Title: soboro-ppang (소보로빵)
rating: T for suggestive themes at the end
Fandom: Mind Blind (if)
Pairing: Ambrose Kim x Ellery Wiseman
Summary: how I imagine the scene from the ask Jo answered about the ROs reacting to Button telling them there is a “bun in the oven” as well as how they would propose. I use they/them pronouns throughout for Ellery but they are a person who can become pregnant in this scenario! Also the title is based off a Korean streusel bun because 🖤
***
Pinterest was awash with ideas and recommendations for how to best break the “big news”— and not just to one’s partner but to their family and social media and before Ellery knew it one rabbit hole let to another which had in turn led to Ellery now staring at a video of a bunch of tiny kittens playing with ducklings.
All in all, really good progress, if they were being honest. Except they still didn’t know how to tell their husband they were pregnant.
Three years of dating. One year since the trip to Korea where Ambrose had simply handed over a small black box to Ellery, expression more intense than they had seen in a long while. There was no mistaking what it was, what it meant. Ellery opened the box and what caught their eye was not the ring, but the date written on the inside of the lid.
It was a week after they had decided to date.
Of course they had asked what it meant and Ambrose had, in the simplest terms, confessed it was the day he bought the ring.
One week. One week was all it took for this man to decide that Ellery was it. Ellery was his endgame, his forever-person— enough to offer them his name. And why not? They had his heart.
He’d kept it simple. Direct. Ellery couldn’t wait three years to tell him for obvious reasons, but in the end they closed out of pinterest because they had found their answer at last.
--
Ellery waited until after work. When the day was done and Ambrose was out of “uniform” even if he was still flipping through student papers. Ellery would never get used to how young he looked like this—wearing a soft faded t-shirt and jeans, his hair a bit mussed from no longer suppressing any urge to run his hand through the dark strands.
He was only thirty-four. Older than them to be sure, but hardly a man who had all the answers to life, the universe and everything. Even if he carried himself like he did.
Ellery came to sit across the kitchen table from him, a warm mug of ginger tea in their hands. They’d been quietly battling feelings of nausea for days now, their discomfort not going unnoticed by the keen eye of their husband. He would figure it out on his own if Ellery let him, but instead they took a sip of their tea and waited.
Ambrose eventually looked up from his work, caught their expression and now he waited too. Knew they had something they wanted to say.
“There is a bun in the oven.” Ellery said—simple. Direct.
Ambrose said nothing. His expression gave away nothing. Not even surprise. And right when Ellery was beginning to feel their stomach churn for a different reason he spoke.
“You’re not talking about food, are you?”
Apparently not direct enough. Ellery let out the nervous bubble they had been holding in with a short laugh and then nodded.
“I’m not talking about food. I’m pregnant.”
Ambrose set down his pen.
“How long?” he said and judging by the way his brow winced, he had not meant it to come out as strained as it did.
“Six weeks.” Ellery said, running their thumb across the lip of their mug with a wistful smile. Six weeks. Thirty-three left, give or take. Their thoughts were already beginning to unfurl with possibility. Warmed and content by the idea of the tiny little spark inside. That they did that. Together. They made this. A family of their own.
Ambrose hadn’t spoken again and Ellery looked up from their tea to smile at him only to find his eyes were blocked from their view. His hand was over his face, his other hand clenched into a fist against the table as his jaw worked tightly.
Anxiety blossomed out over their feelings like tea staining paper. Ellery stood up abruptly, moving around the table to his side, his name a worried question on their tongue.
But it was Ambrose who reached out to them first. Turned in his chair, face buried against their chest and his strong arms latched around them. The breath he took in shuddered wetly in his lungs and Ellery felt their heart constrict and throb with the sudden knowledge—Ambrose Kim was crying. Weeping silently against them.
They fisted one hand into the back of his shirt, holding tightly while the other petted gently through his hair. It didn’t last long, but Ellery held him through it all.
When Ambrose finally extracted himself, he still kept an arm around their waist, roughly scrubbing his face with his hand and taking in a few settling breaths. Ellery gave him a gentle nudge, a fair warning they were shifting in to settle themselves on his lap. Ambrose was quick to make the necessary room.
Ellery wrapped their arms around his neck and pressed their forehead against his temple, rubbing into the spot and enjoying the secureness of his arms, the solid sureness of it that matched the feeling in their chest.
“Have you told your brother?” Ambrose said, voice low and rough, but quickly recovering.
“Not yet, which is a miracle all in it’s own.” Ellery said with a soft laugh, “He thinks I’m contemplating telling you I want a dog.”
Ambrose scoffed, the sound lighter than normal. Almost a laugh itself.
“But he’s next. I wanted to make sure you were the first.”
A kiss to his hair was evidently insufficient as Ambrose shifted around to capture another with his lips. And there it was again—all their hopes and ideas, all the things that could be and were, like how they loved him so much that it was everywhere. In every sense. He filled up every inch of their heart and Ellery wondered how they could possibly fit anymore in. How they could love two people so much without even having met one of them yet.
When they parted, Ambrose hesitated only for a moment before he said quietly, “I never thought I’d have a family again.”
And it aches. From his words to their heart and to his, it aches with grief and happiness. Of wishes that his own family could be here, but the joy that Ellery is. That he found them. That they found him. And when he kisses Ellery senselessly they know it is to show them that they are everything he has ever wanted. Ellery. This child. Everything.
Silence had never been so comfortable. Punctuated only by the faint hum of approval Ellery gives when Ambrose stands and carries them with him to the bedroom. He laid them down on the bed, making them smile at how he still didn’t treat Ellery as if they were fragile, even now. He settled himself above them and began making quick work of getting out of that t-shirt.
“Are you happy?” Ellery asked, a mumbled contented question between the kisses he pressed to their jaw and then down their neck.
“Yes.”
His breathing was ragged already, hands working on removing Ellery’s own shirt.
“Really, really happy?”
They always said not to play with fire and right now beneath their hands, Ambrose Kim was burning. He tangled his fingers in their hair to force their chin up, tilting their eyes up to meet his own. Blown out and dark, heavy with wanting and just the tinest spark of amusement. His lips curved into a slight smirk.
“Since words seem insufficient, I suppose I’ll have to show you.”
The shudder that ran up the length of Ellery’s body had nothing to do with the chill on their bared skin.
