back over at him, and nodding along with everything that was being said. The blaze's eyes flicked between each hermit nervously. What if there was a limit on how many people could be added? What if they decided to choose Joel over Jimmy or Skizz?

Tango's leg was bouncing anxiously when Xisuma called an initial vote on Joel. Time felt almost slowed down as he watched everyone else raise their hand. He couldn't be reason someone was barred from the server. Nobody said they couldn't add all three of them. Joel is a great guy, too. Tango has nothing against him. It would be selfish and petty if Tango voted no just because it might mean that his boyfriends wouldn't be added. Inhaling shakily, he raised his hand as well.

"That's great," Xisuma declared at the sight of all hands up, "but remember that the decision isn't final right away. He would still need to accept the invitation, and we may put it up to another vote if there are too many candidates. Now, I also noticed Lizzie get mentioned. Shall we put that up to a vote as well?"

Having now opened the floodgates, so nobody else felt awkward being the first to speak up, Cleo suggested Scott. Pearl subsequently brought up Shubble, and Gem mentioned Fwhip. Tango could barely focus as the list expanded. All he could think about was his little spark growing up without all of their dads. He only noticed he was starting to actually panic when a soft hand nudged it's way into his own, interlacing their fingers and gently rubbing the back of his hand with a thumb. Everything around him sounded muffled. Something coppery hit his tongue and he realized that he had been biting his lip, sharp teeth easily breaking it open.

"What about Jimmy?" The voice right next to Tango spoke up, the netherborn turning to look at them immediately at the mention of his boyfriend. Zed squeezed his hand under the table and gave him a subtle, reassuring smile. He could hear his own heart beating forcefully in his chest. Time slowed to an agonizing crawl as the vote that would determine Jimmy's permittance was cast.

Tango could cry with relief when he saw the last hand go up. He knew it wasn't set in stone, but at least nobody outright rejected the idea of allowing Jimmy to join.

They finally moved on after going through practically everybody from Empires. Martyn was the first outlier to be mentioned, having visited the server previously and helped in a fundraiser they had set up. Yet another contender to shrink the odds of his boyfriends joining them. However, It was easy for Impulse to slip Skizz's name into the conversation right after Martyn. Tango felt instant relief at the positive reactions tossed across the table. The vote was an immediate, unanimous yes and Tango had to stop himself from actually crying tears of joy.

After another painfully long stretch of conversation, they finally ran out of suggestions. Xisuma pulled everyone's attention back to himself as he repeated the names that had made their list. It was surprisingly not as long as Tango thought. The final contenders consisted of Joel, Lizzie, Scott, Pix, Jimmy, Martyn, and Skizz; which Xisuma deemed as too many.

It was decided that they would hold another vote next week, giving everyone time to think over each possible new hermit and choose who they all wanted there the most. After the second vote, Xisuma would have people that were closest to each chosen person ask them directly if they wanted to join for the next season.

Tango's gut churned, a form of anxiety induced pseudo nausea setting in, as Xisuma called an end to the meeting. He gave a little kiss to Zed's hand, which hadn't left his since he laced them together earlier, stating that he would meet back up with him in a minute. He wanted to talk to X again first. Tango eventually stood as the last few hermits exited the room. Keralis had hung around for a moment as well, speaking quietly enough that Tango had to force himself not to subconsciously eavesdrop on their conversation. He fidgeted with his robe as he waited for his turn to speak.

It didn't take long for whatever they were talking about to seemingly be resolved, Keralis patting Tango on the shoulder as he passed by on his way out. Once he had fully left, and the door closed behind him, Xisuma turned all of his attention to the netherborn with a slightly obscured smile. "How can I help you?"

Tango cleared his throat, trying to calm the uncomfortable thought still floating through his mind. "I just, uh- Is there... any way at all to guarantee that Skizz and Jimmy will both join?"

Xisuma sighed softly. "I'm sorry, Tango. It's only fair to let everyone decide separately. Imagine if a stranger or someone who made you uncomfortable was to suddenly be around you every day, even at your own home. You never know what might damage someone else's feelings of safety and security here on Hermitcraft. While I know that all of your partners are lovely people, and I understand that you have been put in a very difficult situation, I can't ignore any of my other Hermits' concerns. No matter what the outcome is, I have no issue with them visiting or you going off server to see them as often as you would like."

"I get it," Tango sighed, trying to keep as calm and neutral as possible. "Thank you for- for trying at least. Hey, uh, have you gotten the chance to get that scanner yet?"

"Oh jeez," X blew out a heavy breath. "I'm sorry. Between all of the plans for the next season and everything that I have to wrap up here, I just haven't had time. Tell you what: sometime in the first week of the next season we can make a sort of special occasion. I'll get the scanner while we are all off server and, once we get a little bit settled, you can see the very first image of them."

A small grin gently tugged at the corners of Tango's lips. "Can my boyfriends come?"

"Of course!" Xisuma smiled back brightly. "I told you we could make it a special occasion. Even if they don't ultimately become hermits, we can arrange a day very early on where they can visit. Oh, and I can find a way to print the images off the scanner so they can all have one to keep. Just for the memory, or for them to look at while on their own server."

Tango softly laughed to keep himself from crying again. He'd been doing a lot of that recently... he's decided to blame it all on the hormones.

Xisuma's smile shifted to look more fond as he opened his arms, Tango meekly shuffling forward to accept the hug. He could feel the tears starting to rim his eyes -dammit- he told himself he wouldn't cry today. The netherborn slowly melted into the embrace until nearly all of his weight was on Xisuma, though the admin didn't seem to mind. A hand rubbed up and down his back in a soothing motion. Tango sighed happily, the faintest purr starting in his chest as his tail wrapped around X's waist.

He must have zoned out, because Tango suddenly registered being nudged away from the voidwalker, tears having stopped and his purrs grown in volume. He felt slightly dazed as he looked up from where his head was leaned again Xisuma's chest. The admin smiled almost awkwardly down at him.

"As much as I would love to be your comfort pillow, I do have quite a busy schedule today. Why don't you go get some rest. Maybe message Impulse or Zed to nap with you," the admin offered, holding Tango's shoulders to keep him from dozing off on him again. "Just call me if you need anything else, but I think right now what you need is some sleep."

"Can I have one more scan before I go?" Tango yawned, speech ever so slightly slurred from fatigue. Xisuma looked kind of amused, but didn't make any comment.

"Sure," X released one hand from the blaze's shoulder, still keeping him from swaying with the other. He did his best to hold the drowsy netherborn still as he quickly scanned over his code for probably the twelfth time since he said he could. A very calm but intrigued "huh" involuntarily left Xisuma's mouth, setting off Tango's anxiety. Suddenly the blaze felt very awake.

"Huh? What do you mean 'huh'? X?" Tango fidgeted nervously, feeling slightly ill from the worrying exclamation.

Xisuma very quickly shook his head. "No, no, it's fine. Tango, I promise everything is fine. I was just a little surprised by the growth. Their code is developing faster than expected, though I'll admit that I am using baseline information. I don't know all of the specifics for each species. It's probably just that netherborn pregnancies don't take as long to fully develop. I promise that it is nothing serious. The only possible worry is that the baby will be premature, but I don't think that is what's happening. All of the code is healthy; there is just a bit more of it than I predicted."

Tango couldn't think of anything to say. The emotional whiplash of that one surprised sound was still pressing on his heart. His fatigue came back so hard it almost made him fall, Xisuma catching him before he could pass out or anything.

"Tango, please just get some rest. I'll call Impulse to come get you, and I want you to sleep until you feel better. Your baby is safe. Everything is okay. I promise," Xisuma did his best to soothe the smaller hermit. He wrapped the blaze back into his arms and held him gently until Impulse came, picking him up not dissimilar to a toddler. He held Tango to his front with the younger's arms draped around his neck and legs wrapped around his waist, head resting against his shoulder.

The netherborn fell asleep almost immediately, once in his boyfriend's arms. Xisuma quietly filled Impulse in on what he had talked about with Tango. He assured that nothing bad was happening and that it didn't make things any better or worse that the baby suddenly developed faster than expected, warning him that Tango might wake up anxious and he should stay by his side to reassure him later.

Chapter Text

Tango's tail wouldn't stop swishing side to side from all of his nervous energy. He was still upset that his boyfriends wouldn't both be joining the next server, but at least Jimmy could visit. Nothing said that Tango couldn't spend all of the time that he wanted to off server, either. Besides, it would still be a few weeks before the next season was up and running. Tango had set up a little private server that he would be staying on in the meantime, making sure to whitelist all of his boyfriends so they could join him anytime.

It was the very last day of Season Nine, and everyone had been sent to gather anything they wanted to take with them for their private servers, and set up everything for the hub archives. Every time the Hermits left for a new server, the previous one was uploaded to the archival wing of the main hub, so that others who were curious could visit the world and check everything out.

Tango arguably had the most work to do today, labeling everything around the Frozen Citadel and ensuring that visitors could properly run Decked Out for themselves. It was a lot of work carting shulkers and shulkers worth of cards up to a more accessible location. Not to mention triple checking that all of the redstone was working properly before they left. The netherborn had to admit that he was extremely tired by the time he finished everything that absolutely had to get done.

It was less than an hour until dusk, when they all agreed to meet up for the last time until Season Ten, and Tango was just going through the last of his things. He knew he didn't have much that he wanted to take with him, but it never hurt to check. Things were a bit of a mess in his storage system and his chests hardly ever contained everything that they were supposed to. Now, all that was left was to go through his enderchest.

Tango sorted through multiple shulkers of unimportant tools and resources. He never really accumulated much throughout the season, all of his time dedicated to Decked Out. Just as he reached the bottom of the chest, he noticed a seemingly random piece of white wool.

"That's weird..." Tango muttered to himself as he pulled out the isolated block of material. He moved it around in his hands a bit before he heard a faint cracking noise, something starting to glow inside. Tango carefully put the wool down, watching as an orange light dispersed throughout the block. Curious, he dug through the material until he reached the source.

He had totally forgotten about his shedding. Tango gently brushed some stray powder aside to see half of the rods still intact. Smiling softly to himself, he dusted off the safe blaze rods and placed them securely in his robes' inner pocket. Blaze powder stuck to his hands as Tango scooped up the broken peices along with the wool. Even when shattered, it felt wrong to let just any random person possibly touch them, so he made sure that not a single speck of powder was left behind and knelt to carefully drop the now orange block of wool into a small bit of lava for disposal.

Tango watched with a slightly distant look as the lava crackled from the bits of code and shattered player data that clung to the shed objects. It felt strange to see the unnatural popping of the lava and know that it was slowly dissolving bits of himself. The concept wasn't foreign. Most blaze hybrids did this at one point in their life. Tango could barely remember his first time. He had been so young, just barely finished shedding them, when he was taken to the well. It was tradition for every hybrid in their fortress to place their blaze rods into the lava inside and watch as each one individually warped and melted into nothing but tiny bubbles that crackled at the surface.

Tango could recognize that the tradition sounded bizarre and possibly barbaric to some players, but there was a history behind it that he knew endborn and overworld species would never understand. To Tango, watching the peices dissolve was calming. It meant safety and marked a passing change.

Silently, Tango hoped that his baby would one day shed blaze rods of their own, so that he could watch them make the official change out of adolescence. Maybe this was a sign? His own shedding marked a passing of the torch in some sense: an official change into parenthood. It meant that he was now the bringer of safety for his own baby.

Tango smiled as he placed one of the remaining intact blaze rods into the lava as well, watching it warp and start to melt before sinking beneath the surface and rising as tiny bubbles of shattered code.

The moment was broken by a loud chime from his communicator. Tango quickly stood back up and attempted to brush off his stained hands on his robes before taking out the device. It was a global message from Xisuma, warning everyone that it was almost time to leave. The netherborn took one last look over at the lava, which had now settled back into it's normal state, and softly sighed.

Tango didn't take long to reach the Hermits' gathering point after the message was sent. About half of the server was already there, sharing their ideas for Season Ten with each other. Everyone seemed in high spirits and they were all ready to move on. Tango smiled as he saw Impulse conversing excitedly with Bdubs. He didn't have much time to look around more before an arm slung around his shoulders and pulled him against someone's side.

"Are you ready to finally move on from Decked Out?" It was Pearl. "You should take it easy for a while."

Tango huffed out a short laugh and playfully pushed her off. "Oh trust me, I plan on it. No more big projects for a long time." He tacked on a joking at least seven months in his head.

The last two months seemed to have gone by so fast, and yet so slow at the same time. It's not like his life was totally flipped on it's head, more like it was skewed just slightly to the left of normal. Nothing around him drastically changed and he didn't physically feel much different. He just knew in his mind that something big was on the horizon and it threw off his metaphorical balance, but Tango could see it coming and he had at least five stabilizers to help keep him on his feet.

Just as everyone said their goodbyes and stepped out into the hub, Tango could feel the world around him shift into something new. Something waiting just for him, and he was now prepared to face it.

A marking of change indeed.

Chapter Text

"Hey Tango," Skizz started as he wandered into their temporary living room, a hot bowl of soup in each hand. He had been staying with the blaze hybrid, in his private world, since day one off of Hermitcraft. Impulse was also a practically permanent resident, since he would usually spend all of his time between seasons with Skizz anyways. Zed had to visit some friends and family for a few days, and Jimmy was on and off a bit. Today, though, everyone was together. Skizz continued, "What're you gonna want to be called?"

Seeing as the question seemed entirely unrelated to the last conversation they had just had, Tango was rather confused. He pulled his hands out from his warm blanket cocoon to accept the freshly made soup, Skizz taking a seat right next to him. "What do you mean?"

"By the kid," the angel clarified. "Y'know, like mom or dad, or something in between. We can't all be just 'dad', that would get confusing really fast."

Tango quietly sipped from his bowl before voicing a soft "huh." He had thought briefly about how he felt being called a mom, but it didn't really occur to him that they would all need to choose their own titles.

"Well..." The netherborn trailed off in thought. He knew that he didn't want to be called 'mama' or anything else typically used for women. Just thinking about hearing someone directly call him that made his disphoria flare up like a persistent migraine. Did he really like 'dad' though? Maybe more like 'papa' or something.

Tango glanced around the room at his other boyfriends. They were all huddled around the three person couch and single recliner, each with their own bowl somewhere near them. Impulse had taken over the chair, Jimmy opting to sit on the floor in a small nest of blankets, vaguely between Tango and Impulse. Tango was cuddled up on one end of the couch while Skizz claimed the center and Zedaph leaned against the angel's other side.

"Being called mom makes me uncomfortable," Tango finally replied, staring down into his soup. "Other then that, I don't really know how to decide who gets to be called what. There are only so many different words for father that I can think of."

"Well, I wouldn't mind being called something else," Zedaph spoke up. "The gender aspect of it doesn't really bother me. Plus, there are some gender neutral terms for parents too."

"He's right," Skizz agreed, nodding along. "I'm sure there's plenty to choose from that aren't too feminine if you want something different. Or you can just be 'dad' if that's what you were thinking. You should get first pick. You're the one actually carrying the kid."

Tango frowned softly. "I don't want to just claim something before you all get a chance to choose. What if someone else can't find something that they're comfortable with other than the one I pick?"

"How about this then," Impulse reasoned. "You say what you are most comfortable with, and we can discuss if that's a problem for any of us. I don't think anyone here is too set on one thing that we can't be a bit flexible." The others all nodded in agreement.

Skizz added in, "and, like you said, there are still multiple words for father."

Tango took a moment to sip at his soup again, delaying having to answer, as if they would suddenly decide he was taking too long and pick first. It obviously didn't do much, as they all patiently waited for him to respond. The netherborn took a quiet, calming breath before deciding to just say what naturally came to his mind. They said they would all be honest and tell him if it bothered them. "I think- I think I want to be called papa."

Jimmy smiled up at him as he affirmed, "I like that. Papa Tango... Any objections?" The other three all gave short negatives, Zed's official vote of "Nay" causing some soft chuckles.

"I can probably go next, because I don't think anyone else is gonna argue over it," Zed chimed in when the room briefly want quiet. "I like the gender neutral term baba. It's like another version of mama or papa. Plus, I think it's kinda easy to remember because I'm part sheep." He laughed at his own little joke.

There was a short moment of silence when they all had a spoonful of their soup at the same time. Skizz and Jimmy both chuckled at the accidentally perfect timing.

Impulse quietly cleared his throat before offering up his thoughts. "I was kind of hoping that I could be just called dad, but I'm willing to change if one of you two really wants it." He shrugged, gesturing between Skizz and Jimmy with his spoon.

Jimmy shook his head, giving a short "you're good" at the same time Skizz replied "fine by me, daddy Dippledop."

There were a few subtle giggles and Impulse rolled his eyes, shaking his head at the childish response, though he couldn't hold back an affectionate grin. "Don't make it weird. Daddy is a perfectly normal term for a kid to call their parent, especially when they're really young."

"I know, I know. I'm just messing with you," Skizz brushed off with a short laugh. He sighed, followed by a quiet hum of thought. "I don't know what I'd prefer actually. Can we come back to it? We've still got a long time to think."

Zed nodded. "Jimmy?" he prompted, seeing if he had something picked out.

The avian casually shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "I'm all out of ideas, to be honest. Father sounds too formal and I'm not too sure about mom. Zed, you mentioned more gender neutral terms. Maybe we could look something up?"

"Okay," the blonde happily agreed, "though most of them that you'll find are just two words mixed together. It's also not unheard of to just make something up; as long as it isn't something that would be too difficult for a child to say."

Jimmy nodded. "I'll think about it, then."

"Sounds good," Impulse assured, smiling brightly. "When do we want to start discussing actual baby names?"

Tango softly chuckled, "let's not get too ahead of ourselves now. I at least want to know a bit more about the little fella first. Xisuma promised to get an imaging device before the next season starts up, so hopefully we can see what species the baby is. I feel like that might affect the name ideas."

Skizz was the one to follow up on what Tango said. "That's pretty soon. Can you really be able to tell the species already?"

The blaze hybrid nodded, resting a hand over his barely visible bump. It was still small and relatively unnoticeable. If you weren't aware that he was pregnant, you would think that he had simply gained a little bit of weight. "It's not an exact science, but we should be able to see any external hybrid features by then. It will be pretty obvious if they have wings or horns or anything."

