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scubatankfilledwithfartsBadou cracks his eye open to peer at the clock on the cluttered nightstand beside him. As he figured, as he dreads, it’s way too early for those little monsters to be up on a Sunday no less. Or maybe Bishop had taught them something worthwhile in Sunday school anyway—sinday or whatever.
Rolling over, he can’t help the bemusement at the woman beside him though; still sound asleep despite the sticky heat, the cacophony of noise below, probably an earthquake.
Faye’s back is to him, hair fuzzy across the pillow, her breathing even. Occasionally a twitch, a snort, but little more movement.
No mushy thoughts enter his brain at this time.
Scootching close, closer, closest, Badou drapes an arm across her waist. Faye shifts, hums, but doesn’t awaken. Smirking to himself he scoots until he’s flush against her, presses his face into the choicest spot between the juncture of luscious neck and shoulder, and lays a wet kiss there.
She grunts something he can’t quite pick up. Badou scrapes his teeth delicately across that smooth skin. Like young lovers do. Like a man who wants to endear himself to his wife, thus into figuring out what the kids are doing down there.
The reaction is instant. That shoulder rolls up, slams into his nose, laying him flat on his back with it’s romantic connotation.
“Faye, what the hell—"
“Hmmm?” She smacks her lips sleepily, he can hear it from here, over the pain. She pauses. Ears pricked and alert. There’s a horrible crash from downstairs, followed by a shriek of laughter. “Those brats up to something?”
Badou sniffles, and once he’s certain there’s no blood, curls himself into her back again, hand creeping along her hip. Voice a little husky from sleep, a little low to keep the private, magic moment between them.
“Maybe. I was thinking, though, we could just stay here…lock the door..” He lifts the blanket, begins to tug it over their heads—
“I’ll lock it on your way out.” Faye decides and yanks the covers back down around her shoulders with a satisfied little sigh.
“FAAAAAYE—” Badou whines in that perfect way that’s incredibly annoying but a little cute sometimes. Faye peers over her shoulder, tugs an arm out of the blanket to beckon him.
He leans in, hope in his eye—Stupid. The sloppy kiss they share promises much, much later, when the door is locked and barricaded too.
Dopey grin hanging off his face, Faye quickly fixes that. Squishing her hand to that face, she reminds him—“Off you go. I need more sleep, and if I don’t get it, you’re going headfirst out that window.” Eyepatch tugged over his head, one last look at her back--
She locks it a little too quickly once he leaves, but he’d do the same in her position. Throwing your spouse under the bus calls for a certain kind of coldness the broken air conditioner unit does not supply.
When he rounds the corner for that first view into the kitchen he pauses, leans a shoulder against the doorway. The tallest, and thus least responsible of the three hovers at the stove with thing 3 (or 2, he didn’t really look to see who popped out first), a pan of pancake batter happily bubbling away.
“You gotta channel our ninja ancestors when you flip it.”
“I thought they were spacers or people who went to community college but got a degree in general studies?”
“….what do you know?” “More than you—” Lee pipes up from where she’s propped up on a chair, cutting fruit into pretty shapes.
Badou clears his throat, startling Sean, but the twins apparently knew he was there via their freaky twin senses because matching green eyes flicker to him.
“Just what are you guys doing?”
“Bro’s showing us how to make pancakes,” Nick explains, lifting his spatula at his father.
One of Badou’s brows lifts skeptically. “At 6am? On a Sunday? In our house?” That eyebrow Lifts in the direction of their eldest next.
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he huffs, shoulders ducking defensively.
It’s in that moment Badou decides he needs coffee. Right now. At this second. Pushing off the doorway, he pads over to that blessed machine and begins to clean all the gunk out.
“I see the three of you are still alive…so what was that noise? Where’s the body?”
Lee, unimpressed as the day she popped out, doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s in the freezer.”
Nico, the sunshine that he is, just laughs at his sister’s antics. “Lee dropped the milk.”
“I’ll drop you,” she retorts, shooting him a glare. “You let it go.”
Hands up, the Valentine defense—“You said you had it!”
Alright— time for dad to leap in. “Hey, your mom’s asleep.” He knows as always that’ll end it. The duo wince, and even Sean looks nervously towards the stairs.
Changing the subject, he pipes back in. “I think it’s ready. Get those ninja skills, boy.”
The eyeroll is not subtle, but Nico does as he’s told. Clumsily it flops up, and up, and back onto the uncooked side. The boys hoot, then wince again at their father.
“Whoops,” Nico laughs a little, nervous.
Badou just chuckles in return, reaches over to ruffle that dark hair. “It’s alright. Just know if your mom comes down it’s everyone for themselves, no matter who came out of my underground lab.”
And he also valiantly dismisses the interest Lee shows in that statement. “Need help?” He adds, eying the pan Sean’s also got and the package of bacon on the side.
The eldest shoos him back towards the happily bubbling, but quieter (the thing sounds like a cement truck crunching a body) coffee maker. “It’s a surprise. Get outta here.”
So with a plea to not burn the house down because Grandpa is never going to forgive them [and to a sarcastic retort of ‘ooooh, scary’], Badou heads for the living room, coffee in hand to be enjoyed with the smell of bacon and sweet pancakes tempting his nose. Now the sentimental, mushy thoughts do pervade his mind while he sits in this sentimental, knick-nack-covered room.
Before long he’s looking far too long at a baby picture of the twins, the dregs of coffee grounds are sludge at the bottom of his cup, and the pitter-patter of Faye’s feet summon him from his reprieve and oh they were so little then’s.
Maybe it’s because of her hair like a tangled rat’s nest, in the shirt he wore 4 days ago, he still finds his knees a little wobbly when she winks at him through sleep crusted eyes. She shuffles over to him slowly, like a zombie, and pauses to press her face into his shoulder, a shuddery-sigh breathed out. Badou’s hands can span her ribs entirely, and one does, drawing her close to a sloppy, lazy kiss—a kiss until his eye closes, drowsily, too, until her weight drops into his lap, until they lean into each other like flowers heavy with dew, until—
“ExCUSE ME!” --A child interrupts them. Lee smiles at them, showing all teeth, unlike an angel but more like a shark or a piranha.
“It’s done! Come eat.”
She turns tail and retreats to her brothers before she sees anything else. Faye curls an arm around his shoulder, sighs into his hair.
“They made breakfast?”
“A surprise.” He replies wryly.
One fine brow arches at him quizzically. “I wonder what they want.”
The thought had of course entered Badou’s mind too. “No idea. I hope it isn’t a horse, or a dog or something. No one's in the will, so.”
They can’t keep them from whining their summons for much longer—a fine family breakfast is where it’s at. The food’s decent, nothing’s so burned syrup can’t repair the damage, and Faye is smiling into her coffee cup, those eyes dancing at him across the table. And then…
“So, daddy—” Lee starts, batting those mocha lashes at him, mirrored in her brother’s pleading eyes, and Sean’s deep interest, and big smile.
“Ah-ha. There it is.”
“Now come on, we didn’t even start yet!”
“It’s cause you were as subtle as a train wreck.”
“No one asked you!”
Badou sighs. But when he looks up, Faye’s looking back at him, her own mouth tipped into a wide, brimming grin.
Yeah, this is fine. They’re doing just fine.