#later:

"I agree," Neah said, wincing. He took a step forward as if to interfere, but stopped himself, brow creased with worry. "It's one thing for Road to feel free to use her abilities, but she can't be doing this to strangers on a whim, or she's going to run into something she's not ready for."

"All incarnations of Road learn that lesson eventually," Adam said, his expression unreadable as he kept his eyes on the two frozen children. "I suspect this one will learn it now."

Right on cue, a scream ripped itself from Allen's throat, and he yanked himself away from Road with a gasp. Katerina only caught a glimpse of his wide, terrified eyes before he turned and bolted, tripping on the rug and slamming his shoulder into a door frame on his way out of the room, leaving Road frozen in place, hand still lifted.

Katerina made a split second decision and went after him.

For once, Allen was making no effort to hide his presence, so it was easy to follow him all the way to the rear door. He was much faster than her, though, so by the time she caught up, he was already out on the moor. As she watched, he turned one way, then the other, and then started pacing, jerky and disjointed.

She kept an eye on him as she followed him out, stepping carefully on the uneven ground. He didn't seem to notice her, too wrapped up in his thoughts, with a white-knuckled grip on his shirt.

"Allen?" she called out, soft and cautious.

He didn't look up. His face was wet, she realized. His breathing was fast and erratic.

"Allen?" Katerina repeated, even softer. She chanced a step forward and caught his sleeve, and he twisted to look at her. His eyes were wide, with no hint of recognition. Tears made his eyes shine and trickled down his cheeks, unacknowledged.

Adam had mentioned once that Road's powers could break people, leaving them a shell of their former selves. She'd never had reason to think about what that might look like before.

She couldn't think about that right now. She shifted her hand to cup Allen's cheek, feeling his pulse flutter under her fingertips. "Allen? Are you alright?"

Allen gasped like he'd been hit and took a few jerky steps back, dropping his gaze quickly to the ground.

"I need to disappear," he said, gaze shifting haphazardly over the rocky earth. "I'm going to disappear. It's the wheat field. I'm going to be consumed."

He wasn't making any sense, but his voice was taut with fear. Katerina took a chance and stepped forward again, pressing her hand to his cheek. He turned into it this time, his hot breath panting across her skin. She stretched her thumb to wipe some of the tears from his cheek.

"I'm disappearing," he gasped, shaking like a leaf. "I'm disappearing. I don't want to disappear."

"Shh," she soothed, trying to decide what to do. There was a good chance Adam would know how to handle this, she thought - with any luck he'd be out shortly, either coming after her or to fix the damage Road had accidentally done, because for Road's sake if nothing else. "Take a deep breath. Let's sit down. It's okay, you're okay."

Allen didn't look convinced, but he let her take his hand and pull him gently down to the grassy earth, and he sat down when she did. She folded her legs and reached up to push on his back, and after a moment of resistance, he let her guide him down until his head was in her lap. He was still shaking and crying silently, breath fast and shallow, but even that slowed down when she started running his fingers through his hair, trying to soothe him the way she soothed her own children sometimes.

Thankfully, it was only a few minutes after that that she saw Adam come out the back side of the manor - Adam and someone else, she realized, maybe Neah. No - Wisely. Neah must be with Road still.

"Wow, this kid is in tatters," Wisely said, as soon as he was within speaking distance. He sounded mildly impressed. "I don't think I've ever seen Road destroy someone this thoroughly unless she was trying to."

That was... worrying. "Do you think you can help him?" Katerina asked, looking down at Allen, who hadn't reacted to the sound of new voices.

"Neah won't be happy with Road if we can't," Adam sighed. That was a surprise too - Neah adored Road, but then, he'd also become fond of Allen rather quickly. "Wisely, what do you think? This is your territory, after all."

