Daddy

Jack got home no earlier than he usually did, despite the promise he’d that made that morning. He could’ve left, sure, but since Alex sounded back to his normal self and Jordan hadn’t called about any problems, he didn’t see a reason to leave and lose those extra few hours of pay for the week. He didn’t even call or text to let them know that he would be staying. They’d been getting along just fine when he’d called at lunch, so surely they wouldn’t notice his absence for a little while longer, right?

Alex had noticed, and he’d been pretty damn upset about it, of course… up until the moment the front door was pushed open. Then he was as bright and giggly and clingy as always. Jack barely had the time to take in his surroundings before arms were snaking around his neck and a body was pressing tightly against his own, being pushed up by the balls of the elder’s feet. His mouth was moving a mile a minute, and it seemed impossible for him to stop his incessant bouncing.

Jack tried to listen to all of the things he was being told, but he was still sort of brain dead after having to sit behind a desk for eight hours (and traffic for an additional half hour). An arm snaked around Alex’s waist to hold the elder in place before he pressed a kiss to a smooth cheek and buried his nose in the hair at the side of Alex’s head.

“It’s good to see you, too, baby boy,” he teased. “I’d almost think you hadn’t seen me in years instead of hours. Did you have a good time with Jordan?”

“Yes!” Alex exclaimed excitedly before he was right on back to recounting every single second of the day that Jack had been away. He’d hoped it would have the opposite effect, but… well, he’d tried.

“Hey, hey, sh. Relax, alright? You’ll have lots of time to tell me all about it later, yeah? You can tell me whatever your pretty, little heart desires when it’s time for dinner. For now, where’s Jordan?” Jack interrupted, and Alex didn’t sigh in annoyance.

He really didn’t.

“He’s in the living room still. Come on.” Alex stepped back and reached down to grip at his daddy’s hand, and (with a small pause to actually close the door behind him) Jack followed as he was tugged into the correct room.

In the living room, Jordan was curled up on the couch with Sebastian sitting in his lap. His fingers drummed down the stuffed dog’s curled spine absentmindedly as he watched The Little Mermaid. (Alex had insisted, and how was he supposed to say no?)

“You let him hold Sebastian?” was the first thing Jack had asked, genuinely surprised that his baby boy had done such a thing. The only other person who was allowed to touch the dog was himself. Jordan jumped at the sound and craned his neck around to see just how close the couple was. He knew Jack was home, had guessed from the second he and Alex had heard the car’s engine shut off in the driveway (and from the way Alex had shrieked “Daddy!” as he barreled toward the front door), but he hadn’t realized they’d come into the room.

Alex hummed as he leaned into Jack’s side. “I wasn’t done coloring,” he said as he pointed to the mess of papers and crayons that were scattered along the table and floor. How had Jack missed that? “He didn’t have anyone to sit with him when he got done coloring his picture for Zack, so I told him that he could cuddle with Sebastian until I was done.”

Apparently they’d been better alone together than Jack had originally hoped they’d be.

The younger man pulled his boy back into his side and squeezed his waist gently. As a kiss was pressed to his hair, Jack made sure to tell Alex that that was a, “Very nice thing to do, sweet boy. Daddy’s very proud of you.”

Jordan watched from his vantage point a little awkwardly. It was different seeing them interact in public than it was in the (not quite) privacy of their home. Part of him wished that Jack had told him that praise was such a big thing for Alex while another part of him sort of wanted them to remember that he was in the room. They weren’t being inappropriate or anything, but it was still a little… weird.

“Go finish coloring so that we can get this all cleaned up before dinner, alright, baby? Daddy’s gonna go talk to Jordan. I don’t want you jumpin’ around too much or anything anymore, either. Don’t need you gettin’ sick again later, do we?” Jack said as he finally shooed his baby boy from his side and back toward the front of the couch.

There was an answering, “No, daddy,” before the younger was walking off toward the kitchen, lazily waving a hand over his shoulder to get Jordan to follow.

The not-quite-babysitter stood from his end of the couch and stretched his stiff limbs, Sebastian in hand. He watched for a moment as Alex settled himself on the spot on the floor that he’d spent the last two or so hours in, and as the elder set about picking up a crayon, he leaned over and nuzzled Sebastian’s fuzzy face into a smooth cheek. As a sort of afterthought to the situation, he let out a small ‘woof woof’ under his breath, just loud enough to be heard.

Alex grinned and let out a giggle as he turned to take his doggy back. He pressed his face against the toy, grin not leaving his lips until they moved to push a sweet kiss to the top of the dog’s head. Jordan smiled as the elder looked up to him before he stood back up and followed Jack into the kitchen.

The first thing he took notice of upon entering the room (besides the briefcase that had been discarded carelessly onto the same counter he and Alex had sat at during their lunch) was the fact that Jack was already busy settling about pulling things from the freezer. Jordan could see that he’d begun to pull out a different bag or some other container before he’d shake his head and shove it back into place. That went on for nearly thirty seconds before he finally cleared his throat and got the other man’s attention.

“Hey, sorry. I just don’t know what to make tonight that wouldn’t upset his stomach. How’s he been? Did he start to get a little queasy at all again? Do you think some chicken nuggets and tater tots would be okay?” he asked as he looked back into the freezer and reached a pink-tinted hand back into the cold to riffle around a bit more. He already knew there wasn’t much left in the fridge; he really needed to go food shopping sometime soon.