"I guess that would give us an answer then, huh?" Jimmy thought aloud. He tacked on a bit more to clarify, "about the other dad."

"Unless the baby is a blaze hybrid," Zedaph chimed in before anyone could get their hopes up too much.

Tango paused for a second. He must have forgotten to mention some of the things Xisuma had told him during their meetings. "Actually... X looked at my code earlier and said he found two separate lines of hybrid code. Apparently, that means that the baby will be a mixed hybrid, like Doc. So, it should still tell us about the hybrid status of the biological father." Skizz, Impulse, and Jimmy looked between each other with different expressions on a spectrum of excited to nervous. Tango narrowed his eyes at them, catching their attention to continue, "but, listen to me closely. I don't want to see any one of you getting upset about the results. You're allowed to be a little disappointed, but no negative remarks or arguments. You guys promised that you didn't care who ended up being the other father. I want you all in this baby's life. Code relation doesn't matter, got it?"

"Got it." "Obviously." "Of course." All of his boyfriends responded at the same time.

"Good," Tango smiled sweetly. He set his now mostly empty soup bowl aside, holding his arms out. "Now somebody come give me cuddles."

They softly chuckled. Skizz, already being right next to him, beat all the others to snuggling up against their warm boyfriend. He pulled him a bit closer to the center of the couch so Jimmy could squeeze in between Tango and the armrest, joining the hug. The netherborn quietly purred in happiness as he sunk into the warm embrace.

Chapter Text

Tango wasn't doing too great, if he was being honest. His morning shower made him uncomfortable and he felt mildly sick when he looked in the mirror afterwards. He was supposed to be happy about this. Instead, the blaze turned to the side, ran a hand down the small bump on his stomach and cringed.

He obviously already knew everything about the situation, but that didn't stop his image from weighing on him like a ton of bricks. He was pregnant. It hit him like a punch to the stomach, making him want to vomit. Pregnancy means he has a uterus. It means he's full of estrogen, that stupid code strand. Try as he might, he'll never be like any of his normal friends or boyfriends.

His jaw was perfectly smooth and rounded into a soft point at his chin. His eyelashes were thick and dark like he had natural mascara. His lips were plush and tinted a reddish pink, his shoulders slim and gently rounded- Tango wrapped a towel tightly under his armpits, turning away from the mirror before he can find anything else that makes him a woman.

Hastily finishing his half-baked job of drying himself off, Tango immediately threw on a pair of boxers and loose fitting sweatpants. He tugged on a bigger shirt and rifled through his closet until he found a dark blue hoodie that he had stolen from Skizz years ago. It hung loosely over his frame, baggy enough to completely hide his slight bump and long enough to obscure the top third of his thighs, sleeves mostly covering his hands.

For a moment, he forgot that he wasn't alone. Only when the bedroom door opened did his brain start to register things around him again. Tango didn't remember sitting down, yet he found himself backed against the headboard of the bed, hugging his legs to his chest. The golden feathered wings that had caught his attention bristled for just a second before relaxing and he heard a soft, sympathetic coo.

The mattress dipped under the weight of a second body, his boyfriend smiling gently at him. Jimmy politely rested his hands in his own lap, since he wasn't sure if the blaze hybrid was comfortable being touched at the moment. "Hi Tango. I just came to tell you that Skizz is making lunch, if you're hungry. You did sleep through breakfast, but we didn't want to wake you. You just looked so peaceful and you deserve the rest after last night."

Tango only nodded to show that he had heard and understood the other blonde. He couldn't find it in himself to talk at the moment; he didn't want to hear his own voice.

Jimmy filled the silence on his behalf, "he's making grilled cheese for the three of us, but you don't have to eat it if you don't want. Do you want me to bring some to you?"

He purposefully only gave him a yes or no question, so he wouldn't have to speak. Tango nodded, faintly smiling in appreciation.

"Alright," jimmy twittered happily in response. "You'll get the first two as soon as they're done. Do you want us to join you or do you wanna be alone right now? -You can just use your fingers for option one or two." He quickly tacked on the last part once he realized that wasn't an easy question to answer non-verbally.

Tango slowly released an arm from around his legs to hold up one finger, his smile somewhat shy, like he was hesitant to request their company. His boyfriend just smiled back at him and nodded before leaving the room with a calm "be right back".

Exactly as promised, Jimmy returned after a moment with a plate of faintly steaming food. The sandwiches were just slightly overcooked, but Tango preferred them that way. He carefully unfurled himself from his balled up position and sat with his legs crossed instead. The plate was easily relinquished to him when he reached his hands out for it, placing it perfectly balanced in his lap. Tango picked up one of the sandwiches and slowly pulled apart the two halves, watching hungrily as the cheese stretched a fair distance before breaking.

The netherborn eagerly bit into the hot food, silently thanking his heritage that he didn't have to wait for it to cool down, his tail swishing happily by his side. He savored the buttery taste of the bread as he felt the tenseness in his body slowly melt away. His ear flicked, picking up the faint sound of footsteps and looking up to spot Skizz entering the room with another plate in each hand. The angel smiled upon catching his eyes, holding the contact for a moment longer before breaking it to hand one of the plates to Jimmy.

"How're you doing, Top?" Skizz spoke very gently, but not quite to the point where it would sound patronizing. "Feeling okay?"

Tango calmly nodded. He felt perfectly fine. Nothing hurt or ached. He was good.

The expression on both of his boyfriends' faces told him that they weren't buying it. Skizz sighed and set down his own partially eaten sandwich. "That includes mentally."

Tango opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally croaking out a shaky "really, I'm fine."

His boyfriends frowned, the avian scooting closer and holding out his arms, slowly pulling Tango into a hug when he didn't protest or flinch away.

"It's okay to have a bad day sometimes, but you can always talk to us. I love you," Jimmy gently rubbed up and down his back.

Skizz carefully touched beneath the blaze's chin, turning his head so they could lock eyes, an affectionate smile spreading across his lips. "There's my handsome boyfriend. We both love you very much, Tango Top. We just worry. I don't like seeing you all sad; hiding away in here by yourself."

Tango couldn't help but faintly purr at all of the praise and reassurances. He leaned into the angel's hand, which was now caressing his cheek, and let himself be gifted with the gentlest peck on the lips. Skizz hummed and softly chuckled as he pulled back.

"You taste like grilled cheese," his dark haired boyfriend quipped, making Tango flush with embarrassment and rub at his lips with the sleeve of the hoodie he was wearing.

Jimmy gently grabbed the blaze's wrist, moving it down and out of the way to claim his own chaste kiss, causing Tango's blush to deepen as he made a happy twitter of agreement.

"I told you," Skizz further teased. The netherborn huffed and playfully pushed his boyfriends back, swatting at them and then hiding behind his hands. They giggled for a little while longer before the room lapsed into relative silence. Tango slowly lowered his hands, smiling appreciatively at his winged boyfriends. Skizz had gone back to eating his sandwich while Jimmy was just starting his.

The avian finished his plate first, as Tango was half way done with his second grilled cheese. Jimmy scooted closer again and carefully draped one wing around the blaze hybrid. He sat patiently until they all finished eating. Skizz took all of the plates and stacked them on the nightstand for now, shuffling up to Tango's other side.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Jimmy offered, giving Tango the option to easily refuse. Said netherborn thought for a moment before shaking his head.

" 'M just not feeling too comfortable today. Rolled a one, y'know?" Tango sighed but relaxed against his boyfriends. They had all quickly discovered that Tango has a strange habit of comparing his different thoughts and feelings to parts of a game. It was just the way that his mind made sense of his emotions. To Tango, dice represent his self esteem or comfortability in his own skin: a confidence scale where one is the lowest and six is the highest.

"That's okay," Skizz spoke casually, to convey that his feelings are valid and normal. "Do you want to do anything special with the rest of the day? We could play some board games or watch a movie. I was thinking of doing some baking later? Maybe we could make cookies together or something."

Tango lit up and Skizz giggled at the excited shimmer in his eyes, tail restlessly swishing in short movements where it sat behind Jimmy. "You're really gonna make me cookies?"

"Make us cookies," Skizz corrected, playfully tapping the tip of Tango's nose. "Do you want to help? I'll let you be the taste tester."

The blaze hybrid nodded vigorously. His tail could be heard thumping against the mattress a little.

Tango was more than happy to help stir the dough, getting flour all over the baggy hoodie in the process; and if either of them noticed him sneaking a cookie or two before they were finished cooling, they didn't say a thing about it.

Chapter Text

Tango had found some difficulty getting started within the new season. He'd still managed to find a place to settle down and start to build up a steampunk sort of house. The details weren't quite finished yet, as his mind kept drifting elsewhere. Xisuma private messaged him pretty early on with news that he had managed to get his hands on the device that Tango was impatiently waiting for.

Unfortunately, they wouldn't be able to set up an appointment right away. The admin said that he needed some time to create a safe connection for Jimmy to join the server temporarily. Not to mention that there weren't yet any safe, private spaces where it was guaranteed that nobody else would accidentally overhear or stumble across them while exploring the new world.

Tango grumbled to himself as he threw on his usual vest over one of his plain red shirts. The shirt was on the larger side of his selection but he just had the one trusty vest that he owned for years now. Pulling the sides together to zip it up, Tango attempted to suck in his stomach but sighed when even that didn't work. It was official, his clothes no longer fit. He'd have to switch up his wardrobe a bit more so the other hermits wouldn't notice his growing bump.

Apparently it was the growth period in his pregnancy, as his stomach just continued to get bigger and bigger each day. A few times now, Tango could've sworn he could physically feel his insides shifting and his skin stretching, leaving him sore more often than not.

He debated contacting Xisuma since the progress seemed almost alarmingly fast to him, but something in the back of his head kept telling him not to bother the admin. The less that he bothered him, the faster they could get to his scan. Besides, he could just bring it up then anyways. It was probably just his dysphoria blowing things out of proportion.

Either way, Tango's vest still didn't zip, so he figured he should probably message one of the hermits that could sew. The blaze hybrid pulled out his comm and started to scroll through his private messages for which person he felt most comfortable trusting with this, when a notification pinged from Xisuma.

[Xisuma whispered to you] Everything should be set up now. Let me know when you want to do the scan, and who all will be there. We can discuss the specifics of the appointment in person.

Tango fumbled with the device, almost dropping it in excitement, due to the way it vibrated with the notification. He immediately typed out a rushed response.

[You whispered to Xisuma] as soon as we can

[Xisuma whispered to you] I assume you want all of your partners to be there?

[You whispered to Xisuma] yes

[Xisuma whispered to you] Then the soonest we could do is around midday tomorrow. I need to work a couple things out with Jimmy so that he can be there for you.

[You whispered to Xisuma] thank you! I will make sure everyone is there trust me

Tango knew that he probably looked crazy to anyone else, as he smiled incredibly wide at his communicator, clothing nowhere near his mind anymore. He immediately sent a message to all of his boyfriends, not really giving them a choice in the matter. Of course he would actually stop and try to figure things out if any of them had a genuine concern, but thankfully they all agreed right away.

Tango could feel his hands shaking slightly on the way over to the location that Xisuma sent him. He didn't know why he was so nervous, but he was also very excited. One of his hand subconsciously rested over his bump for a moment, before Tango noticed and quickly snapped his arms back to his sides. He wasn't in private yet. Anyone could have walked by and put two and two together on their own. Void knows what would happen then, with how some hermits liked to gossip on occasion. Tango generally trusted his fellow hermits not to spread rumors about something so private, but he wasn't taking any chances. (After all, word had gotten around about secret relationships in the past.)

The netherborn had left early, so that he could meet with Xisuma one on one first, just to discuss how things would go during the appointment. The room he had picked out was nice. It was plain but spacious and had a comfy bed in the middle, presumably for Tango to lay on during the scan. The admin was fiddling with a small device on his wrist when Tango arrived.

"Ah, Tango, come in." Xisuma greeted him with a comforting smile. He gestured vaguely towards the bed, so Tango sat down on the edge of the mattress. "So, there are a few different ways that we can do this. I have been working with the device for a bit and I can either project it outwardly into the room or I can keep the imaging inside of my helmet. We can have the image projecting the whole time if you would like, or I can take a look at things privately first." Xisuma fully turned towards the netherborn, bringing his attention away from the device.

Tango knew that he wanted to be there for it all, but a small voice in the back of his mind whispered anxious 'what if's to him. What if something was horribly wrong with the fetus? He wasn't sure he could handle seeing something like that. "Maybe..." Tango paused and huffed softly, his tail nervously swishing side to side. "Can you do a really quick check on your own? Just to make sure nothing is wrong- Don't tell me the species though! I want to see it for myself."

"Of course," Xisuma calmly responded, giving him a reassuring smile. "You just want me to assure that the baby is healthy, correct? Nothing else."

Tango slowly exhaled and relaxed. "Yes, thank you X."

"Alright, can you please lay down for me?" The netherborn did as he was told, and Xisuma stepped closer to the bed. "I do have to touch you for the device to work. Is that okay?" He pulled off one glove but stopped, his hand hovering, still a significant distance over his abdomen. Tango cautiously nodded, lifting his shirt and tensing ever so slightly in preparation for the cold touch. Where Tango ran warm due to his nether heritage, Xisuma's void heritage caused his skin to be just a little colder than average.

Xisuma nodded back reassuringly. "Okay, are you ready?"

"Yes, just- yeah, I'm ready," Tango took a deep breath to calm down, nodding his head one last time before laying it down on the pillow, tilted to the side so he could watch X. Though the admin was wearing his helmet, so there wasn't much to give away what he was seeing, other than his body language. Gently, Xisuma layed his hand flat over Tango's small baby bump. It wasn't actually as cold as he was expecting, which was nice.

As the voidwalker seemingly searched for a good image, moving his hands ever so slightly a few times, he spoke softly. "Is there anything that has been worrying you, that you want to address today?"

Tango watched the admin intently, despite his completely neutral demeanor. "I noticed that my bump seems to be growing really fast. I know it's probably nothing bad, I just feel like it's... faster than normal? I don't know."

"It is around the time when a lot of specific body parts are taking shape, which causes things to shift around and seemingly grow faster than they have been previously. That's probably all that is happening, especially if the baby is developing large hybrid traits like wings or a tail." Xisuma seemed to find a good position to see the fetus clearly, as his hand stopped moving as much. When he continued, he sounded pleasantly surprised, though Tango could swear there was a slight undertone of anxiousness. "Ah, that would explain it. The fast growth is perfectly normal, and they look to be a very healthy size and shape. I'm not seeing anything to be concerned about." The admin removed his hand and his body language indicated that he was smiling.

Tango bit back the question on his tongue about what exactly he meant when he said "that" explains the sudden growth. He mentioned it could be due to hybrid features and he didn't want the surprise to be ruined for himself. Instead, he simply gave the fatherly hermit a relieved "thank you" at hearing that there was nothing wrong with his baby.

Chapter Text

Anxiety gradually turned to anticipation and excitement as Xisuma stepped away and the blaze hybrid sat up to wait for his boyfriends to arrive.

Impulse and Skizz both busted through the door together, somewhat pushing each other in their excitement to get to their pregnant boyfriend. Tango couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up from his chest at their usual antics. They broke apart and Skizz flapped his wings once, with a huff, to fix any ruffled feathers due to their slight roughhousing.

Impulse shook his head with fond annoyance, yellowish bleach blonde hair getting in his face from the movement, which he promptly combed back into place with his fingers. It was kind of funny to have yet another blonde now in their relationship, although the demon had only dyed the top portion of his hair, and it was more yellow than actually blonde. The fake cybernetics on the side of his head glowed purple in the faintly dim lighting of the room.

Skizz, on the other hand, didn't change much about his appearance for the season. Neither did Zed for that matter, although he did break out his old lab coat again, bright chemical stains and all. Tango had to admit that he found the sheep hybrid rather attractive in his sciency getup. Not to mention how hot Impulse's whole cyberpunk motif made him.

Tango couldn't wait to experience the first look at their child with them. Xisuma told the two to look after Tango for a moment before leaving the room and shutting the door behind him.

"How are you feeling, Top? Excited?" Skizz grinned brightly at the netherborn, swiftly moving over to his side and putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Tango looked up at his face with a smile, "definitely. I can't say for sure, but I do have a hunch right now on what the baby's species is." The blaze hybrid winked playfully at his present boyfriends.

He was thinking about what Xisuma had said, and the little comment about him seeing visually why the baby was growing so fast made him think the baby was going to have wings. It would explain the growing pains and the constant slight shifting as well. Now which exact species that meant, he couldn't tell. Technically all three of the possible biological dads had wings, although he's pretty sure Impulse said demon wings don't grow in until after the baby is born -but he was getting ahead of himself. They still didn't even know for sure yet if his assumption was actually true.

The door opened again before either got a chance to respond, showing a sheepish Zed peering inside, as if to make sure he was in the right place. He swiftly stepped inside once he saw the room's current occupants, quietly closing the door behind himself. "Sorry I'm a little late."

"You're right on time actually," Tango reassured. "These two were just too excited to wait for the go-ahead to enter."

Skizz nervously chuckled and Impulse awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck in response, very faintly blushing from embarrassment. The angel murmured a little "sorry," which made Tango laugh.

"I'm just messing with you guys; it's fine. I was actually just waiting when you both showed up." Tango grinned mischievously. "We're just waiting on Jimmy now. I think X might have went to get him."

Impulse pulled out his comm and smiled with a light nod. "Looks like he just joined the server."

The other two made their way towards the side of the bed to join Tango and Skizz, quietly chatting in a calm sort of excitement until Xisuma came back, Jimmy at his side.

The avian immediately rushed over and put a hand on Tango's shoulder. "I missed you! Can I have a kiss?" Tango laughed but happily obliged, pulling the taller down to give him a peck on the lips. His giggling continued and he heard Impulse stifle a chuckle as Skizz immediately kissed Jimmy's cheek, once he stood up straight again, causing the non-hermit to flush a deep pink color.

Jimmy cleared his throat to try and detract from his fluster, sheepishly changing the subject. "Sorry I took a while; I had to get Grian off my back... Not literally. I mean he wouldn't leave me alone. X helped me get away."

