FIC: Kadam's Adventure in Babysitting
Written for Day 2 of 2013 Kadam week! It could involve Kadam with kids or as kids, and I chose the former. Warnings for super sappy fluff. :)
Kurt had just finished jotting down a few research notes for a paper due Monday in his ‘History of Musical Theater’ class when his phone buzzed. It was from Adam and it read, “How are you with children?”
As he read the text, one eyebrow rose in a combination of curiosity and concern. Adam had been telling him excitedly all week long about how his older brother, his wife and their three young children were coming to visit for a week from Essex, and how much he was looking forward to spending time with them all.
“Okay I guess. What’s going on?”
He laughed when he read the reply from Adam that came back just a few seconds later.
“Sibs out sight-seeing, I’m on Uncle duty. Drowning in tears.”
“Yours or theirs?”
“Both! Help?”
Kurt laughed again, picturing the scene. Adam’s sister-in-law had given birth to twins less than a year before he had left for the U.S. to attend NYADA, and then she had given birth to another child just six months ago. Adam had been incredibly excited to see them all, but if the other adults were gone then that meant he was now dealing with two preschoolers and an infant, all by himself. Kurt’s own experience with children was confined to playing with younger cousins when he was a kid, and occasionally babysitting Sam Evans’ two siblings during high school. It wasn’t much to offer, but he could at least lend Adam a couple of extra hands and some moral support.
“Poor thing! Hang in there, I’m on my way.”
“Bless you!!!”
Still chuckling to himself, Kurt put away his books and papers, changed into some old clothes that could stand up to messy little ones, and grabbed his keys. This could be interesting.
~*~*~*~*~
When he arrived at Adam’s apartment, Kurt paused with his hand raised to knock. He could hear the pitiful sound of wailing from inside and Adam’s stressed-out voice talking over it. The words were unclear, but his tone was almost pleading. Drawing a deep breath, Kurt knocked sharply and called out, “Adam, it’s Kurt!”
He distinctly heard, “Oh, thank God!” then the assorted door locks and chain began rattling. When the door opened, Kurt’s eyes went wide. Adam was balancing a crying infant in one arm, his shirt was coated in a yellowish substance that Kurt hoped devoutly was baby-food, and his hair and eyes were both wild.
“Um, hello,” Kurt ventured, glancing past him to where two little blonde-haired girls were gleefully tossing handfuls of what appeared to be glitter up in the air, coating themselves and everything around them in sparkling flecks of silver.
“Thank you so much for coming,” Adam said gratefully, ducking forward to drop a quick kiss on Kurt’s cheek, carefully not touching him otherwise.
Amused, Kurt came inside, shutting the door behind him and throwing the locks back into place as he took off his jacket and hung it safely in the closet. “My pleasure. Are you guys having a glitter party?”
“Apparently,” he agreed grimly, jogging the still howling baby in his arms in an attempt to calm it down. “They were whinging about being bored, so I tried to distract them with some craft supplies I had left over from my set-design course. This led to them coloring on my walls, so I attempted to distract them a second time with the Tinkerbell movie their mother left. Unfortunately, they only watched it for what felt like five minutes before deciding that they needed to try flying about with the aid of a little pixie dust.”
“Which explains the glitter,” Kurt concluded, trying not to laugh at Adam’s predicament.
Running a hand through his messy hair, Adam groaned, “I don’t know how I’m going to get them all cleaned up and get their lunch served. I was trying to serve Bartie his baby food while the girls played and you can see how well that went. I assured Jenny that I was perfectly capable of looking after the children if she and Neil wanted to take an afternoon just for them, but I must have been out of my mind. I’m already going completely mad, and it’s been less than two hours!”
As his voice rose with frustration, the baby in his arms began to cry even louder in response. “No, no, I’m sorry darling. Please don’t cry,” Adam begged, looking like he was about to burst into tears himself.
“Okay, well, help has arrived and between the two of us I’m sure we can handle everything. Why don’t you go get yourself and your nephew cleaned up, and I’ll see if I can’t distract the fairy princesses. If he still hasn’t quit crying by the time you come back, we’ll switch off and I’ll see what I can do. I used to be pretty good at soothing my cousins.”
