The Dragon's Treasure (BL)

"Ok, be careful now. Just careful. Don't push any more, dear," Brandon said as he slowly put his two hands around the baby and began to ease it out, softly swinging it back and forth. 

Pan was going to be sick. 

"Brandon," Brunhilde said, as she tried to take in a breath. "Brandon, it hurts!"

Brandon knew it. Still, he could only offer grim words.

"Only death can pay for life, and sometimes pain can be a currency, the Grim Reaper extracts instead," Brandon said as he kept on easing the baby out as gently as possible. 

"And you're almost done, dear. You're almost...," Brandon froze. There, right around the baby's neck, was the cord. 

"Is there something wrong, Brandon?" Brunhilde asked, taking in desperate gulps of breath.

Brandon cursed himself for freezing like that. The last thing Brunhilde needed was for him to freeze. She should have been helped by someone who had assisted more than one birth. 

Not Brandon. Brandon had only been named as the godfather of all those children in the village because he had helped their mothers on different occasions. 

The old midwife, who had done the deliveries, had been sick the last couple of days, and Brandon, for he had assisted her with the births more than once, had been chosen for this task. 

"Brunhilde, have you knitted your baby's blanket yet?" Brandon asked as he soldiered on. 

"My baby's blanket? Oh, I have an entire mountain of blankets. I couldn't go out the last month," Brunhilde said as she relaxed back in her pillow. 

"Pan, please come over here," Brandon said. 

The baby could use a quick heal, Brandon thought to himself.

Even if it was too late, Brandon had to try! But apparently, Pan was too scared to move, let alone talk. Brandon looked at him, looked him straight in the blue eyes, and then winked.

"Come now! We must see if we can get a Pan instead of a Brandon," Brandon joked, for he knew that if he was short with Pan now, what with how terrified he was, Pan was going to lock himself inside his shell and freeze.

"A Pan instead of a Brandon? No chance, Brandon," Brunhilde said, only to scream seconds later.

"Pan, please," Brandon was at his wit's end.

Oh, why did the only birth he assisted alone ended up with the umbilical cord around the baby's neck?

He tried to think of a way to get the baby out of there without a quick heal. But knew that should he cut into Brunhilde, she might succumb to infection afterward.

"Yes, okay," Pan stood up on shaky legs as he tried to think about everything he could do to help. He was a field healer, not a midwife. He was way over his head. 

What if the baby died? What if the mother died? What if Brandon died? 

"Don't think about things you can't control," Brandon said, trying to put Pan at ease. "Think only about that which you can control."

Pan slapped himself on the cheek once, twice, earning a chuckle from Brunhilde. 

As he went to the baby, he saw why Brandon was so panicked, but he bit his lower lip and didn't even let out a sound.

 He knew what he had to do. Knew that if the quick heal wasn't going to be applied right now to get rid of the cord, then the baby was surely going to die. 

"Brandon, give me your ribbon," Pan said.

 Brandon did not hesitate. He untied his braid, his curly brown hair pooling around him, as he handed the braid to Pan.

Pan took it and then tied the umbilical cord at two places. 

"Now I need something sharp and clean. Something I can cut in!" Pan had only read one medical book on the subject, and that was a long time ago.

As the only healer in his village, the women had decided that he should deliver their children.

He had gone on the adventure long before they had the chance to get him to be a midwife, but he had still remembered what was in the book.

"Yes, of course," Brandon took out his dagger and then washed it as quickly as possible in a water basin. 

He put some mana, knowing that a dragon's mana was the best way to sterilize.

"Here you go," Brandon said, as he handed the now sterilized dagger to Pan.

"What is happening? What is with the dagger? What is with my baby? Ahh..."

 Pan, quick as lightning, cut the umbilical cord in two pieces, making sure that the ends were tied tight. Then he looked at Brandon.

 "Get it out now," Pan said.

Brandon began to do his little routine again, grateful that the baby was now almost out.

Only the legs remained.

"You did good," Brandon said, but there was one problem with it all: normally the cord would have been cut after the baby was out. 

Brandon placed Pan's hand over the Brunhilde's stomach.

"But now she needs a quick heal. Quickly!", Pan took in a deep breath.

He didn't have the mana for a quick heal right now. He was still recovering from the slave rune. 

He took a hold of Brandon's collar and crashed their lips together. He did not register anything about the kiss. For he could feel as the bony fingers of the end were hovering over Brunhilde and the baby.

He could not let it happen! He had to fight!

Pan took as much mana as he could from Brandon and then used his hand to pulsate the quick heal Brunhilde. He could feel as the potent mana overwhelmed him, as Brunhilde let out the scream and the baby was finally let loose out of her. 

Pan looked down at his handiwork, noticing that Brunhilde's skin was now a better color and that she looked so as if she were no longer in pain. 

Pan hoped, to everything that was holy, that he had not overcharged her with the dragon's mana. 

"Pan?" Brandon asked for that, which had been done, was not something normally done. Nobody took someone's mana without permission.

 And yet, Pan had done it. He was now smiling. 

"Yes, Brandon?" Pan asked as he slowly used the remaining mana to get rid of the cord, swapping the baby and luxuriating in the cry it let out. 

"I'll charge you for that mana, you know that, right?" Brandon said with a wink.

But his legs were jelly, and his stomach had an entire tribe of butterflies inside.

 "Oh, I, well..." but apparently Pan was going back to being a stuttering mess.

Brandon found that adorable.