"I guess that's what you get for ignoring your brother," Skizz teased, lightly elbowing Jimmy.

The blonde huffed and rolled his eyes. "Cousin," he corrected. "Grian is my cousin, not my brother. There is no requirement for me to talk to him if I don't want to. All he does is embarrass me in front of our friends anyways. I'd much rather be around you guys."

"Well, it's a good thing you're here now," Tango grinned brightly, "because I'm ready to start if you guys are."

Despite the very faint nervous energy in the room, the four all eagerly agreed, anxious to finally see their future baby. Tango nodded at Xisuma and layed down again. The admin nodded back.

"Alright, I'm going to have to project the imaging onto a flat surface, so you will have to be looking at this wall," Xisuma gestured to the wall behind him, generally on Tango's right. "You can be close and hold Tango's hand if you'd like, but please stay clear of his stomach and torso during the scan. I will try to explain everything as we go. Let me know if you have any questions."

Another round of affirmatives led the admin to continue. A static black square projected onto the wall, as Xisuma messed with the device on his wrist, before hovering a bare hand slightly above Tango's abdomen. The blaze hybrid gave him the 'go ahead', and the hand was very gently placed against his skin.

The black image started to shift around and vague shapes became visible in the static. It wasn't perfect, but Tango could still see a large form slowly coming into frame as Xisuma moved his hand a few times. The shape appeared to be curled up, but less defined than a clear fetal position.

"So what you are seeing right here," Xisuma started, pointing at and circling a mostly round section near the center of the image with his free hand, "is actually a little wing." Skizz and Jimmy very clearly looked at each other for a moment, before turning back. "It is partially extended right now, which is covering a portion of the body from view." He moved his hand and the image shifted to a different view point, showing the large form again, with a somewhat obscured but definitely there second shape.

Tango could physically feel his brain freeze for a moment, trying to process what that meant. The fetus in front had a wing partially extended to cover another form hiding behind it. Before the blaze had a chance to voice any thoughts aloud, Xisuma confirmed what he hadn't even thought possible until that very moment.

"As I'm sure you can see now, this," he circled what they could see of the other form, "is the second twin..." His following words dissolved into static noise as Tango registered the news. Everything around him suddenly seemed a lot closer and the air felt thin, making it difficult for him to get a full breath.

"Twin." The word echoed faintly through the static. Two. There were two of them. Tango didn't know what to feel in that moment. On one hand, that was fantastic news. With five dads, two kids would be perfect. Twins wouldn't be too much of a handful, as they could take turns handling their needs, and they would both have someone their own age to play with on a server with no other children.

On the other hand, that meant Tango would have to give birth to TWO babies. As much as he would love to be excited, that sounded horrifying. One was difficult enough to come to terms with. Now he had to do it twice? Technically three or four times because of the placenta.

A sudden wave of nausea washed over him and Tango physically pushed Xisuma's hand away, rolling to his side and dry heaving over the edge of the bed. Thankfully he didn't actually throw up, but it certainly felt like it.

It took quite a while before the static slowly started to dissipate into a nearly silent ringing in his ears. Tango carefully turned onto his back and practically collapsed against the mattress. His cheeks felt wet and his head was spinning. He just really needed a nap right now. Yeah, a nap sounded nice.

-
Tango blearily blinked his eyes open to find Zedaph watching over him, warm hand encasing his own. The sheep hybrid gently smiled at him when he noticed that he was awake. His voice was a soft whisper, breaking the silence. "How are you feeling? What do you last remember?"

Thoughts tried to rush back into the forefront of his mind, but the fog from having just woken up thankfully kept them from overwhelming the blaze and sending him spiraling again. They did still break through, although they were hazy, actually helping Tango to better rationalize the situation without immediately panicking.

"I'm... having twins?" Tango could hear himself speak but couldn't feel his lips moving. It didn't seem entirely real, yet at the same time it finally sank in as a fact, now that he had said it aloud.

"Yes, you are," Zedaph cautiously affirmed, rubbing the back of Tango's hand with his thumb. "How do you feel about that?"

"I..." The netherborn paused to process it a bit more. His thoughts were all jumbled up about the matter, and he carefully decided on "scared... But- kind of happy?"

"Yeah?" Zedaph prompted, silently urging him to continue.

"Yeah, I think- I think I like the idea of having two kids. It's just... Scary." Tango looked around the room. His boyfriends were all still right there by his side. Xisuma sat at the opposite side of the bed, quietly scrolling on his comm, although he would occasionally glance up for just a second before looking back. He was trying to seem like he wasn't listening, but anyone could tell he was.

"Do you want to talk about it? We can leave it until later too, if you want," Zed offered.

"I don't know..." Tango felt his tail subconsciously curl around his waist, "maybe later? Can we- can we continue? I didn't mean to freak out like I did."

Impulse sweetly smiled at him from closer to the end of the bed. "It's okay, you were scared. Anyone in your position would need a moment to process something big like that. Are you sure you want to keep going now? We can come back to it another day if you still need some time to sort out your thoughts."

"No, I-" Tango looked at each of his partners, then briefly at the admin. "I want to just get all of the information we can done right now. Did you find out who's the father yet?"

"No, not yet. We were waiting for you to find that out. We would never take that moment away from you," Zedaph assured.

"Okay," Tango looked down at his lap for a moment before looking over at Xisuma and nodding, mostly to himself. "I'm ready to continue now. I just needed some time to think."

"Alright," Xisuma put away his communicator, which he clearly hadn't actually been focusing on since Tango woke up. "Is it okay if I touch you now?"

"Yeah," Tango took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself to see two babies again. The hand was cold but he tried to ignore it as he looked back over at the black square on the wall. The closer twin was easy to get back in view, sitting towards the front while twin B was more towards his spine.

"If you look very closely right here," Xisuma pointed to the partially hidden twin and traced his finger along a short line coming off of the edge, "you can just barely see the beginning of a tail. This would explain the two different hybrid strands in your code. The twins appear to be fraternal, or non-identical. This one in the back here looks to be a blaze hybrid, where the one in front is not."

Tango very carefully observed the image, trying to pick out any clues other than the wings on twin A. It was hard to distinguish the very small details and Tango could maybe just see something that seemed off about the head.

"It is extremely difficult to see, but it you look very closely at the bigger twin, right around here-" X circled a small portion of the head. "-there is a tiny, faint little line along the edge of the skull. This is a definitive marking that is only seen on angels, as it is indicative of a halo."

There was a soft gasp and Tango turned to see tears is Skizz's eyes. There was a distinct spark in the blurry blue shine, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on, but he knew was some kind of love. Jimmy put a hand on Skizz's shoulder and he could barely see Impulse rubbing his back. The angel hiccuped, holding back a sob of pure joy, and leaned over to place his forehead against Tango's.

His voice was shaky but full of complete adoration for someone he hadn't even met yet, whispering sweetly, "I love them. I love you so much, Tango. I am going to be the best mama I possibly can for these babies, and you are the absolute best papa ever. You're doing amazing. Thank you." The taller was nearly a sniffling mess when he finished, smiling as much as he could through his joyous tears. "Void, I love you."

Chapter Text

Tango had completely forgotten about his clothing dilemma until the next day. Skizz was standing behind him, in his base, buttoning up his shirt as Tango went to pull on his vest. He frowned and sighed as he recalled it not fitting right yesterday.

Skizz hummed curiously and walked closer, wrapping his arms around the blaze from behind. "What's the sigh for, Top?"

"My stupid vest doesn't fit anymore," Tango complained. With an exaggerated pout, he playfully elbowed Skizz and tacked on, "This is your fault."

Skizz laughed softly at the comment, kissing the netherborn's cheek before stepping back again. "Why don't you try talking to Clebert or Gemstone? They both know how to make clothes and stuff. They could probably fix you a bigger one."

"And say what? I need you to make my clothes bigger. Why? Oh, no reason. Just- like- gained weight or something?"

"Or... you could tell them the truth," Skizz softly suggested. Tango whipped around to stare at the angel like he was crazy for just mentioning the idea. Skizz sighed, working on his tie as he elaborated. "I'm just being honest, Tango. You will have to tell people eventually. I don't want to push you into doing something you really don't want to, but I think it would be nice to just get it off your chest. Start small, you know? What about Gemstone? She's always super sweet when it comes down to it, and I bet she'd be really happy for you. I know first hand that she's pretty good at keeping secrets too."

Tango could feel his tail twitch and coiled it around his leg to keep it still as he thought. As much as he didn't want to think about it, Skizz was right. The hermits would all find out eventually. It would be a good idea to test how it would feel telling others with just one person in private -and Xisuma didn't count. That was different entirely.

Maybe Skizz had the right idea using the clothing issue as a jumping off point as well. Tango didn't know Gem quite as well as Impulse and Skizz did, but he still knew her well enough to know that Skizz had a point. She may love listening in on gossip and sharing it around when it was silly or lighthearted, but she's also fiercely loyal and will hold your secrets until the world ceases to exist if you tell her that you're serious.

Tango huffed softly in resignation and pulled out his communicator, pausing to consider it just a moment longer, before forcing himself to type out a quick message and hit send.

[You whispered to GeminiTay] are you free? I need some help with my clothes

The blaze hybrid blew out a heavy breath and set down his comm to fix his hair as he waited for a response. "There," he announced, "I sent a message to Gem."

Another voice spoke up as Jimmy wandered back into the room, hair still damp from his shower as he gently blotted at his wings with a towel. "Why are you messaging Gem?"

"Top is having a wardrobe malfunction," Skizz answered with a chuckle.

"Don't say it like that," Tango lightly protested. He purposefully hit Skizz in the side with his tail as he turned to face Jimmy. "My vest won't zip anymore. Gem sews, so I'm asking her for help."

The avian nodded and threw the towel over his bare shoulder temporarily. He was fully dressed from the waist down, but not yet wearing a shirt. "Ah, okay, that makes sense. Are you gonna get some new clothes or just adjust what you already have to fit better?"

Tango hummed thoughtfully. "I guess just some adjusting for now. That was my plan, at least. Maybe I'll try something new. I don't know yet."

"Ooh, you could make some sort of steampunk-y outfit to match your base this season; just like dippledop did." Skizz suggested with a big grin.

"Maybe," Tango shrugged, "we'll see." His comm buzzed on the dresser, where he set it down, and the netherborn glanced at the screen.

[GeminiTay whispered to You] I don't have much planned for today, so you can stop by anytime.
[GeminiTay whispered to You] Just working on my base.

He picked it up and sent a simple "ok" as a reply.

[GeminiTay whispered to You] Let me know when you're coming so I can come find you

Tango sent a thumbs up emoji before setting the communicator back down. Skizz had navigated towards the bed and Tango watched him pat the mattress in front of himself, gesturing for Jimmy to come sit. The avian in question briefly shook out his wings, causing the feathers to fluff up a bit due to the excess water he hadn't managed to get out. He happily wandered over and sat down in front of Skizz, the angel sending Tango a quick grin and shooing motion with his hand.

"Go see how Zed's doing with breakfast," skizz suggested. "We'll be here."

Tango knew he was right about that. It always took them a while to preen each other, and Tango's only taken the time to watch a few times. He enjoys the little chirps and coos that tend to fill the room, but he's also okay just letting them do their thing. Preening has been their own personal bonding time ever since Jimmy first trusted Skizz enough to help.

-
It was around midday when Tango finally got the courage to visit Gem. He wrung his hands together as he made his way towards her lighthouse, quickly shaking them out when he spotted Gem just on the other side of the river, working on what looked like a giant angler fish. The blaze hybrid looked around for a bridge but only found a stray boat.

He sighed to himself as he climbed in and quickly made his way across. Gem seemed to spot him, though, and came over to help pull his little boat closer to the dock. It's not that Tango couldn't touch water -like a real blaze- he just hated how cold it made him, since it dampened his flames. Gem grinned widely at the netherborn as he clambered up onto the dock, using her offered hand as assistance.

"Thanks," Tango quietly muttered, nervous energy bubbling too high to fully suppress. He awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. "Could we maybe go inside to talk?"

"Sure..." Gem's brows furrowed in concern and she ushered the netherborn into her underground storage room. Once they were both safely shut inside, she turned to Tango with a soft frown. "What's going on? Is everything okay?"

"Uh- yeah, just..." Tango bit his lip for just a moment, urging the words to leave his mouth. "I... I need some new clothes, because I-I..." The word died on his tongue, nerves making him physically shake. Gem lightly rested a hand on his shoulder for comfort. Tango leaned into the touch and slowly collapsed into a hug.

"Hey, it's okay. You don't have to explain yourself to me," Gem reassured, rubbing her hand up and down his back. "We can get you some new clothes for sure. Don't even worry about it."

"No, it's..." Tango hesitates, blinking back tears. "I didn't just come here for that. I- I also came here to tell you that I..." Tango swallowed and took a deep breath. "I'm kinda, sorta, maybe, just a little bit pregnant?" He said it like a question, nerves pitching his voice up. There was a moment of stunned silence and Tango watched as a few different emotions quickly flitted across gem's face, noticeably confusion and excitement, before settling an a slightly concerned expression.

"Is that... bad?" Gem cautiously asked, trying to feel out the situation.

"No! No! It's good! I'm- I'm happy. I just- It's hard to talk about, y'know?" Tango sighed. "I mean, you didn't even know I was trans, so..." He trailed off, letting the sentence die there.

"Well," Gem paused briefly to think of a good response. "Congratulations! I'm really happy for you. You just needed some help getting maternity clothes then? I could probably just adjust some of what you already have if you'd like. At least with the pants. That part is relatively easy, basically just add some elastic to the waist and you're good."

"You're... Not gonna ask more questions?" Tango took a hesitant step back, studying her face for any signs of negativity.

Gem shrugged, "I mean, sure, I am a little curious; but you don't seem to wanna talk about it right now and I can respect that. Although, I'll admit, I am pretty surprised."

Tango awkwardly rubbed his arm. "Yeah, that's- that makes sense. Maybe we can talk more about it later. I'm just kinda stuck on the whole announcing the pregnancy thing."

"That's fair," Gem gave him a smile. "So, what were you thinking about with your clothes? Did you want to make some new outfits, or would you be happier sticking to what you've already got? I can also make you some new stuff that is basically just a replica of your current style in a more comfortable and stretchy fabric."

"Maybe something a bit bigger?" Tango cautiously suggested. "I don't really want anything form-fitting. It -uh- it makes me feel kinda... bad." He would admit that it would trigger his dysphoria, but he didn't want to bother her with his problems.

"Okay, sure. You want something baggy then? I'd still recommend the stretchy waistband for your pants, but we can definitely find ways to style some extra large tops. Did you want to stick with your usual style or try something new this season?" Gem pulled out her communicator to take some notes.

"I guess I'll just keep it how it is? I'm really bummed that my vest doesn't fit anymore." Tango shared, touching his vest as he mentioned it.

They continued along this vein for a while: Gem asking questions and Tango giving suggestions until they agreed upon some clothing adjustments and few new shirts. Tango promised to bring over what he wanted to make adjustments to, and Gem promised to make him a replica of his favorite vest in a bigger size.

Skizz was waiting for him when Tango came back to grab his clothes. He walked over to watch the blaze dig through his closet. "So... How'd it go?"

"Better than I thought it would," Tango admitted, grabbing pairs of pants and shorts, and stuffing them in a shulker. "She didn't even ask questions. She just sorta... Accepted it? She congratulated us actually."

"That's my Gemstone. I told you she'd be super cool about it," Skizz smiled. He pat Tango's shoulder before giving him some space. "She gonna fix some of your clothes then?"

"Yeah, we talked about it for a while and she's going to add some elastic to my pants so they'll fit as I get bigger, seeing as these two don't want to stop growing." The netherborn briefly placed a hand on his stomach as he spoke about the babies. "Hopefully I won't get too big. I still wanna be able to do stuff, y'know?"

"Mhmm," Skizz hummed in agreement. "Don't worry, we'll take care of you if you do."

"I know you will. That's the problem," Tango half-joked. "I don't wanna become dependent on you guys. At least not until the very end."

"I'm sure you won't."

Chapter Text

It had only been a week since the scan, and Tango already found himself missing his youngest boyfriend. Of course he was happy to now have Skizz there whenever he needed, but it just didn't feel right without Jimmy there too. That being said, Tango was currently bundled up in one of Jimmy's iconic blue button up shirts, curled up on the couch in his base with a hand mindlessly resting on his growing baby bump.

A knock at the front door brought Tango out of his wandering thoughts of loneliness. He pushed himself up off the couch with a grunt, rubbing his stomach with a silent chuckle, mumbling to himself, "already feeling the weight from you two." It wasn't anything crazy, but there was in fact a distinct feeling of heaviness that wasn't there before.

Tango removed his hand to creak open the door. Spotting a familiar but unexpected bright smile, he opened it the rest of the way. "Hey Scar, what's up?"

The quick flick of eyes to Jimmy's shirt and back to Tango's face wasn't lost on him, but Scar didn't comment on it, so neither would he. "Well, hello Tango! I've come with fantastic news! We, over at Magic Mountain, have decided to host a party!"

"A party?" Tango questioned with an amused smirk.

"To celebrate the new season and new hermits, of course! It would be wrong not to, when both of our lovely new hermits are a part of Magic Mountain themselves! So! Will you be there?"

"Scar, you have given me no details," Tango pointed out, holding back a chuckle. "How would I know?"

"Oh, right," Scar shook his head with a laugh. "The party will be at the top of the mountain on Saturday. Keralis will be there mixing drinks, and I'm going to bring my famous cookies- oh, and cake of course!"

The word cookies rang through Tango's head immediately. Aw man, now he was craving cookies again. Something must have shown in his face, because Scar's already cheerful attitude brightened even more.

"Oh, perfect! I'll see you there then?" Scar looked almost like an excitable puppy with the way he was slightly fidgeting in place, like he had excess energy to let out, and was ready to jump Tango with a hug the second he said yes.

The netherborn lifted his hand slightly in front of himself, ready to stop the other if he actually did try to hug him. "Uh, yeah, sure."