Adam sagged with relief. “I know I said this before, but bless you, Kurt. You are a kind and generous soul.”
He laughed. “Well, thank you. I’ll be sure to put that on my resume if I ever take up professional babysitting.”
While Adam took the baby back to his room, Kurt moved further into the small living area. Vaguely, he hoped that Adam’s family was staying at a hotel somewhere, because he could not imagine how they were otherwise fitting six humans into this tiny bachelor pad. It was a lucky thing that Adam had had the good sense to put newspapers down to protect the carpet before giving a pair of four year olds access to paint and glitter, because the stuff was everywhere. Adam and his guests would likely be sitting down upon a sparkly sofa for years to come.
“Hello, ladies,” he greeted lightly as he approached the girls. “I was told that you might be able to help me, since you’re obviously fairies.”
The twins, identical in every way except that one girl had her golden pigtails tied up with green ribbons and the other in purple ones, stopped what they were doing and stared thoughtfully up at the strange man invading their play. Then purple ribbons asked, “Are you Adam’s friend?”
Fighting the urge to coo at how cute it was to hear Adam’s distinctive accent coming out of this tiny girl, (And seriously, why had he not been expecting that?) Kurt crouched down to their level and said, “Yes, I’m Kurt. Are you Adam’s friends too?”
They looked at each other and giggled. “No,” green ribbons replied, shaking her head and sending flecks of glitter flying. “We’re his nices.”
“Nices?”
The first girl told him in a loud stage whisper, “Uncle Adam is Daddy’s baby brother. Like Bartie is our baby brother. Except Uncle Adam is big, and not a baby.”
Kurt nodded. “I see. You’re his nieces, and you’re nice. In fact, I’ll bet you’re the nicest nieces he could have asked for, so that makes you his nices.”
Purple ribbons beamed at this unusual adult who could follow child sense so clearly. She looked so much like her uncle when she smiled that Kurt could not help but smile back. “Yes. I’m Cammy, this is Lissa. Do you want to be friends?”
He sketched as much of a bow as he could from a kneeling position and said, “I would be honored. I was hoping to find my lost mermaid friend, but I got lost on my way to the lagoon.”
They looked intrigued. That was a good sign. “You know a mermaid?” asked Lissa, blue eyes widening with hope. “Can we meet her?”
“Maybe. She’s invisible to most people, though,” he explained solemnly. “I can only see her when she’s in the water. That’s why I’m trying to find the lagoon. I know Adam has one somewhere, but I don’t know my way around very well. Can you help me?”
The twins exchanged another silent communication, then they both nodded, taking each of his hands in theirs. Kurt could feel the grit of glitter in their grasps as he stood up and allowed himself to be led to the bathroom.
Adam glanced up from his task of pinning a fresh diaper in place as they trooped in and his nephew, much less fussy now that he was clean and no longer wet, wiggled happily at the sight of his sisters. Adam steadied him quickly, not wanting him to topple off the clothes hamper that was serving as a make-shift changing table.
“Uncle Adam!” Cammy blurted excitedly. “You need to run us bath water!”
His eyes widened in astonishment, clearly wondering what miracle his boyfriend had wrought in the space of ten minutes. “Bath?” he clarified faintly.
“With bubbles if you have any,” Kurt declared, making the girls look at him with questioning eyes. “Mermaids are much easier to spot if you can get the bubbles to stick to their tails.”
The girls nodded eagerly, entirely on board with this logic.
Adam smiled, catching on. “That’s right, I had forgotten. You’ll need to get into the tub and look closely, though. Mermaids are rather tiny.” He held his fingers a few inches apart in demonstration.
They looked at Kurt for confirmation. “New York lagoons are little because we don’t have as much open water as other places,” he said. “If you let them out in the ocean, the can grow as big as dolphins, but here they stay little so there’s room to swim and play.”
“Ooooh!” the girls chorused. “Is that why you lost her?” Lissa asked him. “Because she got too little and slipped into a drain?”
