Work Text:
The first time her new Daddy caught her crying was a week after she moved in with him. She didn’t quite understand why her new Daddy was so sad, or why he tried to hide it from her, but she didn’t want to make him feel worse, so she waited until after bed time to let out her tears. Unfortunately for her, her new Daddy peeked in her door to say ‘good night’ and heard her.
“Trucy?” His voice sounded muffled, as she was hiding in her blankets. “Are- are you crying?”
Trucy wanted so badly to say ‘no’, but she and her new Daddy had made a promise not to lie to each other, ever, so she squirmed out of her blankets. “Mm-hmm.”
Her new Daddy turned on the lights before sitting next to her on her bed. “Can you tell me why you’re crying?” He gently wiped away some of her tears.
Trucy shook her head. “I-I don’t wanna talk about it.” Her reason for crying was, of course, because her Daddy had left her, and she missed him terribly, but she was afraid that if she said that to her new Daddy, he’d think that she didn’t like him. But she did! Of course, he was still just her new Daddy, but he was very kind and funny and he liked all her magic tricks, and her Daddy said she could trust him.
Her new Daddy nodded. “That’s okay, Trucy. You don’t have to. Can I hug you?”
Trucy nodded and hugged her new Daddy before being enveloped by his arms. She cried a bit more, her sobs muffled against him. Once she was all out of tears, she pulled out of the hug. “I’m sorry for crying, Daddy.”
“You don’t need to apologize for that, Trucy. You need to cry to help get all the sadness out.” Her new Daddy was quiet for a few seconds, and Trucy thought that maybe he was thinking about how he was always hiding his sadness from her, too. “You know, Trucy, when you’re sad, there’s two steps to feeling better. One is to fix whatever’s making you sad, and the other is to get your sadness out. Sometimes you fix the problem, but there’s still a bit of sadness left, so you have to cry to get it out. Sometimes you’re too sad to fix the problem, so you have to get the sadness out before you can do that. But the worst times are when there’s no way to fix whatever’s making you sad. When that happens, you can cry and cry and cry, but there’ll probably always be a bit of sadness in you.” He wrapped one arm around her carefully. “It’s a very ‘grown up’ type of problem, and you shouldn’t have to deal with it so young. But talking about it with your friends and family can help with the sadness, so if you ever want to talk about it, I’ll listen to you.”
Trucy felt a bit better, but she was afraid she’d begin crying again if she spoke, so she just nodded to him.
“I do know one trick that might make you feel a bit better, though. We just have to squeeze the sadness out of you, kinda like a sponge.”
“A sponge?” Trucy let out a tiny sniffle that she’d been trying so hard to ignore.
“Yeah, like this!” Daddy squeezed her in a tight hug. “Squeeeeeeze! See? Did it help?”
Trucy giggled. He could be so goofy sometimes. “Yeah, Daddy. It helped.”
“And you know what I like to do with my sponges?” Daddy asked. Trucy shook her head. “I like to spin them!” Before Trucy could ask what he meant, he stood up, picked Trucy up, and spun around in a circle a few times, making Trucy shriek in laughter. He set her back on her bed, panting a bit. “There we go! One Trucy sponge, squeezed and spun.”
Trucy almost couldn’t stop laughing long enough to answer. “Again, Daddy! Please?”
Daddy shook his head. “Sorry, Trucy. I’m an old man. Besides, it’s late, and you should go to sleep soon.”
“Yeah, probably,” Trucy yawned out. Even with the excitement of spinning, she was exhausted after crying, and sleep sounded particularly good to her. Daddy pulled her blankets up to her shoulders. “Um… thank you for talking to me, Daddy.”
Daddy smiled warmly at her, and Trucy realized that his eyes felt a lot more kind than her old Daddy’s eyes. “Of course, Trucy. That’s what Daddy’s are for. Good night.”
“Good night.” She fell asleep before she could think too much and feel sad again.
A few weeks later, Trucy heard the gentle but pained sound of sobbing coming from Daddy’s room. She tried to remember exactly what Daddy did before for her, so she opened the door and called out. “Daddy? Are you crying?”