"We'll see," the other Noah said magnanimously, and then knelt down, tilting Allen's head up to meet his eyes. "Hey, kid, you're not disappearing. You're having a nervous fit. It's different." He paused, listening to something only he could hear. Katerina bit her lip. She'd seen Wisely hold these one-sided conversations before, but never so desperately wished she could hear the other end of it. "No, you're not being consumed. This isn't a mindscape. You just ran out onto an actual, physical moor."

Allen's breathing slowed down further and evened out, leaving his breath soft and even, but he still didn't stir or open his eyes.

Wisely glanced up at her. "Okay, he's trying to pull himself together," he told her. "That's typically a good sign." Katerina gave him a grateful smile, and he looked back down. "So, who are you?" Allen's breath stuttered. Katerina ran her fingers through his hair. Wisely listened to whatever was running through Allen's mind, frowning. "What do you mean, you're an imaginary person? You're right in front of me."

Allen burst into tears, strangled them silent, and huddled closer to Katerina, his right hand coming up to curl into the material of her dress. She shushed him again, scratching his scalp gently, and he hiccuped into her knee.

"That's my wife," Adam grumbled, settling down on the ground with a resigned sigh.

"Your wife is making my job much easier right now," Wisely told him bluntly. Adam flicked his hand dismissively, and Wisely rolled his eyes before returning his attention to Allen. "Those are all synonyms of fake. Explain to me how you're not a real person."

It didn't make sense to Katerina either. She gave Adam a questioning look, but he just pursed his lips, clearly not sure what to make of it either.

"Explain to me how you're lies all the way down, this is getting us nowhere," Wisely told Allen, starting to sound irritated. Allen cried harder, grasping at Katerina's dress, but apparently he really was trying, because Wisely's brow creased in concentration again. "...Yeah, that seems rough, but all the way down, seriously?" Pause. "Okay, yeah, all the way down. But listen..." Wisely sighed, reaching up to pinch his nose. "You know none of that makes you not a person, right? Even being worthless doesn't make you not a person. Don't give me that look, Kat, I'm not calling him worthless, he is chanting 'worthless worthless worthless' in a hysterical frenzy."

Katerina made an effort to smooth her expression out, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I'm just worried about him."

Wisely nodded distractedly, most of his attention still on Allen. "I don't know what to tell you, kid. You just are a person. Nothing can take that away from you. No, you are not an akuma. You just aren't. Vessel?" Pause. Katerina desperately wanted to know what Wisely was hearing. "No, trust me, Kat, you do not want to hear any of this. The inside of this kid's head is a nightmare."

Oh dear. Katerina tried to focus on soothing Allen, coaxing his hand off her dress to take it in hers instead. His grip tightened instantly - not enough to hurt, but more than enough to convey his desperation.

"I'm starting to see why you fell to pieces the moment Road touched you," Wisely told Allen. "Those are all horrific things to do to a kid, but you are a still a person. Being treated by others like an extension of their will does not make you any less of a person, it just makes them assholes. Yeah, even if you agree with their reasons for doing it, it was still really awful for you. Because it made you think you're not a person." Pause. "Kid, I'm really gonna need you to understand that being treated like you're worthless does not actually make you worthless. Yeah, I can see you don't understand that."

Allen... Katerina bit her lip and sent Adam a pleading look. Adam gave no ground - she'd talk to him later - so she turned her attention back to Allen, scratching his scalp lightly.

"Wasn't there Mana?" she said, trying to encourage him. "Mana treated you well, didn't he?" Allen had said as much.

It was the wrong thing to say. Both Allen and Wisely physically recoiled from Allen's reaction to that, and Allen clutched Katerina's hand to his chest and sobbed openly. Which... didn't...

Katerina looked up at Wisely, who was rubbing his head with a grimace.

"Okay," Wisely said at last, in a tone that didn't bode well. "Apparently Mana knew when he took Allen in that Allen was Neah's vessel. So while Allen insists that Mana treated him very well, he's also not sure if Mana ever loved him, and he's extremely sorry for making you think otherwise." He met her eyes and mouthed 'don't let go,' which definitely shed some unwanted light on the way Allen was suddenly clutching at her arm.