“My roommate forgot to put the plug the sink,” he agreed. What the heck, Rachel would never know. “Luckily, my mermaid knows that Adam is my friend and it’s okay to come here and play when he’s at home.”
They clearly liked this idea and Adam was more than willing to go along with it. “That’s right. She’s a bit shy, so I don’t know if she’ll come out today but you girls should have a look.”
“Why don’t you take care of that, and I’ll take this little guy out and see if he’s willing to take a nap while I clean up pixie-dust central?” Kurt suggested, doubting the appropriateness of giving a bath to someone else’s kids, especially when the parents had never even met him.
Seeming to understand his unspoken concern, Adam hefted the baby back into his arms and passed him to Kurt. “There are fresh clothes in the bag that’s sitting on my bed. New outfits for all.”
“Smart,” Kurt commented, cradling his new charge against his shoulder. “See you later, girls. Let me know if you find Cora. That’s my mermaid’s name.”
They chimed in agreement, already yanking at their clothes in anticipation of searching for mermaids in the bathtub. Adam and Kurt exchanged an amused look as they each took up their new tasks, Adam searching for the bottle of bubble soap that Kurt knew he had because they had used some of it together one night, and Kurt carrying the fussily whimpering baby out to the bedroom for redressing.
“So, your name is Bart, huh?” he asked, setting the boy down on his back and rummaging in the bag until he came up with a cute yellow onesie with monkeys on the fabric. “That’s pretty close to my daddy’s name. His name is Burt, and mine is Kurt. You’re practically part of the family, aren’t you? Oh, you like that? You want to be an honorary Hummel? Be careful, we might put you to work in the garage. You look like a pretty strong guy. Yes, you do.”
Kurt continued to babble nonsense as he fastened all the snaps into place and got the child dressed again. The baby seemed to like his voice. He had stopped whimpering and began to smile; grabbing hold of Kurt’s fingers as they lightly tickled him.
“Wow, you are strong! That’s quite a grip,” he cooed as his finger was squeezed by the tiny hand. He made faces at the little boy, bubbling his lips and making his eyes go wide. Bartie was clearly delighted with this weird performance, grinning a mostly toothless smile and clapping encouragement.
Hoping that he was not sounding like too much of an idiot if Adam happened to be listening, Kurt began to sing a medley of TV theme songs. He was not exactly up on infant lullabies, but this is what his dad had used when Kurt was a little boy, and it had worked like a charm. Even if it had made him the only kid in preschool who knew all the words to “The Love Boat” and “The Brady Bunch”.
Apparently those old songs worked just as well on modern British babies. By the time Kurt finished the “Golden Girls” theme song, his boyfriend’s nephew was fast asleep. Kurt slid him over to the middle of the bed and secured him in place with a couple of pillows. He could still hear Adam and his nieces splashing happily together, so he walked back out to the living room and carefully gathered the sticky, sparkly newspapers into the trash. Hoping he would not make too much noise and wake the baby, he did his best to vacuum the remaining glitter off the couch and surrounding area. Nothing much could be done about the paint stains low on one wall, but maybe Adam would be up for a little redecorating later on. At any rate, the parents should probably see what damage their little princesses had done.
Just as he finished, Adam appeared, wearing a clean shirt and a smile as he led his two damp but identically smiling nieces by the hand. “We saw Cora!” one girl announced brightly. Kurt was not sure which niece she was, as Adam had put their hair in red and blue ribbons this time, messing up his identification markers.
“She didn’t want to stay,” the other girl added. “She said she had to go home. She’ll probably be at your house when you go home.”
“I see. Well, thank you for giving her a play date,” Kurt responded. “She gets lonely sometimes when I’m at school or at work.”
They smiled, assuring him that Cora was welcome to visit them in England any time she wanted.
“Good to know,” he chuckled. He smiled at Adam. “What’s for lunch, uncle? You owe me food for my excellent maid services.””
Adam grinned back at him. “I certainly do! That’s the least I owe you for all you’ve done. Seriously, Kurt, you’ve saved my sanity. I cut up a fruit and vegetable tray earlier. It’s in the fridge.”