Scar visibly twitched, like he had to physically stop himself from moving, somewhat awkwardly making finger guns instead. "Yes! You won't regret it, Tango! It's going to be the best party of the season!"

"If you say so," Tango laughed.

"I do indeed!" Scar replied before turning and rocketing off on his elytra with an elongated but quickly fading "goodbye!"

Saturday was in just a couple days, and came quite fast. Suddenly, Tango was standing in front of his closet and staring at his clothes indecisively. Was it correct etiquette to show up in his everyday outfit, or should he dress up for the occasion? Would the baggy clothes that he had been wearing make him look like a mess? He didn't want to come off as uncaring, but he didn't want to wear anything that would show off his rapidly developing baby bump either, which left him with only a few options.

Sighing and trying to shake off his unnecessary anxiety, Tango just pulled out a basic red shirt and pants that still fit him, throwing on his new duplicate vest and zipping it up. He rounded into the bathroom to check himself out in the mirror. Even with a side view, Tango was pretty sure he could pass the slightly visible bump off as extra weight gain, as long as nobody thought about it too much. Who would even have pregnancy cross their mind when looking at him? Most of the hermits didn't even know it was possible for Tango anyways. Surely he'd be fine.

Almost all of the server was already there by the time Tango arrived. Pink petals drifted softly all around the area. Multiple picnic tables were set out, along with some blankets in the grass. One table in the distance had a big bowl of some sort of red liquid, presumably punch, right next to where Keralis was stood mixing something in a fancy glass. Beside him was two tables full of all kinds of food.

Tango's eyes immediately landed on the dessert section. There was a large cake marking the middle of the sweets spread, surrounded by many plates of cookies, brownies, and candy. Before he could even think about it, Tango found himself wandering towards the table. He was caught on his way there with a loud "hi Tango!" coming from his right. He felt his ear twitch at the volume, but kept the complaint to himself. It was a party after all, people were allowed to get rowdy.

"Hey Bdubs," Tango stuffed his hands into his vest pockets to look more casual. "Cool party, huh?"

"Eh, picnics are kinda lame," Bdubs shook his head, a plastic cup of that red drink in his hand, falling into step as Tango didn't halt his pursuit of the cookies. "At least there's good food though. You can never turn down Scar's baking."

Tango chuckled lightly, the two coming up to the desserts and both grabbing a cookie. "I can agree with that." Tango quickly took a bite. The cookie was soft and chewy, chocolate chips melting in his mouth. It was heaven.

"Tango?" Bdubs waved a hand in front of his face and Tango realized that he had zoned out.

"Sorry, what? Say that again," the netherborn smiled somewhat sheepishly.

"I asked if you've seen Skizz."

"Oh, no, sorry. I just got here," Tango shrugged, taking another big bite of his cookie.

"It's fine. I can go find him myself. Have fun," Bdubs snatched another cookie before wandering off, leaving the blaze by himself once again. Tango finished off his first cookie and immediately grabbed a second.

The next person to approach him was surprisingly Joel. He came to grab a brownie but decided to stop and chat. "Ayup lad. You liking the party? I told Scar we should've hosted it at Impulse' place but he insisted on having a picnic."

Hearing his boyfriend's name made Tango smile. "I think it's nice. Skizz probably wanted the picnic too." Likely for Tango's sake. Knowing the angel, he would be too protective of Tango right now to let him attend some kind of rave or club-like party while carrying his children.

"Lame! I was hoping for a real party. At least there's alcohol. Speaking of which," Joel glanced over towards Keralis and waved at him, "he doesn't look busy right now. You want anything?"

Tango pretended to think about it for a moment before shaking his head. "Maybe later. I think I'll just stick to the dessert table for now."

Joel shrugged. "Suit yourself. Hey, Keralis!" He strolled past Tango towards the drinks.

The netherborn glanced around the area, just watching the other hermits mingle for a little bit, sticking solidly to his spot by the cookies. Suddenly, an arm wrapped around his shoulders and a half-eaten cookie was plucked from his hand. He shivered at how close to his ear the other person got as they whispered to him.

"You eating for two over here?" Impulse teased, taking a small bite of his cookie.

"Three, actually." Tango huffed indignantly, yanking the sugary treat back from his boyfriend and stuffing the rest in his mouth.

Impulse laughed, his smile bright as he looked at Tango with fondness. "I guess you're right. Either way, you should come mingle a little. You were holed-up most of last season because of Decked Out. Now you've been hiding in your base again lately. At least come talk to Scar. He worked really hard on this just to get everyone to hang out together."

"I've been hiding in my base because I look like garbage. Impulse, I just look fat and lazy right now."

"But you're not." Impulse wrapped his arms around the netherborn, hands resting on his stomach before Tango smacked them away with a near silent mumble of "not here", causing the demon to frown.

"To everyone else's knowledge, I am," Tango countered, turning to fully face his boyfriend. "I've just been sitting around, gaining weight, because I'm taking a break after Decked Out." He sighed at the furrowed brows and pout aimed in his direction. "Don't look at me like that. I'm just stating what everyone else can see."

"Well, that's not what I see," Impulse argued, causing Tango to roll his eyes.

"I know that, Impy. Just- come on, let's go talk to Scar or whatever."

"Fine," Impulse sighed in resignation, taking Tango's hand and starting in Scar's direction. The blaze quickly grabbed two more cookies before fully letting himself be pulled away from the dessert table.

Scar looked ecstatic to see them, wheeling closer to meet them halfway. "Tango! So happy you could make it! I see you are enjoying some of my famous chocolate chip cookies."

"They are delicious, Scar." Tango's smile had a slightly uncomfortable tinge to it, but was otherwise genuine.

"Why thank you," Scar didn't seem to notice, prideful and happy to talk about his work. "You should try the cake too. It's vanilla-chocolate marble. Gem helped me decorate it. That's why it doesn’t just look like Jellie's face," Scar joked.

Tango just nodded and listened as Scar continued to ramble on about how he prepared for the party. He noticed Grian wander over at some point and stand next to him. Tango blindly took the cup offered to him by the avian, mostly just ignoring it in his hands, zoning out a little.

The netherborn was roughly snapped back into reality when the cup in his hand was suddenly yanked away from him, hand up by his mouth like he was about to drink from it. Slightly offended, he turned towards whoever stole it just to watch as Skizz chugged the whole thing right then and there.

"Wha- Skizz!" Grian retorted loudly. "I got that for Tango!"

The angel seemed to completely ignore the shorter hermit, patting Tango on the shoulder. "Sorry buddy. I'll get you a new one." And without any sort of explanation, he just walked off again, carrying the now empty cup.

Tango blinked, utterly confused and still slightly in shock. He stared at his empty hand and slowly lowered it away from his face again. "That was weird," he muttered.

It seemingly took a second for everyone to process whatever the heck that was about, but Scar soon cleared his throat and resumed the previous conversation like nothing happened. Grian seemed a bit annoyed, feathers briefly ruffled before he shook them out.

A minute later, Skizz returned with a new cup that he handed to Tango, the blaze staring down at the red liquid for a moment as an arm was draped over his shoulders. Nobody decided to comment on the situation any further, so Tango just mentally shrugged and took a drink of the punch. It was a little too sweet and tasted like pure artificial flavoring. All in all, pretty average for fruit punch that you would find in a giant bowl at a party.

After talking with Scar for maybe a little bit too long, Skizz ushered him around for a while, going in and out of little groups to mingle. Tango didn't mind being pulled around all that much. As long as he got a few more sweets tonight, he was happy. That being said, he found himself back at the dessert table later, chatting with Etho as the taller hermit sipped at a drink through a straw that went under his mask.

They mutually agreed that the party was getting a bit boring and Etho said that he had been planning to leave for a while now, and was only staying for Joel's sake, who was apparently pretty drunk. When then asked where Joel even was, the other just shrugged, causing Tango to laugh.

"How responsible of you," the netherborn commented with a snort.

"It's his fault for starting to drink so early in the afternoon," Etho dismissed. "I can't control the guy. Last I saw him, he was at a table sobbing about missing his wife."

Tango sighed fondly. "I feel that. Man, I wish Jimmy was here. I bet he would be having a field day over a drunk Joel... If he wasn't already drunk himself, to be fair."

"Isn't it annoying being the responsible one?"

"That's usually Impy's job," Tango joked. "It's kind of weird being one of the most sober guys here."

"Yeah, I feel like you'd normally be over there playing drinking games yourself. What's different today?" Etho asked innocently.

Tango shrugged, trying to brush it off quickly. "Just didn't feel like it. Not really in the mood to get drunk tonight."

"I guess that's fair," Etho allowed the deflection. "The dessert is better anyways, right?"

"Oh, absolutely," Tango laughed. The rest of the party was spent mostly the same: chatting with the other sober and almost sober hermits, occasionally eating some sweets, and sipping on cheap punch.

Tango got to be the one to drag his drunk boyfriends home this time. Granted, Impulse was also almost completely sober. Skizz was totally wasted, and Zed was at least tipsy considering the state that they found him in. Who even knew where his cardigan went? They'd probably find it tomorrow morning.

Chapter Text

"Hey Tango?" Zed spoke up softly from where he was leaning against Tango's side, cuddled up with him, sharing a blanket across their laps. The blaze hummed in acknowledgement. "How do you feel about the whole gender thing?"

Tango turned to look right at his shortest boyfriend, eyebrows scrunched slightly in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Like, you know how people are always so excited to find out the gender of their baby? A lot of people even throw parties about it. I just wanna know how you feel about the whole thing, being trans and all." Zed asked politely, resting a hand over Tango's stomach with a soft expression.

"Oh," Tango looked down at his baby bump, contemplating the question. "I guess it doesn't really feel any different to me. Granted, I think gender reveal parties are stupid. But otherwise... I don't know. I think I just wanna raise them like people normally would. I'll still use the pronouns that match their sex, at least until they're old enough to understand what it means to be trans. Clothes and toys and stuff, though? I want them to grow up with a variety of things. The gendering of inanimate objects is kind of dumb, in my opinion. If they want a baby doll as a boy, that's fine by me. If they want to play in the mud with toy trucks, that's also fine." He thought for another moment before adding on, "If you guys want to know the babies' sexes, I can always ask X during my next scan. Personally, I don't think I care that much."

"I was just thinking maybe it would make a difference when it comes to names," Zed explained. "Of course, we can just stick to gender neutral names if that's what you want. I've just been thinking about it quite a bit recently."

"It's not always just about what I want. You guys are their parents too." Tango stopped and hummed. "I'm open to gendered names if we find some that we agree upon. Did you have something in mind?"

"I have some ideas, but I think we should wait to talk about it all together. We can make a list of which ones we like the most." Zed soothingly rubbed little circles against where the twins laid.

"Okay," Tango easily agreed. He could feel slight movement from the twins, but it wasn't nearly strong enough for Zed to feel it too. Just a faint swishing sensation that Tango couldn't quite describe. A soft purr built in his chest at the attention being given to his babies; an instinctual thing that he had to get used to recently. They sat together in silence for a while before Tango sighed and mumbled under his breath, "I wish Jimmy was here. I don't want to talk about names without him."

Zed nuzzled his head under Tango's chin, trying to comfort the other. "We can talk to Xisuma about it."

"I shouldn't have to ask X every time I want to see my boyfriend," Tango complained with a slight huff. "What about when the twins are born? Jimmy just gets visitation rights? That's not fair."

"I have an idea, but you might not like it," Zed offered. Tango looked at him with wet eyes, his frustration turning into tears. "If the other hermits knew we were expecting kids, they'd have to let Jimmy become a hermit too, so he can be there for the babies. You would have to tell everyone about the pregnancy though. I know you really don't want to, but it will help a lot."

Tango shakily sighed. "It's just... What if everybody looks at me differently? What if they treat me differently? I lied to them from the very first time they met me-"

"You didn't lie to anyone, Tango. Omission isn't lying. You're allowed to keep some things to yourself."

"Keeping little secrets is quite a bit different than not telling them I'm actually a g-"

"Ah-bup-bup!" Zed quickly interrupted. "Don't you dare say it, mister. You are just as much of a man as anyone else. I mean, do you know what's in everybody else's pants? I don't think so. For all we know, there are plenty of other trans people on Hermitcraft. You have no idea. Does Cleo's chest make them any less nonbinary?"

"No..."

"Exactly!"

"But-"

"No buts! There shall be no negative remarks about my -incredibly smart and handsome- boyfriend on my watch!" Zedaph playfully butted his head against Tango's shoulder. "I'm serious though. Stop overthinking this. Nobody will hold it against you, that you didn't come out right away. And I can guarantee you that Xisuma would kick somebody out in a heartbeat, if they said anything even remotely transphobic."

Tango sighed in defeat. "I don't know why it scares me so much, Zed. I've already seen how supportive everyone is. It's just- something in my mind just keeps telling me that it'll be different this time. That, because it's me, they'll all react differently than usual. I don't want them to get upset at me for keeping it a secret for so long. I don't want them to look at me with pity, or confusion, or betrayal."

"Betrayal? Why do you say that?" Zed gently questioned, keeping up his soft ministrations over the twins to keep Tango calm and slightly distracted, so he hopefully wouldn't spiral.

"Because I betrayed their trust by lying to them. I tricked them into thinking-" Tango glanced at Zedaph and bit his tongue. He was repeating himself again. Talking bad about himself. He knew what Zed would say if he finished that sentence. "Can we just not talk about it anymore?"

"Alright," Zed switched to humming softly, to fill the silence.

Tango responded with a mindless purr, focusing on the feeling of his babies slightly moving. He couldn't help but notice how the movements had slowed down and smiled as they gradually stopped. "I think you calmed them down," he commented.

Zedaph met his eyes with furrowed brows "what?"

"The twins. They were moving a little bit ago. I think they're sleeping now."

"Oh," Zed's brows raised in surprise. "They were?"

"They're still too small for you to feel it. It's just a weird little swishing feeling. Kind of like thick water? I can't really describe it, but it's very subtle. I only really notice it when I'm just sitting around, or when I'm trying to sleep." Tango smiled fondly down at his stomach.

"Oh," Zed sounded mildly disappointed.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure to let you feel as soon as you can." Tango offered a side hug, giving him a little squeeze before letting go.

After a considerable amount of time passed, Zedaph pulling out his communicator as they cuddled, Tango finally spoke again. "You're right."

"I am?" Zed looked from the screen to Tango's face.

"Yeah," Tango shrugged and sighed. "We should tell everyone. I think... Well, I'm not exactly ready, but... We need to sooner or later, and I really want Jimmy around more."

"We'll all be there with you, Tango. You don't have to do it alone." Zedaph soothed, nuzzling closer to the blaze. "I'm proud of you for going for it, even if you're scared."

Tango sighed, "thanks, baby."

Zed smiled at the petname, placing a soft kiss on Tango's cheek. "I love you."

"Love you too, Zed."

Chapter Text

Tango was pretty sure he had never been so nervous before in his life. Okay, maybe the first time he ever came out... But besides that. He was actively shaking with nerves. Zedaph had him wrapped in his arms, gently rocking them back and forth in an attempt to sooth his boyfriend, who was currently on the brink of a panic attack. Impulse was stood in front of them, holding one of Tango's hands to his chest, breathing slow and deliberate.

The blaze did his best to copy the breathing patterns, but he was struggling. He felt lightheaded, like the only thing keeping him grounded was his boyfriends' touch. His eyes immediately flicked in the direction of movement, spotting their admin walking over.

Xisuma's demeanor was calm and he spoke softly. "Are you sure you're ready? We'll do everything we can to keep this as simple and quick as possible. I can shut down any questions if you'd like." Tango blindly nodded, taking deep but shaky breaths. "Alright, take all the time you need. I'm going to make sure everything is in order before everyone else arrives. I'll be just inside if you need me."

Tango tried to mutter a thank you, but only hiccuped and stuttered on his breath. He coughed at the jarring break in his deep breathing exercise.

"It's okay," Impulse soothed. "Just keep focusing on your breathing. It'll all be okay." He held the hand tighter to his chest.

It took Tango a significant amount of time to settle down enough to feel comfortable being around the other Hermits. Zedaph held one of his hands, and Impulse held the other, as they walked together into the meeting room. The netherborn hunched over a bit to try and hide his now fairly prominent baby bump. The majority of the server was already gathered around the table chatting in small groups. Skizz had gone ahead and claimed their spots, waving them over when he saw them enter the room.

Tango ended up situated directly between Skizz and Zed, Impulse sat on Skizz's left, grateful for how the table obscured his stomach. To the other side of Zed was currently an open seat and next to Impulse was Xisuma. Directly across the table from Tango was Pearl, Gem, and then Grian, followed of course by Scar and Mumbo. The table was a massive rectangle in it's entirety, taking up most of the room as it was the only important feature. Most of the other Hermits were down the far end to Tango's right. Just as the last few were filing in, Etho landed in the seat next to Zedaph, Joel directly on his right.

The room quieted down quickly when Xisuma calmly stood up to start the meeting. It wasn't directly visible, but his body language indicated that he was softly smiling.

"Thank you all so much for joining me today. Now, this isn't something that we normally do here on Hermitcraft, but given specific circumstances I am opening up the world for one or two new Hermits mid-season." He raised his hand for silence before people could start chattering about possibilities. "Before I open the floor for suggestions, there is something that I would like to propose."

Xisuma glanced briefly towards Tango, but it was hard to catch without him directly turning his head. "There is something that many of you will not be aware of at this time. To avoid any possible gossip or allegations, I will keep this brief. Tango, if you please." He gestured vaguely in their direction.

The netherborn swallowed thickly and slowly stood up on shaky legs. Skizz stood with him for support, holding an arm around his waist. All the eyes in his direction caused him to hunch in on himself a little, hiding his baby bump. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Tango could feel sweat beading on his forehead, the air starting to feel thin, turning towards Xisuma with a desperate expression.

The admin nodded softly and gestured for him to sit back down. "I would like to inform you all that we are to be expecting children on the server within the year." There were many gasps and muttered words of shock and confusion amongst the group. "Now, given these very special circumstances, I would simply like to ask you all for permission to invite one Jimmy Solidarity to join the Hermits, to be with his future children."

Gem immediately raised her hand with a solidly supportive, "you have my vote."