She let him keep it, and tugged the ponytail out of his hair to finger-comb it. "It's okay, I forgive you," she murmured, pressing her thumb into his palm. "I'm not angry, it's okay." His sobs died down into breathless gasps again. She wasn't sure whether that was an improvement.

(How could she possibly be mad at him when he was in this state?)

"Look, kid..." Wisely sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose again. "I can tell that you loved Mana, uh, a lot." He swallowed, then shot Adam a look that said that Adam owed him several very expensive gifts for this ordeal. "But you know you're allowed to have an identity outside of that, right? No, you really need to understand this. Yes, I can see- shit, kid. I can see that he gave you most of the basic necessities a parent gives a child. I'm actually not going to commend him for not feeding you broken glass- yes, I deduced that other people did try that. This isn't the point. I can see that you feel like you owe Mana your life, or something, but you don't. If he never loved you, then caring for you was a selfish act and he deserves no credit. If he did love you, then he did what any parent does for their child, he's not a saint. Jesus, kid, no, he is not a saint for not hitting you, not putting you out in the cold, and not starving you when you were bratty. You're a mess."

The thoughts Wisely was responding to were so foreign that Katerina could barely grasp them. The implications were heartbreaking; she might have had some uncertainties and reservations around Allen's strange circumstances, but it was horrific to imagine him going through half the things Wisely had mentioned aloud, let alone whatever haywire thoughts he hadn't responded to directly.

She combed the tangles out of Allen's hair and listened.

"The point is, it doesn't matter," Wisely argued to Allen, who remained outwardly unresponsive, breathing fast and hard. "It's obvious from this whole... thing that having Mana be the foundation of your identity is no longer working out. It's basically quicksand at this point. Pick something else. Yes, you get to pick. ...No, you cannot pick 'worthless.'" Wisely sighed heavily. "Yeah, kid, I understand that you feel like you don't have anything to pick from. Seriously, I understand."

The silence was longer this time, but it felt like the whole issue was drawing to a close, too. Allen had relaxed - maybe more in exhaustion than calm, but his breathing was, at last, deep and even.

"...Cross' apprentice?" Wisely asked incredulously. "That's what feels stable to you?" Incredibly, the corners of Allen's mouth turned up, and he laughed a little, silent and breathless. Wisely listened for a moment. "...Yeah, okay, that tracks. That does sound like him. Think you can live with that?"

Allen nodded, and finally, he let go of Katerina's hand and pushed himself upright. His arm shook with exhaustion, and without thinking she caught him, helping him sit up. He lifted his head to give her a shaky smile, somehow exactly the same, his cheeks still shiny. She took his handkerchief from his pocket and dried them.

"Why Cross?" she asked, the first question to come to mind. Allen had seemed rather dismissive of Cross so far, playful and exasperated, with none of the near-worship he held for Mana.

"He was the only one who cared enough to tell me that I was going to die," he rasped. Katerina... wasn't as surprised as she could have been. Wisely was right; it did sound like him. Then, unexpectedly, Allen leaned forward and hugged her. "Thank you. For holding me."

Katerina's heart melted, and she hugged him back, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair again. "You're welcome."

Dave had spent most of the last nine months shockingly active, in total disregard of the baby growing inside him, but Alan had outright refused to let him spend the last couple weeks before delivery in his wild party house. Alan liked to think he wouldn’t mind babysitting his pregnant friend so much if Alan hadn’t also had an eight-month-old of his own and two more on the way, rounding out his own belly at seven months enough to already outmatch Dave’s full-term bump, and if Dave’s little impregnation stint hadn’t landed his due date smack dab in the middle of finals week. 

Alan was good at multitasking, but right now, this was pushing his limits. He was trying to finish a twenty page paper, keep his baby entertained, all while Dave was apparently on a personal mission to drive him to distraction. 

