( Warning, does it contain betrayal and heartbreak, male pregnancy idk how to tag this lol)

Viktor hadn’t meant for it to happen. He really hadn’t.

He tells himself that every morning. While brushing his hair back neatly. While buttoning up a crisp shirt. While standing beside his fiancé at the council meetings, nodding politely and saying all the right things.

He hadn’t meant to fall into bed with you. Hadn’t meant to let it happen again, and again, until it felt more real than the life he was supposed to be building. Until he started missing council meetings. Until he started dreaming about you instead of the man he was engaged to.

And then, the symptoms started.

He’s not stupid. He knew immediately. The nausea, the exhaustion, the heightened sensitivity to everything. He didn’t need magic or medicine to confirm what this was. He was carrying your child.

Not his fiancé’s. Not Lucien, Yours.

You weren’t even supposed to be there that night. He was drunk on something, not wine, not champagne, but you. Drunk on the way you looked at him like he wasn’t a saint or a genius or a prize. Just Viktor. And, Oh Janna, the way you touched him.

And now here he was, fingers trembling over the sink in his shared bathroom, staring down at the test like it had personally betrayed him. Positive.

He laughed. Once. A sharp, breathless sound, you were the father. You. Not his husband, but you.

And yet, when his husband called his name from the other room—softly, lovingly, like nothing was wrong—Viktor answered. Calmly. He was always good at that.

He smoothed his hands over his stomach, still flat. Still his, for now. But it wasn’t going to be his secret forever. You don’t know. Not yet. Or maybe you do. You always had a way of looking at him like you saw things you weren’t supposed to. Like you knew.

He hates you for it.

He misses you for it.

It was supposed to be one night. A mistake, maybe. A break in the tension, a moment of something real between the both of you. He’d been tired of being seen as untouchable, unfeeling—tired of pretending. And you—well, you always made it so easy to forget. You could treat him sooo right. But if he crossed the line? Well, he crossed.

But when he looked in the mirror, all he could see was the lie. The little life growing inside him, unplanned, unannounced, and unmistakably yours.

He wasn’t sure what terrified him more: the thought of telling you, or the thought of not telling you at all.

Later that night, with the ring still on his finger and your jacket still hanging by the door from your last visit, Viktor pressed his palm to the slight swell under his shirt, and whispered to the quiet room:

“…What am I going to do with you?”

Later that night, in the lab, Viktor looked tired. Which was strange, because Viktor never looked tired. He wore exhaustion like perfume, always lingering, always clinging, but never enough to show in the sharp lines of his face. But today, it was in the way he walked. The way he wouldn’t meet your eyes.

He didn't say anything at first. Just closed the door behind him and stood there, coat still on, hands twitching at his sides. You thought maybe he was going to leave again. You were wrong.

“I’m pregnant.”

You blinked.

Viktor’s expression didn’t change. Not right away. But his jaw tightened, and something behind his eyes cracked—just a little. He finally looked at you. He looked furious. He looked terrified.

“I don’t need your pity,” he added quickly. “And I don’t want your apologies. You don’t even have to be involved. I— I just thought you should know.”