Pearl glanced at the woman beside her briefly, then raised her hand too. "Mine as well!"

The third to raise their hand was Joel. "Who doesn't want that idiot around?"

"I like Timmy!" Scar announced loudly as he raised his hand as well.

One-by-one, every single Hermit raised their hand in support, some giving their own comments and compliments towards the avian as they did so. Tango could see a faraway look in Grian's eyes and heard him quietly mutter to himself, "Oh my void. Timmy's gonna be a father."

Xisuma clapped his hands once to get everyone's attention. "Excellent! With that settled, I am also willing to open the floor for one more Hermit. Please raise your hands if you have suggestions."

A lot of the Hermits still seemed too in shock to move forward with the meeting, but Joel physically stood as well as raised his hand, making Xisuma affectionately shake his head. Joel grinned brightly as he was given permission to speak. "Please let Lizzie join us!"

The group slowly calmed from the news, enough to go forward with the conversation and suggestions. Tango could barely breathe from both stress and relief. Thankfully nobody commented on him tearing up, ending up sobbing against Skizz's chest, fists balled in his shirt. The angel glanced at Xisuma before carefully nudging Tango and getting him to stand up, quietly escorting the netherborn out of the room to give them some privacy.

"Hey, it's okay. I just wanted to get you away from all the eyes. It's just us out here," Skizz reassured him. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yeah... Yeah, just- I'm so happy. It's probably just the hormones. I've been crying so much lately. I know it's only been like two weeks, but... I miss Jimmy." Tango sniffled and wiped at his eyes, looking deep into Skizz's blue ones. "Can I have a hug?"

Skizz immediately pulled the netherborn into a big embrace. "Of course you can, Top. You never have to ask with me."

They stayed out there for a little while longer, Tango sniffling occasionally as Skizz filled the silence with whatever he could think of, keeping it light hearted so Tango would stay happy and hopefully relaxed. Eventually, Skizz calmly asked, "do you want to go back in, or are you done with social interaction for today?"

Tango smiled timidly. "We can go back inside."

"Alright," Skizz smiled back reassuringly. He led Tango back to their seats and they quietly listened to the rest of the meeting. There were quite a few eyes that would flick over towards them on occasion, but nobody fully stared.

When Xisuma dismissed everyone, the four of them stayed sitting as the others all left the room. A few of them gave very brief congratulations to the group, but they could sense the tension and didn't stay to ask questions. Impulse leaned forward to look at Tango, past Skizz. "Hey, I hope you don't mind; I told them that we're having twins. A couple people asked why X said children instead of a singular child."

"That's fine," Tango dismissed. "Better that I didn't have to explain everything myself. I probably would have had a panic attack if X didn't get the message and say it for me."

"Xisuma immediately shut down any invasive questions," Zedaph added.

"Why? What did they say?" Tango asked nervously.

"Somebody asked who the mother was," Impulse supplied. "X just politely shut them down, saying something about there being all fathers. I think it was Ren? I can tell he didn't mean anything bad by it. I think he's just a little misinformed."

Zed chuckled softly, "Doc hit him upside the head for it."

"Hello, you four," Xisuma walked up to them with a smile. "Were you sticking around to speak with me?"

"Yeah," Tango spoke up somewhat awkwardly. "When is my next scan? I need some time to discuss something with these guys before then."

"Why don't we schedule it a few days after Jimmy arrives? Then you can all be there, and he'll have some time to get settled in first." Xisuma suggested.

"Sounds good." Tango nodded with a soft smile.

Chapter Text

Today was the day Jimmy officially became a hermit. He honestly never thought he'd get the chance, but here he was, standing in the hub with only a hotbar worth of belongings and a plastic bag in his hands. Candy floss colored hair stood in the lower left corner of his vision, a big swirling mass of bluish-purple standing ominously in front of them.

"You look nervous," Lizzie commented, elbowing the avian lightly.

"I just never thought me, of all people, would get to be a hermit," Jimmy paused for a moment, a soft frown gracing his features. "I don't think they would have invited me if it weren't for the circumstances."

"Oh yeah," Lizzie smiled brightly up at him. "Congratulations by the way. All this talk about babies almost makes me want to have one." She chuckled.

Jimmy looked at her with surprise, her cheeks dusted a very faint pink.

"Just some baby fever. Every girl gets it when they think about cute little babies." She quickly dismissed. "I do hope I'll get to hold one though."

"That's mostly up to Tango," Jimmy shrugged. "It'll probably be at least a week or two after they're born before anyone can touch them but us. You know, parents instincts and all."

"That sounds perfectly reasonable." Lizzie turned her eyes back to the portal. "Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Jimmy offered, exhaling heavily. The pink haired woman looped an arm around his and pulled him through with her, before he could think too hard about it.

On the other side of the portal, the two were greeted by a small group. Lizzie let go of Jimmy's arm to immediately run at her husband, Joel catching her in his arms with a little "woah" as he was thrown off balance. The avian barely had time to register much else before he was being roughly grabbed and yanked down to be eye level with a rather pissed off looking parrot.

"I can't believe you!" Grian's wings flapped as he brought his face up closer to Jimmy's. "I can't believe you didn't tell me you're having kids!" His expression split into a massive grin and he threw his arms around his cousin in an aggressive hug. "My little Timmy is gonna be a dad!"

Jimmy laughed awkwardly, slightly sweating from the scare of a seemingly angry Grian. "Uh, yeah. It wasn't really my secret to tell. I'm not exactly the one that's pregnant." He timidly tried to pull out of the tight embrace, receiving a quick squeeze before the other let go.

"Alright. Break it up, you two," Skizz stepped up beside them and placed one hand on each of their shoulders, lightly giggling, knowing they weren't actually fighting.

"Come here Jiggles." He let go of Grian's shoulder to pull Jimmy into a brief hug of his own. "Top's been talking about you nonstop lately. We better go find him before he gets upset that you didn't immediately spawn in front of him."

"Oh, Skizz, while you're here," Grian spoke up before they took off. "I wanted to know if you guys had any ideas for like, a baby shower or a gender reveal party or something. I assume you haven't planned anything, because everything seemed so vague at the meeting. I just know that I and a few other hermits want to give you gifts for the future babies, and didn't know if you wanted to throw a party at some point?"

Skizz glanced at Jimmy, then back to Grian. "We'll talk about it." He assured, giving a single nod before taking off with a big flap of his wings. Jimmy quickly followed.

The door of their base opened to a ranting Tango and slightly worried looking Zedaph, who was sat on the couch, Tango pacing back and forth.

"-if he got trapped or glitched or-"

"Tango!"

The blaze whipped around at the voice he had missed so badly, immediately throwing himself at the avian. Jimmy stumbled upon catching him in his arms, wings flaring out for balance and accidentally hitting the door frame, causing him to wince. Tango pulled back just enough to lightly hit his fists against Jimmy's chest.

"Why did you take so long? You scared me," the netherborn pouted up at his taller boyfriend.

"I'm sorry, Rancher. Grian pretty much attacked me as soon as I showed up. I came as fast as I could, I promise." The avian cooed softly, placing a kiss on Tango's forehead.

Tango nodded slightly before burying his face against Jimmy's chest. He audibly sniffled, voice muffled as he let out an annoyed, "stupid hormones."

His boyfriends lightly chuckled at the now common complaint. Tango whined in reply, grabbing onto Jimmy's shirt and pulling him further into the house. "Come cuddle. You owe me for making me all worried about you."

Jimmy sighed with a smile. "Of course, Rancher. Bed or couch?"

"Bed," Tango huffed, leading them into his bedroom and falling onto the sheets dramatically. Jimmy giggled happily and fell partially on top of him, using his arms so he wouldn't actually be putting any of his weight on Tango. The blaze squeaked cutely, quickly falling into purrs as Jimmy cuddled up beside him and ran cool fingers through his hair. He wrapped his arms around the avian in return, nuzzling his face into the crook of his neck.

Vaguely remembering what he had meant to ask Jimmy right away, Tango mumbled a simple, relaxed, "we all need to talk later. Nap first though."

As if the word 'nap' had offended them, Tango felt the slight whooshing of movement in his abdomen and groaned softly, followed by a heavy sigh.

"What's wrong?" Jimmy continued to soothingly pet through his hair but pulled back slightly to look at his face.

"Stupid babies don't like the idea of a nap, apparently," Tango huffed. "I swear, every time I try to sleep they suddenly want to move around. I had barely even felt them all day so far. Now that I mention a nap, they're swiping at my flesh."

Jimmy cooed gently, lowering his free hand to rest it lightly against Tango's baby bump, rubbing tiny circles through his shirt. "Why don't you let your papa sleep?"

That startled a short laugh out of Tango. "Baby, I don't think they can hear you."

Jimmy pouted. He pulled back and lowered himself so his face was level with the twins and repeated, "Please let your papa sleep."

Tango burst into laughter then. Between giggles he managed to get out, "that's not- what I meant- Jimmy!"

The avian joined in with a small chuckle. He shrugged playfully. "Worth a shot."

Tango lightly pushed his shoulder. "Oh shut up, you."

Chapter Text

"So, what was it that we needed to talk about?" Jimmy chimed in once they were all mostly done with their dinner.

"Oh, right." Tango set down his plate to speak with his hands, like he usually did. "I briefly talked with Zed about the twins possible sexes. I personally don't really care either way, but I wanted to know if any of you guys really wanted to find out if the twins are boys or girls or whatever. It should be possible to find out really soon, according to what X told me."

There were quite a few glances spared between each other before Jimmy decided to speak up. "I like the idea of it being a surprise, but it's okay if I'm outvoted on this one."

"No, I agree," Skizz put in. "I like having something to guess about. It's more fun that way."

Impulse hummed in thought for a short moment. "I thought it would be easier to decide on names, but we can always just get our top picks for either gender."

Zed smiled, "I see no difference either way. Keeping it a secret works fine for me."

"Guess I'm outvoted," Impulse shrugged. "That's okay. I get the intrigue of having it be a secret. Maybe we can each take a guess and see who wins."

"Probably me. Pregnancy intuition or whatever," Tango brags jokingly. "I'll let 'suma know we made our decision." He pulls out his comm to type out a quick message, putting it away as soon as it shows as sent.

"Oh, by the way," Skizz raises his hand as he speaks, to gather attention. "I was asked if we were going to do a baby shower or not. I figured it would mostly be up to you, Tango, since you would be the center of attention."

Tango sighed, thinking for a moment. "I don't know." His tail swished back and forth nervously. "I think... As long as you guys are all there, then maybe? I don't want everyone staring at my stomach. I know people are going to anyways, whenever I'm out in public, but I feel like a party is just a massive open invitation to stare at me. I'm not ashamed of the babies or anything, I just don't really like thinking about it too much. The fact that I'm physically pregnant, I mean."

"I get that," Skizz reassured. "We definitely don't have to. I was just asked because there are apparently a lot of hermits that have gifts regarding the twins."

Tango hummed in understanding. He shifted in his seat, a soft frown on his face. "I'll think about it. For now, I'm thinking no, but that could change. We'll just play it by ear, yeah?" His boyfriends nodded.

The rest of the night and the following few days went by fast. Tango and Xisuma had a bit of a back and forth over messages, and now was officially the scheduled time for his next scan.

The netherborn basically flopped down on the bed, receiving a mostly visible smile and fond head shake from X. His boyfriends all arrived with him this time, sidling up against the wall and next to the bed.

"Alright, you know how this goes by now," Xisuma started.

"Yep," Tango popped the p at the end. He pulled up his shirt and laid down, giving access to his now somewhat big baby bump. It was mostly coverable with his new baggy shirts, but still noticeable if you knew what you were looking for, which everybody did now anyways.

"Perfect," Xisuma approved casually. He removed his gloves and gently placed his hand against Tango's skin, an image flicking into existence on the wall opposite of his boyfriends. "So, we're mostly just looking for growth at this point, since you said you didn't want to know the sexes. As you can see, right here, is baby one. They seem to be growing quite well. In fact, it's a little more difficult to get baby two into view with how much they've grown." You could hear the smile in Xisuma's voice. "But you can just barely see -if I switch angles here- there they are. They do seem to be growing slightly slower than their sibling, although it is difficult to tell their exact rate of growth since they are largely hidden in the back there."

"Is that bad?" Jimmy asked quietly.

"No, not necessarily. I'd just recommend staying warm and making sure that you are getting enough nutrients to support both babies. Remember to keep your diet healthy and varied. Just to be safe, we should schedule another scan in a couple weeks to check for fetal growth restrictions. This can be rather common with multiple pregnancies, even if the twins are fraternal, so we just want to monitor them closely from here on out. Okay?"

Tango nodded. "How can I make sure they get enough nutrients?"

"Just watch what you are eating in terms of nutritional value. There isn't much more you can do if this does come down to fetal growth restrictions. If it turns out to be something more complicated, I'm afraid I might have to hand your care over to a professional from the hub. Don't worry too much though. Like I said, this is a common issue, and unless it is severe it should be perfectly fine to just let things happen naturally."

Tango could feel the nerves bubbling up inside of him but tried to respond calmly. The blaze baby could be in danger. What if the angel is stealing all of the nutrients from the other? What if they don't grow any bigger? What if they die?

A hand softly rested on Tango's shoulder, grounding him a little and making him realize that he had started breathing faster.

"X just said that this is a common occurrence, right?" Impulse assured. "Nothing to be too worried about."

"They are only slightly smaller," Xisuma confirmed. "It's unlikely that this is anything severe. The concern I'm mentioning is far more common in identical twins. I only wanted to bring it up so that you would be prepared, just in case."

"See? It'll all be okay," Impulse lightly ran his fingers through Tango's hair to help him relax a little.

"Okay... Right..." Tango took some deep breaths to try to calm down. "Nothing severe..."

"If it eases your nerves a little, I will say that baby one does seem to be growing very, very well. And I don't see anything immediately concerning about either of them. Overall, they both look quite healthy." Xisuma carefully removed his hand and fidgeted with the scanner device a bit. "I can print out some of the images if you'd like."

"I want one, actually." Zed spoke up politely. He smiled widely when Tango looked up at him, and proudly declared, "I plan on making a scrap book."

That made Tango smile. He turned back towards Xisuma with a more calm sigh. "Can we have two?"

"Of course," X happily nodded, fidgeting with the device some more. "It will take a little for me to get them printed, but I will have them for you later today."

"What's the second one for?" Jimmy asked curiously.

"So you guys can parade around and brag about the twins," Tango half-joked. "Genuinely though, I thought it would be nice to have something physical to show people if you guys wanted to. I'm okay with that. Honestly, it would kind of take the attention away from me specifically, which would be nice."

"That makes sense," Jimmy sympathized. "Grian will probably bother me for a picture sooner or later. He's really getting into this whole uncle thing."

"Gosh, he would be the most chaotic uncle ever. Nobody let him babysit the twins alone," Skizz joked, "he'll just teach them how to be mini Grians."

"Oh geez," Impulse chuckled, shaking his head.

Chapter Text

Zedaph stood with a large pad of paper, dark marker in hand, as Tango and their other partners sat in the main room of his base. The sheep hybrid pointed at the paper with his capped marker. "Alright! Names!"

There was a somewhat awkward moment of silence, as if everyone was nervous to speak up. After a little bit, Zed sighed. "Okay, well, how about something traditional? Gabriel or Gabriela maybe?"

Skizz immediately shook his head, "all the Gabriel's I knew growing up were so full of themselves. Jerks, all of them."

"What about Michael? Ariel?" Zed countered.

"Maybe we avoid the traditional angel names," Skizz requested, looking mildly uncomfortable.

"Okay," Impulse dismissed for them all. "Tango, any traditional blaze names?"

"Honestly, I wouldn't know," Tango shrugged. "I remember very little from my time in the nether. Just random specific things, for some reason. My brain works in weird ways."

"What about a mix of the two? Something like Phoenix? Like a winged blaze sort of thing," Jimmy suggested.

"Oh, I like that one," Zed agreed, writing it down on the paper.

"What about something like Flare or Flicker for the little blaze?" Impulse offered.

Tango sat up straighter, noticeably smiling wide. "Ooh, or Shimmer for a girl? That could work for either of them."

"Aw, what if we did something like Starlight? That would be so cute," Skizz piped up.

Tango hummed at that one, "sounds more like a term of endearment rather than a name. Maybe more like... Nova? That's sort of similar in meaning."

Zedaph quietly gasped to himself. "Oh, I know you said no traditional angel names, but what about Celeste? It's just so precious, and it means 'heavenly' or like 'from heaven'."

Skizz gently sighed, "alright, I'll admit that one's pretty cute. I never actually met many Celeste's."

"Not that well known, but I've heard the name Seraphina has something to do with fire and angels, or something like that at least," Impulse shrugged.

"This sounds like a lot of girl names," Jimmy noted. "What about for a boy?"

"You're right," Zedaph nodded, after he finished writing down a bunch of different names that were mentioned. "Some less feminine names are in order."

"Ember, maybe?" Tango put forward. "It's more of a neutral name."

"Ash or Asher could be good." Jimmy hummed.

"It doesn't mean anything special like those other ones, but how about Kai? I've just kinda always liked that name." Skizz offered somewhat quietly.

They went on for a long time, taking a break in the middle to refresh their brains and come back to the previous names, as well as to see if any new ones suddenly came to mind. They remade the list multiple times; adding names, shortening the list, then adding more and shortening it again. By the end they still had quite a big list and decided to come back to it another day and see if they changed their minds.

Tango was alone in his base, staring down their most recent list in thought when there was a knock on the door. He sighed and set the list down, giving a slightly annoyed huff once he stood up, resting his hand over the twins briefly. He dropped the hand to open the door and was surprised to find Gem standing there, furrowing his eyebrows slightly. Pearl was also standing nearby.

"What's up?" Tango questioned. "I wasn't expecting anyone to visit."

"Hi Tango!" Gem beamed. "Is anyone else here?"

"No?" Tango looked behind himself like that fact would change just by glancing into the otherwise empty base. "Just Pearl behind you."

"That's okay," Gem moved her hands behind her back as she talked. "I wanted to talk to you about something privately."

"Alright, come in then, I guess."