Dave was on the couch, propped up on pillows, using his protruding belly as a table for his laptop, complaining nonstop about the math final he was supposed to be studying for. Alan tried his utmost to just ignore him, but once he heard Dave mutter “fuckin Greg, more like gre… gre.. more like… peg, cuz he’s such a stiff fuckin loser,” he put his head in his hands. 

“Dave. I am trying. To focus.”

“Oh right, sorry bro,” Dave said, very sincerely, and then continued to mutter to himself loudly. 

Alan turned around in his chair, which was no small feat with a belly that size to maneuver, and glared at his guest. “What has gotten into you?”

“Uh, a baby?”

“You’re not usually this annoying!”

“Thanks!” Dave rubbed his taut belly. “Sorry, man, I kinda have a stomach ache…”

Alan paused. “Wait, are you having contractions?”

“Uhhhhhh no.”

“You hesitated.”

“Nah, bro.” Dave waved his hand. “I just ate some weird wings or something. It’s been happening like all day.”

“Okay, are you sure, because early labor feels a lot like regular stomach cramps—“

“Alannnnn my maaaann I’m fiiiiine!” Dave rolled his eyes, giving Alan the look of an irritated teenager. “But, uh. Could you help me up? I gotta whizz again.” 

Hours passed, and Alan continued to tap away at his essay, all while Dave was getting antsier and antsier on the couch. 

“Hey, uh, Alan,” he called. 

“What.”

“Do you have any anti-tummy ache shit maybe?”

“Dave, are you sure this isn’t—“

“Yes! I ate week-old hot wings, okay?”

“Why. Why would you have done that.”

“I’m living la vida loca!” 

“God, I hate you.” 

Alan managed to find some Tylenol, trying to conjure up some sympathy despite how worn-out he felt dragging around his own massive belly, his swollen chest aching and back screaming with the weight of his front. Night was falling, and after he got his son to sleep he returned to find a very uncomfortable looking Dave. 

“You feeling any better?”

“Yeah so no actually—“ Dave cut off with a grimace. “…I would say worse is actually the one. Yeah.”

Alan sighed. “Okay, why don’t you go lie down in the other room for a bit?” Dave nodded stiffly, and Alan finished, “And if you don’t feel better soon, we are calling the hospital, okay?”

“You mean the ancient order dudes,” Dave corrected. “Cuz they have the magic shit. They said normal medicine won’t work for the pain or whatever.”

“See, that is the kind of information that would have been helpful to know weeks ago—“ Alan stopped himself and took a breath. “Okay. Let’s get you comfortable.”

Once he left Dave, Alan returned to his chair and breathed a deep sigh of relief. Reveling in the quiet, he dove into his essay headfirst, only to be broken out of his trance when by his son’s cries on the baby monitor. When he got back from rocking little Benny back to sleep, he finally glanced at the clock and realized just how many hours had passed. 

A feeling of dread crept up in Alan’s stomach. He glanced at his bedroom door, where he’d left Dave. 

“Please just be asleep, please just be asleep,” he muttered to himself, and peeked into the room. There, Dave was lying on his side, limbs curled around his heavy belly. Alan paused for a second, almost smiling at how sweet he looked. Until he heard a low, quiet moan come from the bed. 

Ah, fuck. 

Alan rushed over to the bedside. “Dave!” he hissed, only to be met with another moan. Alan’s eyes widened as he realized he could see the contraction passing over Dave’s belly, the muscles of his torso contracting violently around his womb. 

He shook Dave’s shoulder as the contraction passed. “Dave! Why didn’t you say something!!!”

“Oh, hey, Alan…” Dave’s voice sounded weak. “Hey, uh,  I think I might be in labo–hrk.” Dave convulsed again, breathing in sharply. 

“Please tell me you called the wizard guys at least.” This was bad. If Dave couldn’t get out a full sentence between contractions, that was not a good sign.

Once Dave could catch his breath, he squinted. “Oh shit. Right. Forgot. Ow.”

“Fucking hell, Dave. How far away are they?”

“Uh ow ow ow fuck ow, uh, um, like, threeeee hours?” He gulped a breath of air, wincing. 