“Fruit and veggies, yum!” he said brightly, noting the unconvinced look on the children’s faces. “Do you have those tiny tomato bombs? I love those. And celery boats!”
“Indeed, I do. There are cucumber rafts, carrot missiles, little broccoli islands … we have it all.”
The adults’ enthusiasm made the food sound like fun and the girls went along with eating a few chilled vegetables as well as some fruit when Kurt and Adam helped them “sail” their crunchy armada through a sea of buttermilk ranch dip and “shoot” carrot missiles into each other’s mouths.
They were laughing so hard and having so much fun that the time flew. Then red-ribbon girl, (Kurt was pretty sure it was Cammy) yawned, which made her sister yawn, which immediately set off Adam and Kurt as well.
“I’m guessing it must be nap time,” Adam suggested, drawing noises of protest from the girls, even as they yawned again. “Frankly, I wouldn’t mind a few winks myself. What do you say, darlings? Put your tired old uncle down for a little rest?”
Apparently, the prospect of a nap did not sound as dire if the adults were going to be sleeping too. The girls grinned at the idea of putting Adam to bed and went along willingly, carried in the arms of their two babysitters. Each child was laid down on one side of their still napping brother on Adam’s bed, and then, much to Kurt’s amusement, he was ordered to climb onto the mattress next to Lissa while Adam took the other edge next to Cammy.
Looking at each other across the sea of small children, Adam began to sing “Stand By Me” and Kurt quickly joined in. As they sang, the little girls quickly drifted off to sleep, leaving the men smiling softly at one another. Kurt reached out, clasping hands with Adam across the warm bodies of the children. Neither one said it, but both could feel the connection. The vague possibility of someday, if fate were to ever take a certain turn in their lives. It made Kurt feel shy and a little overwhelmed, but also warm and more than a bit tender.
“Thank you for coming today,” Adam whispered.
“Thank you for asking me,” he replied softly.
Staring into each other’s eyes, neither man was fully aware of it when their heavy lids drifted closed and they followed Bart, Lissa and Cammy into the land of happy dreams, hands still clasped between them.
THE END
Kurt had just finished jotting down a few research notes for a paper due Monday in his ‘History of Musical Theater’ class when his phone buzzed. It was from Adam and it read, “How are you with children?”
As he read the text, one eyebrow rose in a combination of curiosity and concern. Adam had been telling him excitedly all week long about how his older brother, his wife and their three young children were coming to visit for a week from Essex, and how much he was looking forward to spending time with them all.
“Okay I guess. What’s going on?”
He laughed when he read the reply from Adam that came back just a few seconds later.
“Sibs out sight-seeing, I’m on Uncle duty. Drowning in tears.”
“Yours or theirs?”
“Both! Help?”
Kurt laughed again, picturing the scene. Adam’s sister-in-law had given birth to twins less than a year before he had left for the U.S. to attend NYADA, and then she had given birth to another child just six months ago. Adam had been incredibly excited to see them all, but if the other adults were gone then that meant he was now dealing with two preschoolers and an infant, all by himself. Kurt’s own experience with children was confined to playing with younger cousins when he was a kid, and occasionally babysitting Sam Evans’ two siblings during high school. It wasn’t much to offer, but he could at least lend Adam a couple of extra hands and some moral support.
“Poor thing! Hang in there, I’m on my way.”
“Bless you!!!”
Still chuckling to himself, Kurt put away his books and papers, changed into some old clothes that could stand up to messy little ones, and grabbed his keys. This could be interesting.
~*~*~*~*~
When he arrived at Adam’s apartment, Kurt paused with his hand raised to knock. He could hear the pitiful sound of wailing from inside and Adam’s stressed-out voice talking over it. The words were unclear, but his tone was almost pleading. Drawing a deep breath, Kurt knocked sharply and called out, “Adam, it’s Kurt!”
He distinctly heard, “Oh, thank God!” then the assorted door locks and chain began rattling. When the door opened, Kurt’s eyes went wide. Adam was balancing a crying infant in one arm, his shirt was coated in a yellowish substance that Kurt hoped devoutly was baby-food, and his hair and eyes were both wild.