Chapter Text

Tango stepped aside, opening the door a little wider. He quickly scooped up the notebook from his couch and closed it so she wouldn't snoop. He didn't need more people confusing him further on what names he genuinely liked and what straight up stopped looking like real names from staring at them too much.

Gem happily entered. As soon as the door shut, she immediately cut to the chase. "I want to have a baby too."

Tango was slightly startled at the confession. "Oh, uh, okay? Are you sure? Why are you coming to me about it?"

"Well, I figured you could give some advice?"

"Advice..." Tango repeated. "Like what?"

"Well... What's it like being pregnant? Is it horrible? Just tolerable? Anything I would need to know?"

Tango blew out a heavy breath. That was certainly a loaded question. What is it like being pregnant? Surely it would be easier for her, being a cis woman. Unless it wouldn't? Everyone's bodies work differently, right? He didn't get morning sickness, but maybe she would. Not to mention that he was having twins, not just a normal, single baby pregnancy.

"Tough question," Tango muttered quietly. He thought for another moment before coming up with a good response. "For me, it's not that bad physically, but I can't speak for everyone. Keep in mind that I'm having twins, so it's a bit more complicated than you would have. Thinking about the end to -uh- this," he vaguely gestured at his baby bump, "is pretty terrifying. My symptoms aren't terrible, but I'm constantly tired and kind of cold, and my body is starting to ache quite a bit. The good parts?" The blaze paused. "I guess it's just nice looking forward to getting to hold them. Personally, I don't really see a whole lot positive about the whole 'being pregnant' part. Though, I will admit it's kind of nice getting special treatment from my boyfriends." Tango chuckled lightly.

Gem hummed in thought. "That doesn't sound too bad. I could handle that."

"Your symptoms could be worse though," Tango reminded her. "I got lucky with no morning sickness. Don't just rush into this."

"Oh, it's okay. I've already thought about it a lot. Pretty much since you first told me you were pregnant. I know it would be kind of hard as a single mom, but I also know everyone would be happy to help. 'It takes a village' and all that. I know for a fact that Pearl would be dying to help take care of the baby for me. Probably Etho too. He acts like he wouldn't, but I know that he's just a big softy inside." Past her outward appearance of eagerness, Gem looked serious about this. The blaze could tell she was being honest about thinking about it a lot already.

"If you're sure, I certainly won't stop you. In fact, it would probably be nice. 'Give the twins someone else to play with once they're old enough. It might take some of the eyes off of me too." Tango thought for just a moment, confusion arising, and he was sure to pick his next words carefully. "Do you have a plan on how you're gonna get pregnant? You said you'd be a single mom. Do you have a donor picked out?"

"I haven't quite gotten that far yet, but I had a couple ideas..." Gem finally looked hesitant for a moment. "That's partly why I came to you-"

"Me?" Tango furrowed his eyebrows. "How am I supposed to help? You do realize I'm the one that's pregnant, right?"

"Obviously I don't mean you directly," Gem rolled her eyes. "There are only a few people I would really trust with this and... I felt like I needed your approval. It sounds silly, but it seemed like the right thing to do, at least at first. I just- I want to ask Impulse. I really trust him, and I know he is clearly open to fathering a baby since he's gonna be a dad already with the twins, and... I think he'd make cute kids." She admitted shyly. "Obviously I don't expect him to come live with me and the kid or anything. It would just be like a regular donor situation."

Tango nodded in understanding. "I would have thought you'd ask Etho, to be honest."

"Oh, I already did. Apparently he physically can't get people pregnant." Gem shrugged. "Bdubs was there, and he offered instead. He seemed kind of upset when I turned him down, but I don't really trust him to that extent, you know? I didn't ask anyone else yet. Impulse is actually my second option. I just feel kind of awkward asking a taken person to father my future children without their partners' knowledge and consent."

"Well, that's all up to Impulse, not me. I don't have a problem with it. I trust you, and I know it's not like he's cheating or anything. If you want, I can gather all of us together so you can ask and get everyone's opinion at once. 'Make things a bit easier?"

Gem smiled softly, "I would really appreciate that. I don't want anyone not knowing and getting upset about it. My intentions aren't to steal Impulse from you guys or anything."

"I know," Tango calmly reassured. "I'll send you a message the next time we're all together, and you can come ask him yourself. I promise I won't say anything to them before you get the chance. Don't forget to talk to X, too. He has to remove the blocker and all that."

"Already ahead of you. I talked to 'Suma about it the other day."

"Great," Tango smiled politely. "Anything else you need from me, while you're here?"

"Not really," Gem shrugged. "You wanna hang out though? I've got nothing to do for the rest of the day."

"I'm not that exciting to hang out with lately," Tango huffed a quiet laugh. "The twins are kinda holding me down. They've been pretty active today."

"Aw, you can feel them kicking?"

"I wouldn't call it kicking; just sort of rolling around or something. It doesn't hurt, it's just a little annoying sometimes. You can't feel it from the outside." Tango shook his head.

"Darn it, I was gonna ask if I could feel." Gem commented playfully, chuckling. "I suppose I can't get too upset if I'm going to be joining you soon."

"I guess so," Tango chuckled lightly.

Chapter Text

Tango was getting pretty far along now. The twins only seemed to keep growing, bringing pain with them as the weight became a strain on the blaze's body. He was rather exhausted from building due to boredom. His back and feet ached as he collapsed onto the couch. He was spending a lot of time there lately.

Thankfully, he had Jimmy living with him since he arrived on Hermitcraft. The avian happily took care of Tango whenever he needed it, insisting that the netherborn relax and not do too much work. He tried to argue a little when Tango decided that he wanted to do something productive for once, but pretty quickly gave in so long as Tango promised not to push himself too hard and let himself be taken care of right afterwards.

His youngest boyfriend sat behind him and coaxed him into a relaxed position before wordlessly starting to give him a massage. Tango melted into the touch as his aching muscles got gradually soothed. He knew his other boyfriends planned on coming over soon and quietly requested Jimmy hand him his communicator.

"Who are you messaging?" Jimmy asked calmly, continuing to work at the tense muscles in his back.

"Gem," Tango muttered distractedly, typing out a private message, letting her know that they would all be together soon. "She said she wants to come over and talk to us about something."

"Okay," Jimmy just accepted the answer. Though he seemed rather curious about why, he didn't ask, which Tango was grateful for.

There was a brief knock on the door to announce their presence before Impulse and Skizz invited themselves inside. Skizz smiled softly at the sight. "Aw, the twins giving you some trouble?"

"Just sore," Tango sighed. "The added weight is starting to get to me."

"I can understand that," Skizz replied, joining them on the couch. "They're getting pretty big." He hovered his hand near Tango's stomach, resting it gently against the twins once he was given the okay to do so.

Impulse took a detour into the kitchen and Tango could hear him start to heat up some water, no doubt making Tango a cup of calming tea.

Zedaph took a little while longer to arrive, but still managed to show up before Gem. He helped Impulse bring out a few cups of tea to share before perching himself on the arm of the couch. Impulse took the chair as usual.

"So, have you thought some more about the names we picked out?" Zed prompted.

Tango sighed quietly. "I've been looking at the list a lot, but it's really hard to pick the best ones when I don't know what the twins are gonna be like."

"Yeah-" Zed was cut off as there was another knock at the door. "Were you expecting anyone?"

"Oh, yeah, that'll be Gem. She wanted to come over and talk to us," Tango calmly explained. "You can let her in." He didn't want to move himself as Jimmy was still lightly massaging his shoulders.

Zedaph got up and went to open the door. "Hi Gem! Come in, come in." He opened the door wider, stepping out of the way to let her in.

Gem happily entered, standing relatively in the middle of the room, rather than joining them in sitting around. Zedaph retook his seat, perched on the arm of the couch.

"What's up, Gemmy Bemmy?" Skizz asked with a bright and friendly smile.

Tango noticed Gem somewhat nervously fidgeting with the bottom of her shirt, but didn't point it out, sparing her the dip in morale. Gem cleared her throat to sound more collected and confident.

"I wanted to ask you all something very important," Gem started, catching everyone's undivided attention. "I have decided that I also want to have a baby. However, as you may already know, I am single. That being said, I need someone else to create a baby with, obviously. After thinking about this quite a lot, I wanted to ask if you wanted to be my donor... Impulse?"

The others turned to him, causing the demon to quickly flush and stammer over his response. "Me? A-are you sure?"

Gem nodded resolutely. "Very. Like I said, I've thought about this a lot already. I trust you, Impulse. I know you won't do anything to hurt me or the future child. You don't even need to be there once I'm pregnant. You can just be my donor and then we never bring it up again, if you want. You have your own future kids to worry about. I've got plenty of really good friends to help take care of mine. What do you say?"

"I- what- what if the baby turns out to be a- a demon, like me?" Impulse stumbled over his words a little, clearly embarrassed that he was considered an optimal donor, but also genuinely concerned.

"Then they will be a very cute demon," Gem assured with a shy smile.

"You wouldn't mind?" Impulse asked softly.

"Would you?" She countered.

"I- well, no, I guess not. I'm just worried you might get upset. What if the baby looks nothing like you, and just looks like me?"

"I'd be okay with that," Gem reassured. "At the end of the day, they'd still be my baby. It doesn't matter what they look like. If they happen to look a lot like you, then they look a lot like you. It's not like you're unattractive or anything. Even if you were, that would still be okay, because you're a great person and I trust you." She repeated.

Impulse let out a heavy breath. "I think I need some time to think this through. I-it's nothing against you, Gem. I just... Don't know how I'd feel having a kid that is, but also isn't, mine."

"That's kind of what is already happening," Tango added in when it got quiet for a moment. "Technically the twins aren't biologically yours, but you're still going to be their dad. It's just the other way around."

"And you can still spend a lot of time with them if you want," Gem offered with a slight blush. "I just don't want to force you to have to be in my child's life, if it's too much, with you already having the twins and all. I'm not saying you have to act like the future baby isn't yours. I think it would be easier on you to just focus on the twins, rather than trying to stay with me all the time. I've already got Pearl, and Etho, and Grian, and so many others. You can be one of those people if you want, I'm just saying that you don't have to."

"Let me sleep on it," Impulse requested calmly. "I need some time to turn it over in my head."

"That's okay," Gem nodded. "It doesn't have to be too soon. Just think about it, okay?"

"I will."

"Is -uh," Gem nervously looked about the others in the room. "Is everyone else okay with this idea? If Impulse decides to say yes?"

"I think it's sweet," Zed replied softly.

"You already have my okay," Tango reiterated. Jimmy just nodded with a gentle smile.

"It's all up to Dipple Dop," Skizz answered with a light pat on Impulse' shoulder.

"Thanks," Gem sighed quietly in relief. "Just- get back to me once you've thought about it some more." She smiled reassuringly. "I'll -uh- I'll let you go for now. Thanks for hearing me out."

They politely wished Gem a good rest of the day and Tango promised that somebody would get back to her soon, while also making sure that Impulse didn't feel rushed about it. Tango lightly rested a hand on Impulse' shoulder to get his attention. "How do you feel about all that, Impulse? I know that was a lot."

"I-" Impulse sighed heavily. "I think I need some alone time. Thank you for being there, but I really want to consider this whole thing on my own, without any sort of outside influence."

"We totally understand," Tango answered for them all. He gestured the demon closer and gave him a soft peck on the lips. "Take all the time you need. I love you."

"Love you too, Tango." Impulse placed a kiss goodbye against his forehead, while resting a hand over the twins, before leaving for a quiet place to think.

Chapter Text

It was a couple day later, when they were in the middle of eating a dinner of mushroom soup (a common occurrence now, as it was one of Tango's cravings), that Impulse set down his spoon and calmly announced: "I've made up my mind."

"You have?" Skizz prompted, sounding confused, probably forgetting whatever it was that Impulse was constantly thinking about lately.

Impulse nodded slightly. "I'm going to tell Gem yes."

"Good for you," Jimmy offered, not completely sure how else to respond.

"I'm glad you took the time to really think about it," Tango reassured, sipping at his refilled bowl. "I know Gem will be very happy."

"I hope so..." Impulse smiled softly to himself. There was a lull in their conversation following that.

"Speaking of making up our minds," Skizz started, breaking the silence and looking directly at Tango. "Have you gotten a chance to think about the whole baby shower idea?"

"Oh yeah, that," Tango sighed. He mindlessly stirred the soup with his spoon. "Still a hard maybe. I just don't know about all the eyes. If there is some sort of thing that can take some of the attention away from me alone... Actually, I think I want to talk to Gem about it. Maybe we can do it later, once she's also pregnant, so it won't be all eyes on me?"

"That's a good idea," Jimmy agreed.

"I'm sure she'd be happy to do that," Skizz added with a smile. "Or at least, if it's too early for her to be doing something like that, maybe she could use the shower as a chance to announce her pregnancy. That'll really take the eyes off you for a little while."

"Yeah," Tango nodded. "Yeah, you're right. It'll probably be weird for her to do a baby shower so early, or me so late, considering I'm already over half way through."

"Oh yeah, what is it, around twenty four weeks now?" Jimmy asked.

"Twenty five," Zed corrected. "I've been keeping track. The next ultrasound is in a week, to check on growth and possible defects."

Tango quietly sighed. "I'm worried about the whole defects thing. I know he said they're only slightly different, but what if there is something wrong with the baby blaze?"

"Then we'll figure out how to deal with it together," Skizz reassured, placing a hand over Tango's. "Expect the best, prepare for the worst, right?"

"Right," Tango stared down into his mostly empty bowl. He picked up the bowl and quickly drank what was left, setting it back down and standing up. "I think I need to lie down for a bit."

"Do you want someone to come with you?" Jimmy asked, wings fluttering anxiously. "You don't have to deal with this alone."

"I know... I just need some time to myself. I promise I'm okay," Tango nodded, heading off to go lay in his bed. He hadn't meant to, but ended up falling asleep for a little while.

He was awoken by a dull pain in his abdomen. Tango carefully sat up, eyebrows furrowed as he layed a hand on his stomach. He was starting to think he'd imagined it when he suddenly felt a light hit against the side of his baby bump. Tango's eyes widened slightly and he moved his hand to that area. He had to wait a little before he felt it again, and noticed with delight that he could feel it against his hand. "Zed! Jimmy! Guys! Come quick!"

Tango was absolutely beaming when Jimmy whipped around the corner, the slight panic in his eyes rapidly fading at the expression on his boyfriend's face. "What's going on?"

"Come here!" Tango gestured him closer, quickly grabbing his wrist once it was within reach and holding his hand firmly against the spot he felt kicking. Jimmy's eyes widened as he realized what was going on, pressing his own hand slightly harder against Tango's belly. The others had followed in and all had various looks of anticipation across their faces.

Finally, he felt it again. Jimmy gasped and his smile got even wider. He shifted his hand out of Tango's grasp to give him a big hug. "I felt it! Oh, they're so precious!"

"Let me feel! You promised," Zedaph pushed to the front, eyes sparkling with excitement. Tango giggled at his animated expression, but happily took Zed's hand and placed it where Jimmy's previously was. The sheep hybrid was practically vibrating in anticipation. He, too, gasped at the little kick and showered the babies with compliments like "good job", "you're so strong", and "I can't wait to see you!"

They each took a turn feeling, and by the end Tango was starting to get annoyed that the kicking just wouldn't stop. The kicks weren't particularly strong, but he was still starting to ache from the repeated movements. "Okay, okay! That's enough- ow. Wow, you're persistent."

His partners chuckled softly at his predicament. Skizz knelt down beside the bed and gently rested both his hands against the baby bump. He soothingly shushed the kicking twin, cooing softly like a dove. The rest of the room went silent. After a moment of the quiet noise, the kicking stopped.

Tango sighed softly in relief. "Thanks. I'm glad that worked. I might need you on standby," he half-joked. "That was starting to hurt a little."

"I've heard that bird noises are soothing to babies and kids with wings," Skizz said with a smile. "Jimmy could probably do it too."

"Not exactly that noise," Jimmy conceded. "I'm a songbird, not a dove. But I can still coo if that'll help. I'm always here to keep you and the twins happy."

"I think I might start staying over, too, soon. We all could, once you need more help," Skizz reassured. "We don't want you hurting yourself." The others nodded in agreement, and Tango quietly sighed in resignation. He really didn't want to rely on others for basic stuff, but he knew he would have to before this was all over. The twins would only keep growing and he was already at a point where he couldn't quite bend over as much as he used to.

This is fine, Tango told himself, I'll get over it.

Chapter Text

Planning for the baby shower felt largely uneventful to Tango. Zedaph and Jimmy seemed to be having a blast, though, so he let them go wild with their ideas before eventually telling them to tone it down just a little. There were many theme ideas tossed around, but nothing really stuck, just ending up with a basic pink and blue "baby" theme. The party was planned to be held in the Hermitcraft meeting room. They would take down the big table and replace it with some smaller tables for activities, and so people could mingle better.

The activities and games would take up a good portion of the party, then they would open gifts and Gem would give her announcement. Non-alcoholic beverages and snacks would be provided to enjoy whenever people wanted. Of course, any and all alcohol would not be allowed, as the shower was to celebrate literal babies. Besides, Gem and Tango both couldn't drink, so it wouldn't feel very fair.

It had only been a couple weeks since they decided to even have a party to begin with. A date hadn't even been chosen yet, but they were pretty set on a few ideas now.

The ultrasound a week ago went over easy as they were assured the twins had no prominent defects. The blaze was simply smaller and that was fine. They are healthy, that's all that matters.

Tango sighed and leaned back, letting himself melt into the couch where they were going over game ideas.

Jimmy smiled affectionately and lightly rubbed Tango's shoulder. "Yeah, I think that's enough for today. Why don't you just relax and I'll go make us some tea?" Tango nodded slightly, eyes drooping from boredom and a consistent mild fatigue. Plus, his back was aching a bit, from leaning over the coffee table.

Tango jumped at the sudden, loud knocking at the door. He groaned before yelling vaguely behind himself, "can someone else get it?"

"I got it!" Skizz hopped up from where he was sitting in the kitchen, swiftly making his way to the front door and opening it. Tango couldn't see past his boyfriend's large frame but he didn't need to as Skizz excitedly announced their visitor's name. "Gemstone! What's up Gemmy Bemmy?"

