The Half Happy Family [For iselldrugstothecommunity]

[first_in_time]

A seven year old John Chesterton shared the task of setting the table with his father. Unfortunately, a child with a love of games should probably not be given any kind of responsibility which involved sharp objects. And neither should their father.

"Avarst! Ye matey!" Ian Chesterton cried at his son, brandishing a butter knife like a sword.

"Arrrr!!" John replied with one eye closed as though he were wearing an eye patch.

"Submit to me, matey, or I'll gut yer through!"

"NEVAAR!!"

The butter knives clinked once before Barbara managed to catch them at it; "boys!" she called from the doorway into the dining room. "That's quite enough. One of you will literally skin the other and I am not in the mood to drive over to the emergency ward."

Unfortunately, neither boy was paying much attention. To begin with they looked suitably shamed, but all it took was a quick exchange of looks and they lunged at Barbara, who screamed. And then giggled as the tickling fingers of John and Ian found her most ticklish spots. She managed to wriggle away, and ran for the kitchen, the hall and finally the lounge where they tackled her onto the sofa and tickled her until she managed to cry for mercy between fits of laughter.

Now breathing heavy, all three Chestertons sat on the sofa a moment, contemplating who to tickle next when the doorbell rung.

"I'll get it," Barbara said and pushed herself up to walk to the front door. Her hand reflexively went to her hair, double checking that everything was still in place. When she opened the door, flushed in the face from the giggling, hair didn't matter. Even dinner didn't matter. Nor sword fighting, or anything else.

"...Howard," she gasped.

Comments

[first_in_time]

She gave him a look of disappointment but didn't say anything because both Ian and John were returning from both sides of the house. Ian sat by Barbara again, and John ran over from the stairs, toy airplane in hand.

He made loud noises as the plane 'came in to land' near Howard's lap.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

He cringes at the look of disappointment. He hates that look. Hates it.

"Okay, for this next trick, I need dental floss, a paperclip, and a pen. Can you do that for me, kid? No breaking stuff this time."

[first_in_time]

John barely took breath before he zoomed away to find the required items. Ian chuckled.

"Just what do you plan on doing?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard points with a finger on each hand. "Looping the dental floss over the piping on the walls and using the paperclip to hang the plane from it, then using the pen as a little wand to pull it. Not super complicated, but I'm going to need to borrow Ian's height."

Hopefully entertaining their kid will help with getting back in their favor.

[first_in_time]

"Sounds very clever," Ian remarked, "you'll be John's best friend before too long."

Barbara 'hmmed' and chuckled. "Because he needs another of those."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I don't want to be his best friend," Howard says quickly. "I just want him to think of me as something besides the deadbeat uncle who freaks out at loud noises."

He mulls his tongue in his teeth. "Sorry about snapping earlier. I'm kind of high-strung lately."

[first_in_time]

"I understand," Barbara replied, purposefully not saying anything about his lost job. She would tell Ian later when they could quietly discuss what could possibly be done about it.

"You may not have a choice in the matter," Ian pointed out, returning to the conversation at hand. "He's still very young. You're either someone in his life or his best friend. He can't really distinguish between levels of friendship yet."

timeskip to that evening for john's nightmare?

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard has a similar problem, but he doesn't really know that.

"I'll clean up while you take him to school. The cats've probably shed on everything already."

Yesssssssssssss!

[first_in_time]

"Thank you," Barbara replied and stood from the ground to begin readying her day so that when John was finished with Howard, she could hurry him along.

Eventually they made it out the door. Barbara kissed her husband goodbye, and gently squeezed Howard's shoulder, then walked to the bus stop with John's little hand in hers. Shortly after, Ian left in his car and, strangely enough, was first to arrive home in the afternoon. He dumped marking on the dining table and eyed it before deciding that now was not the time to tackle it. Instead he was going to have a beer.

Barbara returned home soon after, although you could hear John's chattering before you saw either of them. She looked exhausted but happy, and John was only too eager to relay his entire day to Howard, whether he wanted to hear it or not. Ian at least managed to catch him and distract him with something else before Howard lost his patience.

The evening went by as usual. They cooked. They ate. They cleaned up. John washed up. Everyone went to bed at their own times. It was roughly 1am when John began to grow restless in his sleep. He tossed and turned and mumbled at something to get away. He whimpered for his dad and began to cry softly.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard's awake. It's 1am - of course Howard's awake. He spent most of the morning sleeping, went out and 'did things' in the afternoon, and came back and went to sleep directly after dinner. At around midnight he woke from another nightmare and has spent the last hour sitting in front of his sketchbook, occasionally eating spoonfuls from the jar of mayonnaise at his side.