“I’m going to kill you someday, you know that?”

“Can it be now?” Dave replied weakly.

“Okay. Shit. Um. Can you take your pants off?”

Dave gave him the look of someone who was incredibly confused about the truck he was being hit by. “...Why?”

“I need to see how far along you are, okay?” 

Dave nodded, then groaned as another contraction hit. Alan waited through it, then tried to disrobe his friend as casually as possible. He was glad Dave was at least distracted. Then his eyes widened. 

“Jesus christ,” he whispered. Dave looked like he was almost fully dilated. Alan thought hard. There was a very, very good chance Dave wouldn’t last until the order showed up. He had no doctor, no midwife, nothing. The nearest hospital was far enough away it would risk the baby coming in transit–or, best case scenario, Dave would have to give birth alone, in a cold, strange place, surrounded by strangers, with zero pain management options. Not a great option for anyone, and definitely not for a young trans guy. 

“Okay.” Alan put a hand on Dave’s shoulder. “Dave. Listen. I had a home birth, I was there when my girlfriend had her daughter. I’m gonna help you do this, because you’re gonna do it here.”

Dave’s eyes widened. “Huh? No nononono, I don’t wanna do that–”

“Then you shouldn’t have–okay. Never mind. I’m gonna grab some supplies.”

Alan quickly shuffled through his apartment, tossing things aside as he tried to remember everything on his own home birth checklist. Ask he tore through his linens cabinet, a cry came from the other room. 

“ALAN! ALAN SOMETHING IS WRONG ALAN ALAAAAAAN—”

Alan stumbled into the room, dropping his supplies and scrambling over to find Dave had pushed himself into a semi-seated position, and had a horrified look on his face. 

“What?? What’s—” Alan took a look, and stopped. “Oh. It’s okay, Dave, your water just broke. That’s supposed to happen!”

“WHAT.”

“Man, there go my sheets…” Alan looked mournfully at his bed. There was no saving that bedspread now. 

Alan dunked a washcloth in a small bucket of water he’d brought and wiped it across his friend’s brow. “Hey, come on, let it out, Dave! You’re keeping it all in.”

“A-FUCK OW—hhhhh-actually I think it’s coming out against my will??”

“No, I mean, you can scream and shit.”

“Oh.” Dave blinked, and then started screaming his head off. 

Oh dear god please nobody call the police on us, Alan prayed to no one in particular. He stayed close to Dave, trying to get him to breathe, stop thrashing around like a maniac, and stay calm, mostly to no avail. 

“Listen, Dave, listen to me,” Alan said, catching Dave in a brief moment between contractions when he stopped yelling long enough to hear anything, “this is called transition, and this is the hardest part, right? So after it you’re going to—“

He was cut off while Dave started screaming again. He waited a minute. The scream ended. 

“Okay so you’re going to start feeling the urge to push soon, and that means transition is over. So right now it’s just about—“ (scream, thrash) “—about getting through the pain, so just try to focus on your breathi—“

Dave’s back arched, and he let out a howl of agony so intense it felt downright cinematic. Dave turned to Alan. “BRO. WHY DOES THIS SUCK SO MUCH.”

“Well, um, when we evolved as apes to stand upright we sort of sacrificed a pelvic structure wide enough to accommodate a reasonable birth canal, so—“

Dave panted. “That fucking SUCKS, FUCK monkeys all my homies hate monkeys let’s go back to being wolves or whatever the fuck—oh Jesus fucking christ—“

Alan’s eyebrows raised as Dave made the most strangled expression he’d ever seen on a human being. “Um, Dave, you okay there?”

Dave responded with a sound sort of like “HHNNNRRRRGGGGKkHH.” 

“Hey, talk to me, what’s—“

“HOW DO I NOT PUSH??”

“Wh—” Alan’s eyes widened. “No, DO push! Pushing is good!”

“OH. HOW DO I PUSH??”