"Where's Impulse?" Gem spoke sternly, but not really angrily.

"Oh, uh, he's just in the other room. I'll go grab him. You stay here." Skizz left the door open as he walked into the bedroom. Gem turned to Tango and waved. He waved back tiredly. It didn't take long for Skizz to reemerge, Impulse right behind him.

"What's up Gem?" Impulse smiled softly at first, jolting with a brief "ow" when Gem lightly smacked his arm. "What was that for?"

"I'm not pregnant!" Gem huffed, crossing her arms stubbornly.

"Are you sure?" Skizz asked from the sidelines.

"Yes," Gem rolled her eyes. "I only took like a bunch of pregnancy tests." Her voice was tinted with sarcasm.

"Well, I'm sorry," Impulse replied indignantly. "I can't exactly magic you into being pregnant. That's not how this works. Are you asking to try again?"

"Obviously," Gem sighed. "Look, I wish this was easier. It's either we try again or we go spend a whole bunch of time and effort to do things the expensive, scientific way at the Hub, and I'd prefer to keep everything here on Hermitcraft."

"Alright, then we try again." Impulse gave her a shy smile. He briefly glanced around at his boyfriends, receiving a thumbs up from Tango, a nod from Jimmy, and Skizz patting him on the back.

"It's fine, Impulse," Tango reassured. "You already know we're all okay with it."

"I know," Impulse sighed. "Gem, we will get you a baby. I promise."

"Good. You better," Gem joked, putting her hands on his arms. "I trust you, Impulse. We can do this. See you tonight?"

"Okay," Impulse smiled, "tonight."

Gem patted his arm before letting him go and turning to leave. "Bye guys!" She called as she left. Impulse sighed once she was out of sight and the door was closed.

"What's on your mind, Impy? You sound upset," Tango noted, accepting a cup of tea from Jimmy.

"It's just... I've never been tested before. What if I can't have kids? Like, it's just not possible." Impulse shook his head, frowning.

"Then we work through that together, like we always do," Skizz answered, giving him a side hug.

"I just hate letting her down."

"I know, but it'll be okay. She'll understand, if it comes to that. Don't beat yourself up. Some people will take months trying for kids. It doesn't always happen on the first go. I mean, look at us! If this was possible since the first life game, we made it quite a while before anything happened. All of Last Life? Come on! Top should've been knocked up a long time ago."

"Hey! We didn't have that much sex during Last Life!" Tango protested.

"Mhmm, you keep telling yourself that," Skizz joked, giggling a little. Tango stuck his tongue out at him in retaliation.

"If you wanna go there, then I should've gotten pregnant during Double Life if anything," Tango countered with a smirk.

Jimmy immediately flustered, stammering. "Now hold on just a second! My sex drive isn't that crazy!"

"I don't know, Jiggles. He's got a point," Skizz teased with a wink.

"Why am I being brought into this?" Jimmy shoved his face in his hands, blushing deeply.

"Because you're cute when you're flustered," Tango flirted, pulling Jimmy's hands away to kiss his cheek.

"Well," Impulse sighed. "Second time's the charm, right?"

"You'll do great," Skizz lightly clapped his upper back. "Now C'mon, let's go cuddle or something. Top?"

"Gimme a minute. I don't wanna get up right now," Tango waved them off. "You two go enjoy your cuddle time. I'll be here on the couch."

"Nuh, uh. You're coming with us," Skizz walked over to the couch and held his arms out. Tango sighed but relented, nodding lightly and letting Skizz pick him up bridal style. He nuzzled under the angel's chin as he was carried to the bedroom.

Tango was laid softly down in the middle of the bed before Skizz nudged Impulse to lay next to him, then climbed in on the other side of Impulse. Jimmy slid in behind Tango, never one to turn down a good cuddle. Tango's tail coiled around Impulse's leg and he draped am arm over him, Jimmy's arm snaking around himself and resting a hand on his bump.

Chapter Text

The next few weeks flew by. Tango was a little less than ten weeks out from his due date and he was feeling massive. The baby shower was tomorrow and Tango was feeling particularly crappy about himself. The last thing he wanted was to have everyone staring at him.

The blaze stared into the bathroom mirror as he examined his distended stomach. He frowned softly as he traced a few stretch marks along the sides. He definitely didn't feel sexy, no matter how much his boyfriends told him otherwise. The twins were certainly giving him the run around with his body image issues. Not even the dysphoria, just general pregnancy things, like stretch marks and weight gain. Of course the dysphoria didn't go away, but it was somewhat put on the back burner now that he had other things to stress about with his appearance.

He was alone for now, but Zedaph was just past the bathroom door, in their bedroom. It was rare for him to get some true alone time lately. Not that he minded being around his partners, it was just getting annoying having to get help with nearly everything. He couldn't even get dressed by himself anymore. Void knows what he'll do if they get any bigger. He was already severely dreading the actual labor part of having kids, it certainly did not need to get any worse.

"Tango? Are you self deprecating again?" Zed called from beyond the door. Tango sighed but couldn't help the tiny chuckle that followed. His partners knew him too well. He was probably standing in front of the mirror for too long.

"Just thinking about the whole giving birth thing," Tango countered as he opened the door, unbothered by the fact he was naked, since he had just taken a shower. It wasn't anything his partners hadn't seen before. Besides, putting on pants by himself was tricky now.

Zed smiled sympathetically. "You'll do fine, Tango. We'll be right there with you the whole time. Now come here, let's get you dressed."

Tango tried to hide the upset that threatened to cover his features. He hated being dependent on others for simple tasks. "Yeah, alright," he relented, going over to the bed where he had previously picked out an outfit for the day. It wasn't anything special, since he had nowhere to be, just some sweatpants and a graphic tee that had a joke about redstone on it. He let Zedaph help him into his boxers and sweats before pulling the shirt on by himself.

"Can we do something productive today? I'm kinda sick of movies and tabletop games. Normally I'd love a good board game, but I feel like that's all that we've been doing lately," Tango complained.

"Okay, what do you mean by productive then? We could work on a small science project together. Some simple redstone work? Oh, you could help me brainstorm ideas for my next big project," Zed offered. "I'm thinking of making some more Zedvancements for next season."

Tango hummed softly. "Can we do something hands-on? I can still do redstone that's not too big, just... On a table or something, since I can't really bend down all the way."

"I'm sure we can think of something to make. Ooh, what about homemade baby monitors?" Zed brightened up at his idea.

Tango snapped his fingers with a grin. "That's actually a great idea! Nice thinking, Zed. Go grab some materials and I'll meet you in the kitchen."

"You got it!" Zed happily sped off to go find some redstone supplies, Tango calmly making his way to the kitchen as he did so.

They worked together on the monitors for a while before moving on to other mechanical stuff that they might need. Hours passed and Tango was getting antsy sitting down on a relatively uncomfortable dining chair. He opened his mouth to ask if they could move to the couch when a sudden sharp pain started in his abdomen. His jaw closed with a click of his teeth and he grit them stubbornly, so he wouldn't make noises of pain. He'd been getting cramps like this on rare occasions lately, but Xisuma assured him it was nothing to worry about. Just something called 'Braxton Hicks'. He described it as a sort of false labor; Tango's body getting ready to give birth or something.

"Tango? Everything okay?" Zed asked gently, concern creasing his eyebrows.

When the wave of pain stopped, Tango exhaled heavily and softly whined. "It's those stupid fake contractions again. I swear they're getting worse each time."

"Do you want to go lay down? I can call the others t-"

"No, it's fine. Don't bother them. I know they're all busy. Lets just... Let's go lay down together. They'll pass quickly." Tango pushed his seat back and stood, wincing at a quick jolt of pain that made him pause.

"Come on, Tango," Zed prompted gently. "We can cuddle up under the blankets and you can have a nice little nap once the pain stops." Tango nodded stiffly, following him into the bedroom and sliding onto the mattress. Zedaph climbed in beside him and wrapped him in his arms, soothingly rubbing a hand against his baby bump. Tango stubbornly rode through the cramps with his teeth clenched, pushing himself further into Zed's chest, tucking his legs up into a more comfortable position. He eventually fell asleep once the Braxton Hicks stopped, snuggling up to Zed, a hand to his partner's chest to feel his calm heartbeat.

Chapter Text

The party was... Kind of boring, honestly. At least they had sweets; mostly provided by Scar, as he seemed to be the main baker of the server. Tango was getting real tired of people asking if he was excited. Yes, and no. Excited to see the babies? Yes. Excited to give birth to the babies? No. It was his go to response, but after a while he started just saying "yes" to make things easier.

People were looking at him a lot, which he was a little anxious about, but his partners all helped to split the attention. They answered some questions for him and grouped people up to play some baby themed games together. A popular game included guessing the babies genders. Some of the hermits thought they were being sneaky, gambling and making deals about it that had real stakes. Tango didn't mind, though. Let them make all the deals they want, he didn't really have a preference.

Of course, the others were all hoping for one boy and one girl, but some were betting on both of one or the other. He overheard Scar and Bdubs making an agreement to give the other diamonds if they were both boys, bet by Bdubs, or both girls, bet by Scar. Grian jumped in to bet that the twins were going to be one of each, and they made a whole verbal contract for it.

Tango shook his head fondly at their antics. He was getting a bit tired, but he had to stick it out at least for the presents and Gem's announcement. Clearly noticing his growing fatigue, Skizz rounded up everyone's attention for the opening of presents next.

The hermits all settled in, watching the group as Impulse handed Tango the first smaller gift. It was labeled from Scar and wrapped neatly in pastel yellow wrapping paper, with a white bow. He was sure to smile at Scar directly before opening it. Inside the box was a pair of stuffed animals that looked an awful lot like Scar's new cats, Mr.Finnegan and Katy Bee, which made Tango chuckle softly. Of course he would. Beneath the stuffed animals, there was also a pair of cute baby hats with cat ears on them. Tango thanked Scar kindly before being handed the next gift.

Tango insisted that his boyfriends also take turns opening presents, after having to open three of them himself. They happily did as told, mostly opening the bigger gifts and letting Tango open the smaller, lighter ones. This of course led to Tango being the one to open most of the gifts with baby clothes in them. He was getting even more tired after opening most of the presents, pretty much ready to just go home and take a nice long nap.

Some of the most notable gifts were a pair of homemade cribs that Keralis and Ren worked together on, super soft baby swaddling blankets handmade by Cleo, and a fledgling grooming/preening kit for the baby angel's wings from Grian (along with a cheesy onsie that said "hand me to my uncle", which made Jimmy laugh).

Only two gifts were left, one from Xisuma and one from Gem, which they were instructed to open last. Tango gave X a tired smile as he opened the small box. Inside was a few bottles of powder, some labeled 'angel' and some labeled 'blaze', which made Tango look over at him questioningly.

"I know you're going to be bottle feeding the twins, and I wanted to make sure they got all the necessary nutrients and hormones that usually comes from chest feeding. Those are hybrid supplements to help make player based formula more specific to their needs." Xisuma explained with some positive hand gestures. Tango would later blame it on the hormones, but tears welled up in his eyes from how thoughtful the gift was.

He quickly wiped his face clean from the few tears that escaped and gave Xisuma a true, wide smile. Now all that was left was Gem's. Impulse handed the bag over with what Tango knew was pride in his smile.

He pulled out the tissue paper and found a few baby onsies on top, which he happily thanked her for. Underneath them was a plain, rectangular box. Tango pulled it out and read what the top of the box said aloud. "It says hand me to Gem," he recited, holding it out towards the crowd.

Gem stood up and happily took the box, opening it and pulling out a rather familiar looking pink and white stick of plastic. Tango gave her a reassuring, proud smile as she held it up with a wide grin.

"I'm pregnant too," She happily announced. The other hermits seemed shocked but quickly switched to congratulations and some clapping. Tango joined the clapping to show he wasn't at all upset by her taking the spotlight. She turned around and gave Tango a somewhat awkward side hug, since he was sitting down while she was standing.

Skizz announced the end of present opening, saying that they could stick around and mingle for as long as they liked, but Tango was getting rather tired and the two of them would be heading back to their base to rest. The other three stayed to continue answering any questions and celebrating with the rest of them. Skizz and Tango both gave Gem their congratulations as they were leaving.

"Proud of you, Gemstone," Skizz whispered to the newly expecting hermit, giving her a big hug before parting ways. Together, him and Tango made their way home and Tango practically collapsed onto their bed, wincing as one of the twins kicked his bladder in protest. He groaned in annoyance and buried his face in a pillow. As much as he already loved his babies, he could definitely do without the cramps and constant moving around all the time.

Skizz joined the blaze in bed, placing his hands over the twins and cooing softly like a dove, which did get them to relax after a moment. "Just long enough for your papa to take a nap, okay? It's been a long day for him."

Tango rolled his eyes, "you could say that again. After all that attention, they still want more from me. I can't wait to have them not beating up my body from the inside. At least then I can share the burden of them keeping me awake with everyone else."

"Oh, shut up. You love them," Skizz teased gently.

Tango sighed, "with every fiber of my being."

Chapter Text

Tango insisted that he help set up the nursery, despite being pretty limited in his movement due to the twins' size and weight. Instead, he was delegated as the manager, pretty much just pointing and telling his boyfriends what to do and where to put things. He only complained about this a little, then a cramp rippled through his abdomen and he relented.

Skizz and Jimmy were set to hanging things on the walls and putting little glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, since they were the tallest. Impulse was the one moving around furniture, with some help from Zedaph, who himself was taking care of the smaller items that would sit on shelves and such.

The cribs were placed near each other, on the same wall, with a small shelving unit next to them. On the opposite wall was the changing table, toy box, and a rocking chair. The third wall had the little dresser full of their onsies and other clothing items. Near the wall with the door was left empty for now; they might add something else to it later. The basic furniture was down and they had just started decorating when a particularly bad cramp hit Tango hard. He winced and leaned against the wall a bit, clenching his teeth, though he couldn't stop his initial cry of pain.

His partners all turned to him with concern but Tango did his best to wave them off, tail flicking in agitation. "Stupid fake contractions," he grumbled when they settled again. "I'm okay."

"Are you sure? We can take a break if you wanna go lay down," Jimmy suggested.

"No, no, I'm fine. It'll pass in a second," Tango insisted, breathing through the next wave.

"Maybe you should sit down. That one looked painful," Impulse spoke gently.

Tango shook his head in protest but yelped in pain when another cramp hit soon after the last one. His tail curled around his stomach protectively and he whimpered. "Okay, maybe you're right."

He let himself be led to the cushioned rocking chair in the room and settled down as comfortably as he could. Tango curled up a little around his large baby bump. He was in week 33 now, and the Braxton Hicks had been hitting him a lot the last couple days. Tango let the cramps pass over him with a bit of whining and deep breaths. Tears pricked at his eyes when another particularly bad wave hit and he suddenly found himself shaking from pain. Skizz and Zed were next to him in seconds, whispering gentle praises and helping ease him through the roughest of them.

Tango sobbed quietly, clutching onto Skizz' jacket when he felt something release inside of him. His eyes widened and he held on even tighter, feeling a warm liquid pooling onto the chair beneath him.

"No no no no-" Tango cried desperately. "I'm not ready! It's too early, I'm not ready!"

Zed straightened up and flipped into a more in charge voice. "Impulse, call Xisuma! Jimmy, go grab some towels! Quickly!"

The cramps- no, contractions only got worse. They already felt much too close together for anyone's liking.

"Skizz, help me get Tango to the bed," Zed instructed, securely holding onto Tango and helping him stand shakily. The blaze's legs buckled from the pain but Skizz quickly scooped him up into a bridal carry. He moved swiftly, gently laying Tango down on his back once they reached the bedroom. It was merely seconds when Impulse entered the room with Xisuma right behind him. He must have teleported.

X quickly rounded the bed and stood next to Tango, speaking kindly but clearly. "Tango, I need you to listen to me carefully."

"It's too early! I can't! X, it's too early!" Tango sobbed, his head falling to the side, tears streaming down his face.

"No, it's not. Twins can definitely come this early," Xisuma assured. He spoke sternly, but still tried to be as gentle as possible, to not stress anyone out further. "This is a safe timeframe for them to be born. Tango, you can do this. I need you to listen to your body. What feels most comfortable for you right now? Do you want to change positions?"

"No-" Tango gasped and whined at the next contraction. He blindly reached out his hand and Skizz quickly took it, only wincing a little at how tightly Tango immediately squeezed his hand.

"Okay, we can do it like this," Xisuma assured. "Zed, help him undress, I need to clearly see how far along he is." Zedaph immediately did as he was told, pulling off Tango's sweatpants and boxers with little assistance from Tango, who was too busy focusing on the sheer pain and rate of his contractions. Jimmy returned with his arms full of towels and Zed helped to get one underneath Tango's lower half to protect the bed a little.

"Okay," Xisuma had a bit of a shocked tone to his voice but covered it well. "I can see the head. That's good. Tango, on your next contraction I need you to push. It's going to hurt, but I promise it'll be over soon."

Tango sobbed but vaguely nodded his head. The next wave of pain hit him and Tango bared down as hard as he could. Had he been any stronger, he would have been literally crushing Skizz' hand. The wave subsided and Tango stopped pushing with a gasp. His chest rose and fell with ragged, heavy breaths.

"Good. I need you to do that again with the next one, okay?" Xisuma continued speaking calmly. He removed his gloves and held his hands down by the bed, over the towel. Tango couldn't find it in him to care how close Xisuma was to touching his thighs right now.

Another contraction hit and Tango pushed. He cried out loudly at the sheer pain that ripped through him. It felt like he was literally tearing apart. The pushing lasted longer this time but Tango collapsed all his weight back into the bed when there was a tiny bit of relief.

"Okay, the head is out. We just need to get past the shoulders. The rest should be much easier," Xisuma promised. His hands were officially touching what Tango assumed to be the first twin's skull, though he couldn't see what was going on down there at all. "Another big push, Tango."

Tango turned his head towards Skizz as this time he screamed. It somehow hurt even worse than the head, but he managed to get past the shoulders.

"Oh, okay, okay. Tango, listen to me carefully. Do not push until I say so," Xisuma said sternly.