“Um, hello,” Kurt ventured, glancing past him to where two little blonde-haired girls were gleefully tossing handfuls of what appeared to be glitter up in the air, coating themselves and everything around them in sparkling flecks of silver.
“Thank you so much for coming,” Adam said gratefully, ducking forward to drop a quick kiss on Kurt’s cheek, carefully not touching him otherwise.
Amused, Kurt came inside, shutting the door behind him and throwing the locks back into place as he took off his jacket and hung it safely in the closet. “My pleasure. Are you guys having a glitter party?”
“Apparently,” he agreed grimly, jogging the still howling baby in his arms in an attempt to calm it down. “They were whinging about being bored, so I tried to distract them with some craft supplies I had left over from my set-design course. This led to them coloring on my walls, so I attempted to distract them a second time with the Tinkerbell movie their mother left. Unfortunately, they only watched it for what felt like five minutes before deciding that they needed to try flying about with the aid of a little pixie dust.”
“Which explains the glitter,” Kurt concluded, trying not to laugh at Adam’s predicament.
Running a hand through his messy hair, Adam groaned, “I don’t know how I’m going to get them all cleaned up and get their lunch served. I was trying to serve Bartie his baby food while the girls played and you can see how well that went. I assured Jenny that I was perfectly capable of looking after the children if she and Neil wanted to take an afternoon just for them, but I must have been out of my mind. I’m already going completely mad, and it’s been less than two hours!”
As his voice rose with frustration, the baby in his arms began to cry even louder in response. “No, no, I’m sorry darling. Please don’t cry,” Adam begged, looking like he was about to burst into tears himself.
“Okay, well, help has arrived and between the two of us I’m sure we can handle everything. Why don’t you go get yourself and your nephew cleaned up, and I’ll see if I can’t distract the fairy princesses. If he still hasn’t quit crying by the time you come back, we’ll switch off and I’ll see what I can do. I used to be pretty good at soothing my cousins.”
Adam sagged with relief. “I know I said this before, but bless you, Kurt. You are a kind and generous soul.”
He laughed. “Well, thank you. I’ll be sure to put that on my resume if I ever take up professional babysitting.”
While Adam took the baby back to his room, Kurt moved further into the small living area. Vaguely, he hoped that Adam’s family was staying at a hotel somewhere, because he could not imagine how they were otherwise fitting six humans into this tiny bachelor pad. It was a lucky thing that Adam had had the good sense to put newspapers down to protect the carpet before giving a pair of four year olds access to paint and glitter, because the stuff was everywhere. Adam and his guests would likely be sitting down upon a sparkly sofa for years to come.
“Hello, ladies,” he greeted lightly as he approached the girls. “I was told that you might be able to help me, since you’re obviously fairies.”
The twins, identical in every way except that one girl had her golden pigtails tied up with green ribbons and the other in purple ones, stopped what they were doing and stared thoughtfully up at the strange man invading their play. Then purple ribbons asked, “Are you Adam’s friend?”
Fighting the urge to coo at how cute it was to hear Adam’s distinctive accent coming out of this tiny girl, (And seriously, why had he not been expecting that?) Kurt crouched down to their level and said, “Yes, I’m Kurt. Are you Adam’s friends too?”
They looked at each other and giggled. “No,” green ribbons replied, shaking her head and sending flecks of glitter flying. “We’re his nices.”
“Nices?”
The first girl told him in a loud stage whisper, “Uncle Adam is Daddy’s baby brother. Like Bartie is our baby brother. Except Uncle Adam is big, and not a baby.”
Kurt nodded. “I see. You’re his nieces, and you’re nice. In fact, I’ll bet you’re the nicest nieces he could have asked for, so that makes you his nices.”
Purple ribbons beamed at this unusual adult who could follow child sense so clearly. She looked so much like her uncle when she smiled that Kurt could not help but smile back. “Yes. I’m Cammy, this is Lissa. Do you want to be friends?”