“Uh. You just.” Alan thought for a moment. “Huh, that’s interesting, I actually don’t know how to describe it! I just sort of did it on instinct, now that I think about it. Hm, how to explain it… well, it’s sort of li—“

“HNNNNNNNERGGGGGGGGGH.”

“Yeah, like that.”

Dave’s chest heaved, his forehead glistening with sweat. “Is-is it stuck or something??” He looked desperately at Alan. “Do you have to pull it out??”

“Boy, I sure hope not.” Alan started helping Dave into a squat. “It’s gonna take more than one push, man.”

“Wh-how many? Three??”

“Um, well, the pushing phase lasted about four hours for me, though that was on the longer side…”

Dave’s eyes widened in horror. 

“But it’s okay!! It’s, uh, it’s not that bad!”

“I FEEL LIKE I AM BEING STABBED WITH NINETEEN KNIVES.”

“Okay yeah it is that bad.” 

Quickly arranging the towels he’d managed to grab from his closet, Alan guided Dave into a reasonable position, legs spread beneath him. Alan slowly lowered himself down to kneel in front, offering his shoulders as a support. Dave continued to rotate between his sort of grunt-moan-yelling as he pushed with all his might and the brief pauses of respite between contractions in which he mostly looked… kind of bewildered. 

“You’re doing great,” Alan said softly while Dave caught his breath. “Just keep breathing, try to relax while you push…”

“Is this—is this-“ Dave took a huge gulping breath. “Is this like, normal??”

“Well, every birth is unique!”

“But the-the stabbiness? And the wanting to chew your skin off thing?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s, that’s kind of standard. Unless you have an epidural, I guess. Uh, I don’t know about the skin part though?”

“Yeah man I’m really not a fan of having skin currently I’m kinda fixating on i—“ Dave cut off as another contraction crashed into him, and he pushed with all his might. Then, Alan gasped.

“The baby’s crowning! Come on, just a little more!”

Dave looked down and screamed. 

“Oh Jesus, please tell me you at least knew that’s where the baby comes out of—“

“YES I KNEW THAT BUT OH MY GOD THERES A BABY THERE??”

“Yes, please stop thrashing around, that’s the baby—”

“NOO NONONO I DO NOT LIKE THAT.” 

Dave’s look of terror turned quickly into pain as he let out a strangled sound and gave into pushing. 

“Oh boy, um, Dave, maybe don’t look down.”

Dave’s eyes opened as he panted and immediately looked down. He let out an even higher pitched shriek. 

“AAAAAAAAAA???”

“This—Listen, it doesn’t come out all at once-“

Dave continued shrieking. Now, personally, Alan had been too relieved and excited to feel much else when he’d been at this step. But he was starting to see how having a baby’s head sticking out of you could be… a little disturbing.

“AAAAAAA GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT”

“Then push!”

“OKAY.” Dave made a noise, his breaths coming hard and fast. Then he dug his fingers hard into Alan’s soft shoulders and pushed with all his might, yelling from the strain even as Alan yelled back in excitement, reaching forward, cloth ready. 

Dave opened his eyes to see Alan hold up a crying baby. He blinked, staring at the tiny screaming infant, and collapsed immediately. 

When Dave came to, he was tucked neatly into Alan’s bed, the fresh smell of clean sheets surrounding him. He turned to see Alan sitting next to him, feeding the teeny baby from his breast. 

“Heheh,” Dave mumbled weakly, “titty…”

“Dave! You did it!” Alan grinned. 

“Wooooo.” Dave pumped his fist about one millimeter in the air. “I am a bad bitch.”

“Members of the order should be here in fifteen minutes.” Wiping the baby's mouth, Alan held her out toward Dave. "Do you want to hold her?”

Dave squinted at Alan, looking over the wrinkly little thing in his arms. It was strange to think, but even as Dave’s belly deflated, he knew he wasn’t done yet. His ritual still bound him in its terms, and even now the next baby would be forming its first cells inside his worn-out womb. It would remain full of life until all four children were born, one after another.