"What's wrong?" Jimmy nervously asked, trying to look, though the sight down there made him mildly nauseous.

"The wing is stuck, but it's going to be okay," X reassured. "It's just in the wrong position to come out smoothly."

Suddenly, Xisuma's hands were touching Tango directly and he whimpered. The admin felt around and one of his fingers managed to carefully creep in beside the baby, gently moving them a little. Tango sobbed as another contraction hit and he did his best not to push, like he was told. Xisuma worked carefully but quickly.

"Okay, it won't come loose but there's still a safe option. I need to break the baby's wing to get it out. We can splint it immediately after and it should heal safely on its own." X spoke confidently, keeping the group calm about the undesirable outcome.

"Whatever you need to do," Skizz responded for them. "As long as Tango and the twins are alive and safe." The others immediately agreed, though Tango couldn't respond.

Ever so carefully, Xisuma worked as fast as he could, so the baby wouldn't be hurt further. He swiftly but firmly jerked his fingers in a precise movement to cleanly break the tiny, hollow bone, allowing the wing to lay limp and gently slide out beside the rest of the baby.

"One last push," Xisuma instructed. Tango immediately followed with the next contraction, gasping. He gulped down air desperately, panting from the pain and exertion as the first twin came free. Xisuma carefully pulled the baby close and used a fresh towel to clean around the mouth and nose, rubbing the baby for warmth until it eventually let out a loud cry. There was a collective breath of relief at the beautiful sound.

"You did it, Tango. A healthy baby girl," Xisuma announced, cleaning the baby a tiny bit more before resting her gently on Tango's chest. The blaze hybrid immediately placed a hand over her, happy tears streaming down his face alongside the tears of pain. She was still connected to Tango via the placenta, which he had yet to deliver, but she was alive and she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

Xisuma reached for her again and Tango briefly rattled, the blaze version of a growl, before relenting and letting her be taken back. The admin pulled sticks and string from his inventory and worked quickly but carefully to reset the tiny bone in her wing and use a makeshift splint to keep it in place correctly. Once she was securely splinted and safe, he offered her over to one of their other boyfriends, wrapped in a towel to stay warm. Jimmy stepped forward to take her, gently holding the bundle close to his chest as Xisuma worked to clamp the cord and let Skizz cut it.

Tango whined and grabbed Skizz' hand again as another contraction ripped through him. The angel made a clipped noise of pain at the harsh grip but quickly glossed over it. He could deal with a bit of hand crushing if Tango was having to deal with all the rest of this.

"What now?" Impulse asked anxiously.

"Now comes baby two," Xisuma answered. "The placentas both come after. Ready, Tango?"

Tango just nodded, despite not being ready at all. It was now or never, so he had to do this either way.

"Okay, on the next contraction I need you to push."

Tango did as he was told, sobbing in pain as he bared down yet again. This time was much easier than the first, gasping in relief as he passed the head, the shoulders quickly following. Tango panted as he relaxed a bit, knowing that the hardest part was over. He could still hear baby one crying, but he couldn't hear a second voice. Anxiously, he tried to look down at Xisuma.

The admin frantically rubbed warmth into the baby blaze, whispering under his breath, begging the baby to cry. Finally, there was a choked little coughing sound as the baby spit up some amniotic fluid and began to quietly cry. X sighed in relief and smiled down at the baby. "She's okay."

"She?" Tango spoke quietly, voice hoarse from screaming and crying in pain.

"Yes, Tango. Another beautiful baby girl," Xisuma said gently, placing the second twin down on Tango's chest.

Tango smiled sweetly with happy tears in his eyes. "Oh, she's so small. Just barely a spark- that's it!" He whisper-yelled. "My little Spark..."

He reluctantly handed her back to Xisuma so he could wrap her in a towel just like her sister before handing her off to Impulse. Tango whined at not getting her back but understood as X had Zedaph cut the next cord and spoke determinedly. "Just the placentas now, Tango. This is the easier part."

Tango nodded, determined to get this over with. He listened to Xisuma and pushed when he was told to, passing the afterbirth much easier than the twins. Thankfully, they had actually fused together at some point and came out as one.

"Did you want to do anything with the placentas?" Xisuma asked kindly. "I know some people like to preserve them in one way or another."

"I don't care," Tango dismissed. "I just want my baby girls." His partners walked over with the twins and Tango happily cooed over them. The two most beautiful beings he had ever seen in his life. His little princesses.

"What are you naming them?" X asked politely, removing the placentas from the towel on the bed.

"Spark," Tango sighed out, looking at the baby blaze in Impulse's arms. He glanced over at Skizz and they shared a knowing look.

The angel smiled softly at their other baby girl, reaching out and being handed her carefully. Quietly, he announced, "Celeste."

Chapter Text

Tango was instructed to stay on bed rest for a little while, as he had apparently had a second degree tear from the birthing process and had to get a couple of small stitches. The first hour or so after giving birth was a little hectic. His partners and Xisuma were working around him and the twins while Tango got to hold both of the babies, resting them against his now bare chest for skin to skin contact.

Zedaph, Impulse, and Jimmy rushed to finish getting things ready for the twins early arrival. Skizz stayed by Tango's side for support, and because his instincts would not let him leave the newborn babies. Xisuma carefully worked to stitch Tango up and quickly check over his code for any internal complications. Immediately afterwards, he thoroughly checked both of the twins' codes to make sure they were truly healthy and didn't need any neonatal intensive care.

"Their codes look stable, though they are a few weeks premature. Thankfully, both of them seem to have fully formed lungs, which is the most common complication with early births." Xisuma assured calmly. "They may still have some feeding difficulties for a little while, and it is common for twins to hit milestones a bit later than singleton babies. Don't panic if they are taking longer than you expect to learn things like walking or talking. They will also be extra susceptible to illnesses, so be careful. If you notice anything that you think is concerning, please contact me right away and I'll be there as soon as I can.

"I still need to do a couple more check-ins on their code today to make sure nothing changes. I can leave you alone as much as possible, if you'd like, or I can stay in the room with you. I do want to watch and make sure that they are feeding properly the first time though."

Tango slightly nodded along as Xisuma spoke, smiling down at his babies half the time before looking back up at the admin. Right on time, Zedaph came back into the room, holding a bottle in each hand, ready for the twins' first feeding.

"I made sure to mix in the supplements just as the instructions said. The left one is for Spark and the right is for Celeste." Zed smiled adoringly at Tango holding their little girls.

"Come here," Tango whispered, smiling brightly at his shortest boyfriend. Knowing exactly what he was doing, Skizz took the bottles from Zed, making sure to remember which one was which. Gently, Tango lifted the baby angel from his chest and turned her around while safely supporting her head, holding her out a little bit. "You didn't get to hold them yet."

Zedaph nearly melted, carefully accepting the little bundle and holding her close, smiling brightly at their baby girl. Celeste was quiet now that she was warmer and not so abruptly new to the world, not quite sleeping but her eyes were closed.

It was hard to tear his eyes away, but he looked back at Tango holding Spark and couldn't have felt more in love. The blaze had shifted her into a more upright position, sitting up a little as Skizz handed him one of the bottles. He brought the nib to her mouth and gently tried to get her to latch, but she wasn't going for it. Tango whined quietly in worry. She was so small and premature, he was worried that she wouldn't eat.

Xisuma tried to help and they switched positions to see if she would bite then, but she still didn't. After a while of trying, Tango slumped a little in defeat.

"It's okay for right now. Let's try Celeste instead," Xisuma reassured, though he didn't sound super confident like earlier. Skizz handed X the second bottle and carefully accepted Spark when she was passed over to him, holding her against his chest. Tango moved Spark's bottle aside and held his arms out towards Zedaph, who easily relinquished Celeste to him. Tango held her close with one arm and held his other hand out for the bottle Xisuma was holding. The admin passed it over and Tango started to gently coax the baby angel into eating, just like he had for Spark.

It took a few tries, but thankfully she finally latched onto the nib and started suckling. Tango purred happily watching her drink. Celeste only drank a little bit before stopping and yawning cutely. Still, it was something and Tango now knew that she was capable and willing to eat when fed.

A couple minutes later, they tried again with Spark, but she didn't seem even the least bit interested. She wouldn't even try to latch and quickly fell asleep whenever Tango held her still for too long.

Xisuma sighed softly. "Her suck and swallow reflexes may not be fully developed yet. They typically develop that skill around 34 weeks while she is only 33 weeks. Celeste seems to have developed a little bit earlier. What we can do is get her on a feeding tube until she is ready, but with how small she is I worry we may need to take her to the hub for that kind of intervention. I don't feel safe performing that procedure on my own. It can be very dangerous if you make a mistake. I don't currently have the proper materials to do such a procedure on a newborn either, especially one so small."

Tango frowned but nodded. "I'll do it if it'll keep her healthy."

"Let's take them both," Zed suggested. "Just in case. They can check things super thoroughly at the hub."

Tango nodded again in agreement. "We might as well, if we're already bringing Spark. They can probably splint Celeste's broken wing better too. I need to stay with them though. Please don't take them away from me." He sounded determined, holding Spark just a tiny bit tighter, still being gentle.

"I won't," Xisuma reassured. "They will probably have to take the twins from you for a little bit once we get there, but that is what's best for their health and safety right now."

"I know," Tango frowned softly, gazing at his tiny baby blaze. "Let's go now. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get Spark feeding."

"You're right," Xisuma started typing on his comm, looking back up after a moment. They called Jimmy and Impulse back into the room and quickly filled them in. "Can one of you carry Tango? I don't want him walking right now with his new stitches. Tango, you need to let your partners carry the babies, okay?"

Tango nodded, reluctantly handing Spark over to Impulse, who was the closest other than Skizz. Zed was still holding Celeste again, and Jimmy somewhat awkwardly shuffled in place, like he was nervous and unsure what to do with himself. Skizz stood and carefully scooped up Tango into a bridal carry, Jimmy draping a soft towel over Tango to cover him up, since he still wasn't wearing anything after giving birth and doing skin to skin contact.

Xisuma looked them all over before nodding. "Ready?"

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Chapter Text

Tango was anxious. Hospitals pretty much always made him anxious. Years of being misgendered and dead named made him loathe most doctors, even after officially changing his player name, he was constantly worried that medical professionals would just know and misgender him anyways.

The blaze hybrid fidgeted with his fingers as he waited for the doctor to enter his room. Since he had just given birth barely an hour and a half ago, he was also brought to his own hospital bed. Tango will admit that he zoned out a little when they were getting everyone settled, anxiously waiting to hear something bad. Instead, he was simply brought to an empty labor and delivery room and given a hospital gown to cover up with.

Nurses took Celeste and Spark away to get them the help that they needed, so Tango was stuck without his babies, although Jimmy and Skizz had stayed by his side the whole time. Impulse and Zedaph followed the nurses that took Celeste, not allowed to follow Spark as she was being checked more thoroughly, being much smaller than her sister and slightly underdeveloped. Xisuma was currently in the hallway talking to another nurse.

There was a gentle knock on the door before it opened and the brown-haired nurse from earlier came back in, pushing a small cart with a little plastic bassinet on top. Through the plastic Tango could see a few white blankets with a pastel pink bundle on top. As the cart moved closer, Tango sat up a bit more, trying to look over into it.

The nurse smiled reassuringly, her voice soft as she spoke. "All bandaged up and healing. You delivered such a sweetheart. She barely put up a fuss as we checked her over. Weighed in about average for a twin born this early, though she is a little heavy for an angel due to her large wings. I bet she'll be a really strong flier someday."

Tango smiled sweetly at his baby girl all swaddled and sleeping. Impulse and Zed had followed the nurse back into the room as well, taking seats on the small couch in the corner. Tango looked back up at the nurse after a moment.

"What about Spark? How is she doing?" Tango asked hopefully.

"I'm sorry, I'm not assigned to her care. I'd have to ask the other nurse." The brunette shook her head softly.

Tango frowned, placing a hand in the bassinet and gently stroking Celeste's cheek with his finger. At least he knew that she was healthy and safe by his side. Looking directly at his baby, as if afraid the nurse would say no, Tango asked, "Can I hold her again?"

"Of course," the nurse assured. Carefully, with practiced movements, she lifted the swaddle from the plastic and handed her down to Tango. He held her close, purring soothingly and letting her sleep in his arms.

Xisuma soon walked back into the room and stood against the far wall, just observing. The nurse left and Tango looked up at the admin with an emotional smile. "Thank you, X," he spoke quietly but clearly. "You did so much for the twins all on your own. I probably should have been seeing a hub doctor from the start, but you just did so much, that I didn't need to. You did everything you could to keep things private for me, too. It's not your fault the twins came early and we had to come here. I'm... not sure who's fault it really is, maybe it's mine, but I know it wasn't because of you."

"Oh, Tango..." Xisuma sighed. "It's not your fault either. These things happen sometimes. I wish I was more prepared, but when it comes down to it, I'm just not trained to handle babies. They're so small that I'm terrified I'll hurt them. I couldn't possibly trust myself to operate on one; even something as simple as a feeding tube. I'm sorry."

"I forgive you." Tango knew that they could go back and forth apologizing to each other forever about the littlest things, but he decided to just end it there and assure X that he is not upset with him.

Xisuma smiled. "Have you gotten news yet about Spark?"

Tango shook his head sadly. "I thought we would have by now. What if there's something else wrong with her?"

"We don't know that yet. It's best not to panic," Xisuma tried to reassure them.

Just as they had started talking, a new person knocked on the door and entered the room. She was a red fox hybrid with shoulder length hair, wearing a white coat over some light pink scrubs and holding a clipboard. "Hello? You lot are the Tek family, correct?"

Tango nodded, watching her cautiously, tail flicking slightly. He found it hard to immediately trust doctors. She didn't seem bothered by his show of distrust though, simply continuing on.

"You can call me Doctor Kit. I'm the main doctor in charge of Spark Tek's care." Tango lit up at the mention of his other baby girl. "We did a few test and I have good news for you. Spark does have the reflexes needed to feed properly."

"Wait, why won't she eat then?" Skizz spoke up quietly in confusion.

"This is actually a case of bad temperature regulation. Cold stress; which isn't too uncommon for nether hybrids born in the overworld. It is typically seen when the birthing parent is also a nether hybrid themself, as the womb is kept at a higher temperature than an overworld or end hybrid player. Spark is also at a low birth weight, even for a preterm baby. This means that she does not have much body fat for temperature regulation. Babies also lack the ability to shiver, which would naturally up a person's body temperature if they could.

"Spark is currently being held in the NICU for observation. She is nice and safe inside of a stanard incubator, which is set to keep her warm and help eliminate the risk of possible hypothermia. Since she lacks the energy to properly feed due to lethargy, we did in fact have to insert a temporary nasogastric tube for her to reach her nutritional needs. The tube can be removed once her temperature regulation develops further and she gains a little body fat to help keep her warm outside of a fully monitored environment."

"When can we see her?" Tango asked hopefully.

"She is currently in stable condition, and can be seen at any time. However, due to the severity of temperature regulation issues, she cannot currently be touched or held. After an hour or so in the heat, she should be able to be touched through small holes in the sides of the incubator for short periods of time."

"Can you please take me to her? I need to see that she's okay," Tango requested with slight anxiety visible on his face.

"Yes, however, I was informed that you should stay relatively stationary for a few hours. I can bring over a wheelchair if you are comfortable with that," the doctor offered.

"Yeah, that's fine." Tango brushed off any concern, itching to see his little princess again.

"Perfect. I will be right back then." The doctor left the room, presumably to go and grab a wheelchair. Tango gazed back down at Celeste, mouth opening slightly in shock as he noticed that she finally had her eyes open. They were a beautiful, vibrant blue, just like her mama. Tango teared up slightly at the sight, purring again.

"Hello princess. Oh, Skizz, she has your eyes. They're so beautiful," Tango gushed happily. The others all shuffled closer to try and get a look at her, Xisuma respectfully hanging back. Looking closer at her, Tango also realized that she had short, nearly invisibly light hairs scattered across her little head. Blonde like her papa.

Continuing to gush over her for a few moments, the doctor soon returned, pushing a basic hospital wheelchair in front of her. She smiled at the sight of them all admiring their baby angel. Xisuma smiled softly at her in return and they silently decided to give the new parents a bit more time before interrupting.

"Are you ready to go see your other baby?" The doctor politely asked. Tango nodded brightly, mood already improved by his healthy baby girl. Jimmy helped Tango into the wheelchair, Skizz taking Celeste for the transfer. Once he was settled comfortably, or at least as comfortably as he could be in a crappy hospital wheelchair, Celeste was passed back to him and they all shuffled out of the room.

Following the doctor's lead, they slowly made their way to the NICU where they could see a bunch of different babies at different stages of gestation, all in little bassinets or boxes made of plastic. Even though they barely knew her for an hour or so since she was born, Tango recognized Spark immediately. She was laid down in one of the plastic boxes one row away.

The doctor stopped right next to her and smiled at them reassuringly. "There she is. All safe and sound. She is certainly a sleepy little one, though that is common with preterm babies. They need all of their energy focused into growing."

Just as stated, Spark was fast asleep. What was probably the smallest tube Tango had ever seen was medically taped to her cheek and disappeared into her nose for feeding.

"How long does she have to stay in there?" Zed asked, the group of them basically circling the whole incubator.

"At least a few days, likely around a week. She needs time to develop her temperature regulation skills properly, and for the nutrition to give her a little bit more body fat," the doctor explained. "In a few hours she should be able to be held for short periods of time. Skin to skin contact will help with the development of temperature regulation, until she can withstand being outside in only clothing or a blanket for an extended period of time, without risking more cold stress or hypothermia. We will also have to make sure that she is capable of getting all of the necessary nutrients for growth through mouth feedings alone before removing the nasogastric tube."

Despite the slightly sad news, Tango smiled sweetly. She looked adorable laid out and sleeping. Tango held Celeste up a little, in one arm, pointing at Spark through the glass. "Look, Celeste, that's your little sister. I already know you're gonna be a great big sister for her."

Celeste just blinked, staring up at him without understanding. Tango chuckled softly in response, holding her close and smiling up at Spark. He could hold her again soon.