“He was a bit rough for a while after you left this morning, and then it was kind of like he hadn’t been sick at all in the first place. He didn’t complain about feeling bad or anything. There were no problems with lunch, either. I mean, I don’t know if he’s just not saying it or—”

“No, he would definitely say something if he was still feeling bad,” Jack cut in with a chuckle before he decided that chicken nuggets and tater tots would just have to do for the night. “When he’s sick, he likes to drag it out for as long as possible, but he won’t do it if there’s no reason for him to. He’ll maybe get a little poutier than usual for cuddles later, but trust me: he definitely would’ve told either you or me.

“But, look, I just wanted to say thanks again for doing this. I know you’d probably rather be doing, like, anything else, so it means a lot that you’d be willing to spend the day with him. I didn’t have time to stop at the bank on my way home since I knew that you’d both be waiting for me, but I’ve got a twenty in my wallet, and the next time I go out, I’ll get you the other thirty that I owe you.

“I hope he wasn’t too much of a pain after he started feeling back to normal,” he joked as he set about finding the perfect-sized pans. “He’s shy around a lot of people, but it seems like he’s taken a real liking to you. He can be a handful sometimes, but he’s my baby boy, and I wouldn’t change him for anything.”

There was a content smile on Jack’s face as he set the pans next to the bags on the counter. When he turned back around, it was to Jordan nodding. His eyebrows were furrowed together on his forehead and his mouth was twisted into a confused scowl, as though he didn’t understand something, but he didn’t speak up about it. Instead, he moved on to answer the somewhat rhetorical question he’d been asked.

“He really wasn’t too much trouble. He was quiet up until he wanted lunch, and then he was more open and willing to talk. I mean, you know I’m between jobs right now, so I don’t think I’d mind doing it again if you needed me to or something. Like, y’know, it’s not like I’m doing much right now except applying to places. He was good company.” Jordan was mumbling by the end of his statement, like a teenager saying that they thought their mother was ‘pretty cool’ or something. He didn’t need to appear too eager. He wasn’t, after all. He was just… not as opposed to it as he thought he’d be.

Jack caught on, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “Alex isn’t sick often,” he said as he finally set about turning on the oven and opening the bags to truly get their dinner started. “I don’t think he’ll have any more problems anytime soon, if he’s as well as he seems to be. If he does, I’ll make sure that you’re the first person I call. I’m sure he’d like that, anyway. If you were ever bored, I know that he could use the company. It’s usually just me and Sebastian, and I’ve got work, and… yeah, I’m rambling. You probably wanna get home. Here, hold on a second.”

He walked from the room with that, with one pan filled with chicken nuggets and the other half-filled with tater tots, sat on the counter and waiting for him to return. There was mumbling that could be heard from the other room, and then Jack was walking back with Alex closely in tow.

“Um… thank you for watching me today,” Alex said as he was nudged forward with a hand to his lower back. He reached the hand that Jack had been holding out and offered the money that Jordan had been promised. Or, what Jack had said he had on him. “Daddy said that this is for you.”

He stopped there and chewed on his lip for a moment. His cheeks were tinted pink, and he seemed to have trouble making eye contact for a moment. At least, he did until Jack reached out to nudge him again with a whispered, “Go on, baby boy.”

Alex cleared his throat and nodded before the hand that was still behind his back was moving to hold out a brightly-colored piece of paper. “I made this for you, too,” he said as it was taken from him. It was a picture of a cat and dog playing around a flower. There were arrows pointing to each, declaring that the dog was named Alex and the cat was Jordan. “I was just wondering if you would… maybe hang it up on your fridge?”

He sounded so hopeful that the younger man couldn’t have said no had he even wanted to.

“Of course I will,” he assured. A smile was exchanged between the pair before Alex was moving forward to hug his ‘babysitter.’ It took Jordan off-guard, and there was no time to recover from the momentary shock of it before the elder was moving away to cuddle into his boyfriend’s side shyly. “Maybe next time, your daddy could bring you over to my place, and we could spend the day there.”

Jack nodded his agreement to the proposal and Alex beamed brighter than the sun. Jordan liked him, enough to say that they could do it again at his house. This was the first time he’d had a person to call his friend (who wasn’t Jack, of course) since… probably since he was still a child, at least.

“Cool. Well, I think it’s about time I head home. I don’t want Zack worrying too much about me. Make sure you keep my secret safe, alright?” Jordan teased as he headed toward the kitchen doorway. He could hear Alex giggle and Jack’s confused mumbling (something along the lines of ‘What secret?’) before he could even disappear into the living room to gather his things.

Neither made a reappearance as Jordan left, but as he climbed into the car and glanced back toward the house, he could see Alex sat in one of the front windows, grinning and waving him off. A smile and wave back was all he could offer before he was heading back home to his own boyfriend. He had a lot to share about his day.

In the house, Alex watched until the car his babysitter was in turned the corner and disappeared from his sight. Even after that, he still didn’t move until he was being called.

His daddy stood in the doorway and observed quietly as he peeled himself from his spot by the window. He received a sympathetic smile at the glum look he bear before a hand was reaching out to point at the mess on the table and floor.

“Why don’t you clean this up for me, sweet boy? Dinner’s almost ready. You can tell me all about your day when you’re done, and then after dinner you can show me the things you colored. No more pouting, my little prince. He’ll be back someday soon. Maybe we could have some chocolate milk with our dinner. Does that sound like a good plan to you?”

The pout that had barely started to tug at the corners of Alex’s mouth disappeared almost instantaneously. If that didn’t let Jack know that his baby boy agreed, then the eager nod sure did.

He trusted his daddy. His daddy knew everything, after all. If he said that Jordan would be back soon, then Alex had no reason at all to not believe him.

If there was anything Alex was more than positive about, it was the fact that his daddy wouldn’t lie to him.

Notes

aaaand now we're all up to speed yay!!
thank u for the comments and rates and subs and stuff!! i can't see what the ratings are so they're probs like one star lolol