He sketched as much of a bow as he could from a kneeling position and said, “I would be honored. I was hoping to find my lost mermaid friend, but I got lost on my way to the lagoon.”
They looked intrigued. That was a good sign. “You know a mermaid?” asked Lissa, blue eyes widening with hope. “Can we meet her?”
“Maybe. She’s invisible to most people, though,” he explained solemnly. “I can only see her when she’s in the water. That’s why I’m trying to find the lagoon. I know Adam has one somewhere, but I don’t know my way around very well. Can you help me?”
The twins exchanged another silent communication, then they both nodded, taking each of his hands in theirs. Kurt could feel the grit of glitter in their grasps as he stood up and allowed himself to be led to the bathroom.
Adam glanced up from his task of pinning a fresh diaper in place as they trooped in and his nephew, much less fussy now that he was clean and no longer wet, wiggled happily at the sight of his sisters. Adam steadied him quickly, not wanting him to topple off the clothes hamper that was serving as a make-shift changing table.
“Uncle Adam!” Cammy blurted excitedly. “You need to run us bath water!”
His eyes widened in astonishment, clearly wondering what miracle his boyfriend had wrought in the space of ten minutes. “Bath?” he clarified faintly.
“With bubbles if you have any,” Kurt declared, making the girls look at him with questioning eyes. “Mermaids are much easier to spot if you can get the bubbles to stick to their tails.”
The girls nodded eagerly, entirely on board with this logic.
Adam smiled, catching on. “That’s right, I had forgotten. You’ll need to get into the tub and look closely, though. Mermaids are rather tiny.” He held his fingers a few inches apart in demonstration.
They looked at Kurt for confirmation. “New York lagoons are little because we don’t have as much open water as other places,” he said. “If you let them out in the ocean, the can grow as big as dolphins, but here they stay little so there’s room to swim and play.”
“Ooooh!” the girls chorused. “Is that why you lost her?” Lissa asked him. “Because she got too little and slipped into a drain?”
“My roommate forgot to put the plug the sink,” he agreed. What the heck, Rachel would never know. “Luckily, my mermaid knows that Adam is my friend and it’s okay to come here and play when he’s at home.”
They clearly liked this idea and Adam was more than willing to go along with it. “That’s right. She’s a bit shy, so I don’t know if she’ll come out today but you girls should have a look.”
“Why don’t you take care of that, and I’ll take this little guy out and see if he’s willing to take a nap while I clean up pixie-dust central?” Kurt suggested, doubting the appropriateness of giving a bath to someone else’s kids, especially when the parents had never even met him.
Seeming to understand his unspoken concern, Adam hefted the baby back into his arms and passed him to Kurt. “There are fresh clothes in the bag that’s sitting on my bed. New outfits for all.”
“Smart,” Kurt commented, cradling his new charge against his shoulder. “See you later, girls. Let me know if you find Cora. That’s my mermaid’s name.”
They chimed in agreement, already yanking at their clothes in anticipation of searching for mermaids in the bathtub. Adam and Kurt exchanged an amused look as they each took up their new tasks, Adam searching for the bottle of bubble soap that Kurt knew he had because they had used some of it together one night, and Kurt carrying the fussily whimpering baby out to the bedroom for redressing.
“So, your name is Bart, huh?” he asked, setting the boy down on his back and rummaging in the bag until he came up with a cute yellow onesie with monkeys on the fabric. “That’s pretty close to my daddy’s name. His name is Burt, and mine is Kurt. You’re practically part of the family, aren’t you? Oh, you like that? You want to be an honorary Hummel? Be careful, we might put you to work in the garage. You look like a pretty strong guy. Yes, you do.”
Kurt continued to babble nonsense as he fastened all the snaps into place and got the child dressed again. The baby seemed to like his voice. He had stopped whimpering and began to smile; grabbing hold of Kurt’s fingers as they lightly tickled him.
“Wow, you are strong! That’s quite a grip,” he cooed as his finger was squeezed by the tiny hand. He made faces at the little boy, bubbling his lips and making his eyes go wide. Bartie was clearly delighted with this weird performance, grinning a mostly toothless smile and clapping encouragement.
