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Looking at his watch for the umpteenth time, Kyouya found himself wishing someone had thought to inform him how long it took to deliver a child.
Well, in all fairness, it was well possible someone had indeed told him as much. Whether they had imagined he was listening, though, was another thing. It wasn't like anyone could expect him to keep track of such things, not when they didn't affect him in any direct fashion. Aside from the fact that he was forced to stand here, waiting for something to happen, unable to do anything to hurry things along. It was a frustrating feeling, the kind of helplessness he did not often have to deal with.
Of course, the birth itself was far from the most time-consuming part of the process. First of all it had taken ages to go through all the possible methods, trying to arrive at one that would satisfy Kyouya's instincts and Dino's dreams and the expectations of the mafia world. With the help of the Vongola scientists and a willing surrogate they had come to a conclusion at last, but even after the decision and the finalized theories, making it all reality hadn't been a simple matter. There had been a lot of frustration until they had at last dared to claim they were expecting a child.
A child. A real, living, breathing human being with two arms and legs and eyes and ears, with all the parts it was supposed to have, viable for life. For something that was created over and over again countless times every day, it seemed unfair that their pursuit of the same would be so very difficult. Why would they be any less deserving of an heir just because neither of them had been born with a vagina?
After all the disappointments and struggles, Kyouya had been almost certain they would never arrive at this point in the process. Yet here he was, standing at the most remote corner of the waiting room, not willing to socialize with the rest of the herbivores crowded there. Whenever someone tried to make an approach, he drove them off with a hostile glare. No, he did not feel like engaging in idle chit-chat. He was waiting for the results of the project that had taken them much longer than the active sequence of nine months of pregnancy.
Hours had passed, he was sure, hours that consisted of little more than the clock ticking forward and the herbivores chatting amongst themselves, Sawada Tsunayoshi pacing in a nervous manner as though the child to be born had been his own. Kyouya crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. He'd be here forever, he concluded. The world would come to an end and the universe collapse and he'd still be standing here, waiting for news.
Then suddenly there was a new sound, faint but still audible to his alert ears, the sound of a tiny set of lungs drawing their first breath and releasing the air in one long, loud wail. His eyes snapped open, everyone else in the waiting room straightening up, eyes turning towards the doors of the room they hadn't been allowed to enter. Why any of them would have wanted to was quite beyond Kyouya. Childbirth, he had been informed, was a messy and unpleasant process that involved little joy aside from the end result.
It took another moment before anything happened, another moment of waiting, now more tense than before as they knew something would happen soon. After what seemed like ages the doors were opened, though, just enough to allow Dino through, looking weary and exhausted but beaming with his entire being.
"It's a boy," he announced, a proud grin on his face as he walked towards Kyouya, a small form held in his arms, bundled up in soft white fabric. "We have a son, Kyouya."
Kyouya found a small smirk creeping onto his face unbidden as he took a few steps, meeting Dino halfway across the room. The others all crowded closer but neither Dino nor he paid them any mind just yet as the blonde walked closer, setting the child in his arms. It was small, Kyouya noted, more so than he had expected, small and wrinkly and an odd shade of reddish purple, but right now he didn't care about such details. All he cared was that the light weight on his arm was real, real and not imagined and not just a dream or a wish anymore.
It was a child. Their child.
"He's going to have your hair, Kyouya," Dino chuckled, a gentle fingertip playing with the hint of dark, soft hair on top of the little head.
"Anything is fine as long as he is not as clumsy as you." Kyouya looked down at the child, trying to find any familiar features. He couldn't spot anything he would have been definite about, but then it had just been born. He supposed he could give the kid a bit of time to get himself together after the gruelling experience of being pushed out of someone's genital area before trying to pinpoint who his nose or eyes or ears had been passed down from. Not that any of it mattered in the end.
"It's a scientific breakthrough," Irie whispered as though saying the words aloud would have suddenly made them untrue, his eyes wide behind his glasses as he peered down at the child. "A miracle."
"No, it isn't," Kyouya said, unable to keep a hint of smugness out of his voice as he took a step back, away from the reaching hands. "It's just our kid."
"Now, now, no reason to quarrel." Sawada Tsunayoshi chuckled, stepping closer as well. "Congratulations, Kyouya-san, Dino-san. I'm glad to see everything went well."
"Thanks, Tsuna." There was a stupid grin on Dino's face. Kyouya would have slapped it out of him if he hadn't been holding the child. Yes, of course that was the only reason he didn't. "We've been waiting long enough."
"One could say that," Kyouya snorted. "And here's what we get, a little bundle of clothes with a misshapen head. Marvellous."
Dino chuckled, oblivious to the scandalized looks of everyone else. "If I thought for a second that you meant any of that, I'd kill you, Kyouya." As it was, he leant forward to press a light kiss on his lips before taking the child from his arms again, not paying any mind to the gazes of those around them. "I'll take him back so the doctor can take another look at him," he said. "They'll want to keep an eye on him for another day or two, but that's it. By that time the legal issues should be taken care of so we can take him home with us."
"Good." Of course, everything had been settled with the surrogate mother long before the time of the actual birth. Now all that was needed were some final signatures, and the child would be theirs to keep. It was quite beyond Kyouya why something like that was necessary in the first place, seeing as any test would confirm they both were parents to the child, but after years of struggling to reach this point, he supposed he could jump through a couple of more hoops.
There would still be a lot to do, as he well knew. They would have to inform the rest of the family, plan announcements, make sure the nursery was ready for the child, do everything necessary to welcome the Cavallone Undicesimo to the world. For the moment, though, the wait was over at last. They had a child. A son. Their son.
They had gone from a couple to a pack. A family, as Dino would say.
Nobody ever saw it, but Kyouya was smiling.