Work Text:
“I want t’ try.” says Jack for the fifteenth time, reaching his grubby little hands up towards his brown haired, quiff bearing father. “Papa, pleeease let me stew.”
He can’t quite pronounce ‘stir’ yet, and it’s one adorable thing for Phil’s adorable little four-year-old to say.
The ‘please’s, the ‘thank you’s, and the widened blue eyes are all part of a new tactic he’s trying, and Phil honestly finds the puppy eyes to be the cutest thing in the world most of the time. Especially since his other father does the same thing sometimes.
Right now, however, when his fumbling may be a danger to him.. not so much.
He adjusts his gaze downwards as the small hands tug on the hem of his (actually Dan’s) black apron, and is met by a pair of brightly blue bauble eyes and a ruffled mess of brown radish curls. He’s a carbon copy of him and Dan together, an even mixture of their features.
Phil notices immediately what the problem must be.
Upon Jack’s adorable pout rests white flour, and it has even become tangled in his hair. The little boy looks like he’s on the verge of bursting into tears, his blues and greens brimmed with pale, wet silver.
Sinking to his level, Phil matches his pout, and then reaches out with a helping hand to wipe the mess away. When he’s done, they envelop each other in a gentle hug, and he whispers encouraging words in his small ears.
He lifts Jack up and sets him on the counter, next to the ingredients which Cornelia is counting. She stops just as Phil lets him go.
“Do you want me to teach you too how to make the pancakes, Jackie?” she asks, face clad in a bright smile and eyes crinkled. Jack gives her a curt little nod and places his hands in his lap, eyeing her expectantly.
She giggles, and ruffles his hair. “Åh va’ gullig du e’!” she laughs in her native tongue, taking the rainbow spatula down from the rack. “It’s good you’re keeping your hands off the ingredients, we don’t want any more flour to fall on you and make a mess, hmm?”
Jack shakes his head, smiling his signature toothy smile. It falls quickly as realisation dawns upon him, and the puppy eyes return when he looks at Phil again. “What about Papa?”
“He’s the one person in this room that should stay a mile away when we make food, don’t you think!”
Phil fakes a bigger pout, and rolls his eyes fondly as the two of them shake with high-pitched laughter. He steadies Jack with one hand on his knee, and pinches gently at his bright pink cheek with the other.
“Oh, the both of you!” he laughs along. “How about we start the lesson now, Ms. Corn!”
Cornelia blows him a raspberry, and then turns back to his son. “What do you say, isbjörn?”
He claps his tiny hands in the air, grinning up at his father. “Begin!”
“Alright, but I’ll get you an apron first, little bear.”
Cornelia passes Phil another egg, instructing him to crack it in the spare bowl. Jack watches the process with wide eyes, grinning with glee as the yolk falls with a splat into the bowl.
Corn makes a gesture with her hand, mimicking the egg cracking open, saying splat softly, and the two of them begin to laugh again.
This goes on for quite some time, as she repeats herself just to hear his honey laugh, and see his squishy cheeks widen with joy. Eventually Phil’s passed the recipe so they’ll actually have some food finished before it’s Jackie’s bedtime.
Cornelia’s handwriting is neat, and swirly, and rather bold. it’s not so hard for him to decipher, at least in comparison to the two he knows so well.
He follows them, and it’s thankfully with ease.
He’s gotten as far as reading the measurements for flour when a warm arm wraps itself around his midriff, a hand at the end of it hovering on his hip. Dan leans in, his brown locks tickling Phil’s chin, and places a small, wet kiss on his cheekbone.
“How’s the shopping been?” he tries to ask, but Dan only swings him around, leaning further in. He touches their foreheads together; a speck of flour falls onto his cheek.
Phil giggles at the touch and swats his other hand away. “I’m trying to focus here..” he says, but not a second too late has Dan caught his lips in a Starbucks-flavoured lips. It’s a much needed remedy for stress, and the way his heart flails at the action makes his stomach flip, too.
His husband’s hands grasps for his bum, and they only break apart from the kiss when they hear a mixture of dissatisfied whining and coughing behind them.
Dan breaks his chocolate eyes away from his blue orbs to pick up his tiny son with both arms, putting him down on the floor, cheeks pink in embarrassment, while Phil turns back to his work with Cornelia.
Her eyebrows waggle at him, before she’s ‘shouting’ instructions again. “That’ll be.. seven deciliters of the flour. Straight into the bowl.”
She hands him the metal equipment and he begins to spoon it out of the packet. She’s given him all his trust in this, which is a terrible, horrible idea, as Dan pointed out when she proposed it earlier. Utterly horrid, since he’s a literal bull in a china shop.
Smack!
Bang! Poof!
Not two seconds go by and then Phil’s on the floor, his ass aching, his head swimming, and a bawling four-year-old next to him. Corn is silently laughing, breathless, but at the same time she’s sat down next to them, wiping Jack’s tears away before they fall.
“It’ll be alright, isbjörn, it’ll be alright.” she whispers.
As Dan comes running back in his face falls flat, all his parental instincts of protection washes away in the span of a second. They’re replaced by an ‘I-told-you-so’ expression.
His eyes gaze erratically between Phil on the floor, the flour packet tipped on the counter, and then to his son- who’s curly hair is pearl white, as well as most of his body. Dan’s jaw falls open at the sight.
“What the f-”
He interrupts himself in the nick of time.
“Y’know, Jackie, now you look like a real polar bear!” Corn says encouragingly, sparkling eyes and her own red curls on end. Immediately his tears stop flowing, and the small smile that creeps upon his flour covered face when they hug melts Phil’s heart away.
The glowing ache in his chest transforms, into a warm, helping hand, making his heart beat by squeezing it.
Him and Dan make eye contact as the other two break into fits of giggles once more, and the way Dan’s fond expression catches his eye tears him in two.
“I do think this lesson is over now, isbjörn.” says Cornelia once they’re all up from the floor. She swats the parents’ hands away as they try to help her clean. “No, you go give Jack a bath, I’ll clean up and finish this myself. Unfortunately he’ll have to lose his fur before we can put food in his mouth.”
The last sentence is directed at Jack, and she gives his pale cheek a poke before Phil carries him out, carefully enough so they don’t get flour all over the house.
Turning the water on and lowing the four-year-old into a massive tower of bubbles in the bath, Phil let’s his creation of disaster wash away and out his bones as he watches their son play around.
It takes a while, with them just standing there watching him, but soon enough Dan speaks up. “That was… a mess.”
“I know..”
“How could we possibly explain to the polar bear why his fur has come loose!”
Phil scoffs and leans his head on Dan’s shoulder, sinking into a quiet embrace. “Bear, I don’t think we have to.” he says, and then places a silent kiss on his neck, still watching the bubbles fly towards the ceiling.
They’ll get Jackie out of the bath soon enough, and they’ll have swedish pancakes, and then all of this will most likely be forgotten.
Dan knows Phil thinks like this. And Dan knows he’s right. He receives another kiss, and then another, sweet and floral as the smell of soap dances in their noses and mouths.
A sweep of hair, a welcomed kiss, and it’ll never be mentioned again. Until they have to embarrass Jack, of course. But that can wait. He’s in blissful peace in his bubble bath, right now.
“Dinner is ready!”
They respond and shortly follow her shouts.