The house is silent. His beloved iPod stopped working a year ago, and although he's managed to hack it open and replace the battery with a rigged-up one, it's been glitchy ever since, and only plays music half the time. It makes it harder to draw anything, he thinks, because he gets distracted not by the sound of the Talking Heads but by any creak or bump in the night. It's too quiet here, not like his apartment, and it makes it hard to get back to sleep.

But it's because of this silence that he hears the soft crying in the room down the hall. At first he thinks he's imagining it, but then he walks down to the door and listens.

After a moment, he knocks.

[first_in_time]

"Mummy?" John whimpered from the other side of the door.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard tests the doorknob. The door creaks open. He pauses there, unsure if he should walk in.

"You really shouldn't leave your door unlocked at night, kid."

[first_in_time]

John was sitting up in bed. A streak of moonlight just missed the top of his head and threw a white stripe across his wall instead. It was enough light to see that John had a few tear streaks down his cheeks.

"Mummy," he whimpered again.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Oh. Great. Howard figured, but.

What the hell is he supposed to do with this?

"Hey, John," he opens the door, leaves it open as he enters. No one likes feeling blocked off when they're scared; at least, Howard doesn't. It's one of the reasons he preferred the couch all those years, multiple exits. "Are you awake?"

[first_in_time]

John sniffed and looked at the door a bit closer. He sniffed again, the sound of mucus being sucked up through his nostrils almost seemed to echo through his room in the silence of the house.

"Cuddle," John whined as he opened his arms toward Howard.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard freezes where he is and draws in a slow breath. Every impulse in his body is screaming no, that he's woken John from his nightmare and is walking into his own. He knows what he's supposed to do, as the adult here, as the foster son, and yet.

He feels his hands go clammy, his chest tighten. He can't.

He can't force himself to without setting himself off, and in that moment he hates John for everything he represents in Howard's mind, every fear and memory and stunt in his personality that keeps him from being able to go over and give a hug to a scared kid.

He walks over to the bed and picks at the blanket.

"No cuddles. But," he says quickly, before John can protest, and wraps the blanket closer around John's shoulders, "I'm going to make you some magic anti-monster hot cocoa, as long as you promise not to tell your mom I'm giving you chocolate this late."

[first_in_time]

John thought on that. Chocolate any time except just after dinner never happened. Not ever. And it was even anti-monster hot chocolate...John had never heard of that before.

He looked up at his Uncle Howard with big, brilliantly blue eyes (just like Ian's), and nodded before wiping away the tear tracks down his chubby cheeks.

"I promise."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Alright. Come on, put on your protective cape," Howard says, giving the blanket an indicative tug, "and I'll make you some."

He doesn't know if it's some quirk of his experiences or a universal that leads him to want to snack at night, to take comfort in knowing that there's so much food here, but the prospect seems to be calming John enough.

"You get bad dreams a lot?"

[first_in_time]

John pulled the blanket around him in a kind of hug and followed Howard, his quick, little footsteps so different from Howard's strides. He kept one hand against the wall because walking in the dark was quite tricky.

"Sometimes," John replied after a little hesitation. "Mummy tells me it's because I eat too much after dinner and my upset tummy makes my head scared."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"That's crap. That's not why people have nightmares." He boils the water in a pot so the kettle squealing won't wake Ian and Barbara. "Nightmares happen because it's your body's way of putting away sad stuff in a safe place."

He doesn't know if he believes that, though.

[first_in_time]

John had to think really hard about the word 'crap', which distracted him from everything else Howard was saying.

"Do you have bad dreams?" he asked instead of trying to remember what Howard had said.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Every night." Howard leans back against the stove, watching the water start to burble from the corner of his eye. "Why do you think I'm up so late?"

[first_in_time]

John shrugged. "Playing with your toys?" because if John could stay up late, he'd be playing with toys. He was sure that's what Mummy and Daddy did after he went to bed. What else could there possibly be to do?

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I don't got toys." He does have cats, though. Sushi wanders into the kitchen to see what the fuss is about. "But yeah, I got a lot of experience with bad dreams. Trust me, this'll help."

[first_in_time]

If Howard didn't have toys, how did he have fun? Especially when he was up so late at night! Toys were the best. John loved his toys.

He watched the saucepan for a moment, then turned back to Howard and said: "who taught you how to make it?"