Give it a minute

768 words

I have no idea what’s going on here. Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know why I talked about eggs so much. I might be hungry.

He could feel it. He was surprised he could, he was told it might take a while. But there it was, the fizzing and buzzing through his veins. The feeling wasn’t unpleasant, but the overall impression was a bit like anxiety. Or maybe he was just anxious. It was hard to distinguish what were just Cole’s own feelings and what was… whatever it was. He’d been told its actual name at least a dozen times, but he could never remember it. It was like with medical terms; they seemed to slide off of his brain like a fried egg from a pan. He was sure it had to do with something from Dungeons and Dragons or the Hobbits or some other nerd shit.

Cole shifted his weight on the table, clasping and unclasping his hands in his lap, being careful not to disturb the complicated highway of tubes and attachments. He wondered what would happen if he pulled them off right now, right in the middle of it. Would he die? Probably not, he thought. Probably he’d just ruin all of Faith’s work, and hoooooo boy, he didn’t want to experience another round of Faith’s temper. Still, the thought wouldn’t go away, kind of like when you drive across a bridge and briefly entertain slamming the steering wheel to one side and propelling your car into the water below. That’s normal, right? Cole thought, considering one tube running from his bicep. Everyone has those thoughts. 

“Okay,” Faith said, and was that a note of uncertainty in her voice? Cole watched her carefully. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face as it normally was, her eyes sharp and alert. But was that a small worry line on her high forehead? Was that… was that sweat? Cole’s heart started beating faster. Faith noticed.

“You got to calm down,” Faith said, looking at the monitor rather than Cole’s face. Cole took that as another sign of trouble—why was she watching the monitor so closely?—and his heart beat even faster. 

Faith sighed, and turned to look at Cole. “Dude. You have got. To. Relax. Take a deep breath.”

Cole did what he was told, but his breath stuttered and shivered. He tried again, and realized that he might hyperventilate. This realization, of course, made his heart beat faster, and Faith let out an aggravated grunt.

“Oh my god,” Faith said, grasping both of his knees and shaking them, making Cole’s feet sway. Cole steadied the heels of his palms on the edge of the table to keep his whole body from rocking. What if she loosened one of the tubes?

“I’ve neer seen such a big baby,” Faith said, still shaking his knees, but not as vigorously. “I’ve told you a hundred times. This is perfectly safe.”

Cole grit his teeth. The fizzing in his veins intensified; it was less a fizzing and now more of a simmer. He remembered when his brother got really into cooking and was teaching Cole how to poach an egg. He said you had to wait until the little bubbles started to form around the edges of the water. Not a rolling boil, he had said, waving a slotted spoon at him, but just a nice simmer. That’s exactly what was going on in his body right now, Cole thought, a nice simmer.

“When does it actually happen?” Cole said, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice. He had never thought of himself as an alpha male, but he didn’t like to be called a big baby either.

Faith ignored him, having let go of his knees and was fiddling with the monitor. 

“Faith. Faith?”

“Give it a minute,” she said, and this time he could definitely hear the tension in her voice. He absolutely wasn’t imagining that.

“Is everything—” The simmer erupted into a boil. What could only be described as a rolling sensation rippled through Cole’s body, his tendons and muscles jumping and quivering. Cole opened his mouth, but found he couldn’t say anything; his jaw was locked into place and his tongue frozen. Everything seemed far away, but he could still hear Faith’s voice. “Oh no. Oh no no no no no. Oh god no.”

Somewhere in Cole’s brain, there was a sense of vindication. Between the bouts of confusion, independent thoughts like, “I knew there was something wrong” and, “Who’s the baby now?” presented themselves then floated away. There seemed to be a final push through his spine—Cole had time to think, “The eggs are done!”—before Cole’s body shuddered and collapsed to one side of the table.