Hoping that he was not sounding like too much of an idiot if Adam happened to be listening, Kurt began to sing a medley of TV theme songs. He was not exactly up on infant lullabies, but this is what his dad had used when Kurt was a little boy, and it had worked like a charm. Even if it had made him the only kid in preschool who knew all the words to “The Love Boat” and “The Brady Bunch”.
Apparently those old songs worked just as well on modern British babies. By the time Kurt finished the “Golden Girls” theme song, his boyfriend’s nephew was fast asleep. Kurt slid him over to the middle of the bed and secured him in place with a couple of pillows. He could still hear Adam and his nieces splashing happily together, so he walked back out to the living room and carefully gathered the sticky, sparkly newspapers into the trash. Hoping he would not make too much noise and wake the baby, he did his best to vacuum the remaining glitter off the couch and surrounding area. Nothing much could be done about the paint stains low on one wall, but maybe Adam would be up for a little redecorating later on. At any rate, the parents should probably see what damage their little princesses had done.
Just as he finished, Adam appeared, wearing a clean shirt and a smile as he led his two damp but identically smiling nieces by the hand. “We saw Cora!” one girl announced brightly. Kurt was not sure which niece she was, as Adam had put their hair in red and blue ribbons this time, messing up his identification markers.
“She didn’t want to stay,” the other girl added. “She said she had to go home. She’ll probably be at your house when you go home.”
“I see. Well, thank you for giving her a play date,” Kurt responded. “She gets lonely sometimes when I’m at school or at work.”
They smiled, assuring him that Cora was welcome to visit them in England any time she wanted.
“Good to know,” he chuckled. He smiled at Adam. “What’s for lunch, uncle? You owe me food for my excellent maid services.””
Adam grinned back at him. “I certainly do! That’s the least I owe you for all you’ve done. Seriously, Kurt, you’ve saved my sanity. I cut up a fruit and vegetable tray earlier. It’s in the fridge.”
“Fruit and veggies, yum!” he said brightly, noting the unconvinced look on the children’s faces. “Do you have those tiny tomato bombs? I love those. And celery boats!”
“Indeed, I do. There are cucumber rafts, carrot missiles, little broccoli islands … we have it all.”
The adults’ enthusiasm made the food sound like fun and the girls went along with eating a few chilled vegetables as well as some fruit when Kurt and Adam helped them “sail” their crunchy armada through a sea of buttermilk ranch dip and “shoot” carrot missiles into each other’s mouths.
They were laughing so hard and having so much fun that the time flew. Then red-ribbon girl, (Kurt was pretty sure it was Cammy) yawned, which made her sister yawn, which immediately set off Adam and Kurt as well.
“I’m guessing it must be nap time,” Adam suggested, drawing noises of protest from the girls, even as they yawned again. “Frankly, I wouldn’t mind a few winks myself. What do you say, darlings? Put your tired old uncle down for a little rest?”
Apparently, the prospect of a nap did not sound as dire if the adults were going to be sleeping too. The girls grinned at the idea of putting Adam to bed and went along willingly, carried in the arms of their two babysitters. Each child was laid down on one side of their still napping brother on Adam’s bed, and then, much to Kurt’s amusement, he was ordered to climb onto the mattress next to Lissa while Adam took the other edge next to Cammy.
Looking at each other across the sea of small children, Adam began to sing “Stand By Me” and Kurt quickly joined in. As they sang, the little girls quickly drifted off to sleep, leaving the men smiling softly at one another. Kurt reached out, clasping hands with Adam across the warm bodies of the children. Neither one said it, but both could feel the connection. The vague possibility of someday, if fate were to ever take a certain turn in their lives. It made Kurt feel shy and a little overwhelmed, but also warm and more than a bit tender.
“Thank you for coming today,” Adam whispered.
“Thank you for asking me,” he replied softly.
Staring into each other’s eyes, neither man was fully aware of it when their heavy lids drifted closed and they followed Bart, Lissa and Cammy into the land of happy dreams, hands still clasped between them.
THE END