Mark did not take it well.

Or well, actually – he took it better than Damon had expected him to. But worse than any normal person would.

His first reaction, standing with Damon and Jun out in the garden in front of Jun's parent's house, was to stare blankly at Damon, then slowly move his gaze down to Damon's bellybutton. As if an alien was going to punch through Damon's still-flat stomach and eat his face.

Then Mark backed up three quick steps, suddenly quite sweaty around the temples. He looked like he was having a tough time, poor guy. He glanced rapidly between Damon's face and his stomach and ran a hand through his hair. He then made a noise halfway between a dog's plaintive whine and the squeal of a pig being slaughtered.

Huh. You'd think Damon had just told Mark he was the father or something, but no. Mark was exceptionally squeamish about everything pregnancy related. Damon strongly suspected it had to do with the birth video he and everyone in their class had watched in pack lessons when they were thirteen. Damon remembered Mark looking very green that day.

He was also really uncomfortable around children, which Damon knew the reason for. He didn't know how to talk to them – at all. The one time Damon had seen Mark interact with a child, he'd responded to the child's blabbering words – the kind of kid babble that only parents could decipher – with a quiet but horrified "What the fuck did you just say?"

To which the child responded by widening his eyes, pointing at Mark, and saying "Fuck!"

Mark never did tell Damon what happened with the kid's parents after that, but he assumed it wasn't anything good.

Mark remained frozen for several more seconds before apparently having A Thought and whipping his head around to glare at Jun. He pointed at him with a shaking finger.

Damon expected an accusation, maybe a few threats for Jun to do right by Damon or something equally old-fashioned and weird, but it seemed Mark was too freaked out to form words. He stuttered something, but it never came out, and Jun lifted a hand, taking a step toward Mark.

"Do I hit him now?" he asked Damon, poised to smack Mark into next Tuesday.

"Hmm," Damon hummed, considering. "Not yet. Soon, maybe. Once he starts talking in full sentences but with the words all out of order – that's when."

Jun nodded seriously, backing off but still ready to complete his task. Thankfully, the threat of being walloped made Mark come to his senses a bit.

He shook himself and Damon could visibly see him trying to pull himself together. He refocused his gaze on Damon. "I gave you one task. Don't get pregnant. And what do you do?"

Damon pursed his lips. "Oh, calm down. You're not the one that's going to turn into a beach ball."

Mark shook his head rapidly, flinging his bangs every which way. "Don't tell me to calm down. You're my best friend, I know you. You're going to make me hold it, aren't you? What if I drop your kid on its soft little head and it fucking dies?! What then, huh?"

"What if I make it a little helmet? Would you hold it then?"

"No," Mark practically screamed, pulling at his hair again.

***

They left Mark to his spiraling, Damon weirdly buoyant after getting to bully him. But now it was doctor time, which Damon was less happy about. He knew he needed to go, obviously, but after having had one doctor for his entire life, going to see an entirely new one was making him sweat a little. Plus, Damon didn't really know what the protocol in Venus pack was for pregnancies in unmated pairs.

Pregnancy was common in packs, and just as common among unmated pairs as mated ones, so there shouldn't be any extreme issues. In Ganymede pack, for example, if an unmated pair got pregnant and decided to keep the child, the pack would set up counseling for them, if they wanted it, to help them figure out what they wanted to do – if they wanted to become a formally mated pair or remain unmated and raise the child together or separate.

Venus pack was less strict with codes and rules and documentation, so Damon had no idea how much or how little the doctor would care about whether they were mated or not. Additionally, Damon wasn't sure if the fact that Jun was the Alpha's son would make any difference. Damon wasn't sure if the rest of the pack even knew about Jun's engagement or if they cared. Damon also wasn't sure what was happening with the engagement at all, still, but Jun didn't seem worried about it, and his parents had seemed on board with their relationship, so Damon didn't imagine there would be any major consequences to this.

He hoped, anyway.

The Venus pack doctor's office was slightly bigger than the one in Ganymede pack, and Damon was pretty sure they actually had another office on the other side of the pack territory. Logically, this was because Venus pack's population was considerably higher than Ganymede's. The building was painted a friendly light blue and well-maintained, but that did little to ease Damon's nerves.

When they walked in, Damon paused, suddenly wondering if they needed to make an appointment. Doctor Yang had hardly ever made Damon make an appointment aside from his scheduled yearly checkups. If he needed something checked out, he could just walk into the clinic and Doctor Yang would get to him when he could. Usually only within fifteen minutes or so, which was entirely because the volume of patients coming through his office was considerably less. Werewolves had lower rates of disease than humans, so most of the time Doctor Yang was treating anyone who came in for minor injuries – scrapes, bruises, sprained and broken bones. And even those appointments were relatively few. Wolves were resilient.

But here, Damon wasn't so sure, and he looked to Jun, hoping that he would know, but before he could say anything, a voice called out to them.

"Ah, Jun," called an older woman. She came out from around the counter with a smile. She had to be in her fifties, with dark brown, slightly graying hair and a soft smile. "It's been a while. Oh, this must be Damon. Nice to meet you, I'm Abby. Jun's aunt."