Apr. 4, 2012: Some Chords

"Is Sonny the girl?" Joel read, scoffing as he laid back in his seat. 

"You guys need to get better fuckin' questions if you're gonna pry into my personal life." He rolled his eyes and fiddled with the track he'd been working on, tinkering with filters- it seemed like no matter what he did, it wasn't quite as perfect as he wished, and it was a track that had been in the works for well over a year. "Neither of us is the girl. We're both guys. That's why Sonny had to move to Canada."

Joel let his head come to rest in his hand as he played the track back. It still didn't sound great, but maybe if he upped the bass, and changed the timing a bit… 

Joel turned to the door as he heard it creak open. Sonny was home. He came in with a couple plastic shopping bags and set them down on the counter. Meowingtons happily ran over to greet him.

"Hey, Sonny!" Joel called out to Sonny, spinning around in his chair to face him. "Come here, check out this song I'm working on. Tell me if it needs something or I'm just crazy."

"Give me a minute!" Sonny called back. Joel watched him put a couple things in the fridge before picking Meowingtons up and coming over. He pet the cat as he leaned over Joel’s shoulder. "For the EP we're working on?"

"Hey, we weren't supposed to announce it yet!"

"Oh shit, you're streaming-" Sonny laughed awkwardly. "Sorry. By the way guys, we're doing an EP together!"

“No we’re not, stop ruining the surprise!” Joel pushed Sonny back playfully, grinning all the while however. “I just wanted to see if you could make this sound better. I might put it on the EP, but right now I don’t like it enough.”

“Aww, okay.”

Joel hit play on the song, carefully watching Sonny’s reaction. Sonny bopped his head along as he listened, and when Joel stopped the music, he noted, “I think what it’s missing is some kind of vocal track. Send me the project file when you’re done messing with it and I’ll either find a sample or find someone to sing.”

Joel nodded. Now he thought about it, this song would be perfect with a vocal track.

“Huh, thanks.”

What Joel really wanted to do right now was to kiss Sonny, tell him he meant the world, but… not on camera. Not in front of fans. Joel already hated how many fans kept asking about his relationship. Sonny, on the other hand, didn't have so many reservations about letting their relationship be public. He mumbled something like 'of course', leaned in to kiss Joel's forehead and dump the cat in his lap, then walked away with a smirk on his face at how red it left his husband.

Chat seemed pretty amused about his blushing too. Joel ignored it, although he still couldn't stop staring at Sonny as he walked back over to his abandoned grocery bags, Meowingtons jumping off of Joel and plodding after him. He was literally just putting up fucking groceries, but God, did he have to look so effortlessly beautiful while he did it?

Joel glanced back to his chat, and decided to stop fucking staring at Sonny when he saw literally 5 different people saying some variation of "i ship it!" He rolled his eyes and hunched back over his computer. 

"Ship it? We already had to import Sonny, he's already been shipped. None of you were there. We had to disassemble him and put him in a giant Skrill-box with a bunch of packing peanuts and get him through customs. None of you assholes fuckin' helped me."

Sonny giggled at that, just a little, from across the room. Joel glanced over to him with a smile. It was a good day if he could make Sonny laugh. He did as Sonny had told him and saved the file as "deer bus- sonny approved" before putting it on a USB for Sonny to use later.

Sonny made his way back over to Joel once he was done putting everything up, leaning over to peer at his computer screen. 

"You done streaming?" 

"Uh… I was planning on going another hour or so." Joel glanced back over at his screen. "I mean, unless you need to talk to me right now."

"Just wanted to ask if the doctor called while I was out." 

"Yeah, she did, actually. Hold on-" Joel held up a finger toward his webcam and leaned forward to mute the stream, before looking back over to Sonny. "Everything came back normal."

"Fuck."

"I thought that was a good thing!"

"In theory, yeah." Sonny glanced toward Joel's webcam. It felt invasive, even though he knew the stream was muted. He knew Joel was only streaming out in the living room because they were rearranging everything in the studio at the moment- what with them officially tying the knot and getting all Sonny's extra equipment shipped up from LA- but it still kind of skeeved him out.

Conspicuously, Sonny took off his coat and draped it over Joel's webcam. 

"It just… worries me. If I'm not pregnant yet and we've been trying for three months, and nothing's wrong with you, it could be something wrong with me. " Sonny sighed and, in search of comfort, crawled into Joel's lap. Joel shifted to accommodate him, arms slithering around his waist. "And as great as Canadian healthcare is, there still aren't any doctors who know how my reproductive system works."

"Well… it could just be bad luck. You don't know yet." Joel sighed. He glanced toward his monitor, just to double-check the jacket actually obstructed its view. After a moment, he reached over to end the stream full stop, then kissed Sonny. His touch was gentle, comforting, as much as he could will it to be. "I won't let anything happen to you. You'll be fine."

"You can't promise that." 

"Sonny." Joel sighed and took his husband's hand, squeezing it lightly as he pulled it close to his chest. "We have another nine months. For all we know you could get pregnant tomorrow and have the baby by Christmas. Hell, you could be pregnant right now. Some people don't realize they are for weeks."

Sonny smiled, bittersweetly. "You sound like you've looked into this whole thing a lot."

Joel didn't have a response for that. He wasn't sure why he felt he couldn't admit that the idea of starting a family with Sonny was growing on him, or that he'd done a frankly inordinate amount of Googling on the topic of pregnancy to the point he was starting to get ads for baby formula and diapers. He didn't have to, though. Sonny spoke before he could think of something to say.

"It's sweet of you. It really is. But just because I can mate with humans doesn't mean my body works like theirs," Sonny said softly, a hand reaching to caress Joel's cheek. "My dad said that when I got pregnant, I'd know. I wouldn't need a pregnancy test, I'd just… feel it. And I don't feel it."

"I'm sorry," Joel muttered. He couldn't tell if he was apologizing to Sonny or himself. Why did he feel like it was his fault Sonny couldn't conceive, even after the doctor said it obviously wasn't?

"It isn't your fault," Sonny eventually said with a sigh, leaning down to kiss Joel again, and then again. "I'm just being a pessimist."

"Ha. Thought that was my job," Joel remarked, hands trailing down to Sonny's hips. "Being a negative asshole, knocking you up, and laying down sick beats."

"I think you've been slacking on that second thing."

"Mm, I have." Joel pulled Sonny closer by his hips, hands beginning to explore the vast expanse of skin under his shirt. "Any way I could make that up?"