Daddy was sitting on his bed, his head buried in his hands. When he looked up to answer her, his face was blotchy and red and covered in tears and it made Trucy’s heart hurt. “Ah. Y-you caught me, didn’t you?”
Trucy clambered onto his lap. “Is this about one of those problems you can’t fix?”
Daddy nodded. “Yeah, Trucy, it’s one of those.”
She started petting his hair like he sometimes did to comfort her. “Talking about it will make you feel better, right?”
Daddy gave her a smile that she recognized as meaning ‘I don’t want you to worry about me’, and shook his head. “This is a problem that’s too big for you to handle, so I’ve already talked about it with some of my friends.”
Trucy nodded. If he talked about it with his friends, then it was okay. She still wanted to help him, though. “Daddy, can I help squeeze the sadness out?”
He wiped his tears away with his arm. “Like a sponge? Yeah, Trucy, I think that would help.”
So she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed as tightly as she possibly could, letting out a grunt as she did so.
“Ouch! Trucy, are you a superhero?” Daddy exclaimed, rubbing his arms like he was in pain.
Trucy’s hand shot up to her mouth. “Did I hurt you?!”
“Oh, no! I was just kidding.” Daddy smiled at her again, and she relaxed. “I mean, I’m a superhero, too, so I’m invincible. You know, one time I fell off a bridge and I didn’t even get hurt!”
Trucy giggled. “Why didn’t you just fly away?”
Daddy shook his head. “Flying isn’t really in my skill set. I’m too scared of heights.”
“Really? I love heights! It’s so fun!” She wiggled in excitement at the thought of the last time she went on a Ferris wheel, watching the people beneath her get tinier and tinier until she could no longer make out her uncle’s face, only able to recognize him by his bright cape. She suddenly felt a bit sad. “Um, did the squeezing help?”
Daddy’s face looked relaxed and happy again, and some of the redness was disappearing. “Yeah, Trucy, it helped a lot. But you know, now you have to spin me like a sponge!”
Trucy laughed at his silliness. “Normal people don’t spin sponges, Daddy. Besides, you’re too heavy!”
“You wound me, Trucy.” He put a hand to his heart. “You know what? I’m a grown up, and I can spin myself. Come on, Trucy, let’s go outside and we can play a little game I like to call ‘Spin around until you fall down.’ It was very popular in fourth grade.”
Trucy hugged him one more time, just because she wanted to, and sprang up. “Whoo! I bet I can spin around until I throw up!”
Daddy followed her out of the room. “Please don’t.”
About a year later, Trucy thought she was being very quiet as she cried in her room, but Daddy seemed to have a way of knowing when she was sad, and it only took a minute or two for her to hear a knock at her door. "Trucy, honey, can I come in?"
She didn't want him to see her crying, but she knew from past experience that he'd be happier if she told him why she was sad, and she wanted Daddy to be happy. He deserved it. So she called out a "Yes."
Daddy entered her room and sat next to her on her bed, hugging her from the side. "Do you want to talk about it, Trucy?"
She hid her teary eyes in Daddy's jacket. "I'm okay, Daddy. I-It's just the field trip." Her class was going to a theme park to celebrate the end of fifth grade, and she wasn't going to be able to go.
"Oh, honey," Daddy said, sounding so guilty, which was exactly what Trucy wanted to avoid, "I'm sorry. It's just-"
"It's okay, Daddy. It's 'money troubles'. It's not your fault." Trucy had learnt that 'money troubles' meant that she and Daddy had enough to eat and drink, but that she shouldn't ask for every snack she saw in the store, because Daddy would feel bad that they couldn't afford it. Trucy didn't understand exactly why, but Daddy seemed to think the 'money troubles' were his fault, no matter how much she pointed out that it was the 'conomy's fault, like the news said.
Trucy felt a hand petting her hair. "I wish you didn't have to be so mature," Daddy muttered into her hair.
She pulled out of the hug so she could smile as widely as possible at him. "I'm ten, Daddy, I'm practically a grown up!"
Daddy smiled at her back, but she could tell that it was just to make her happy, just like he knew about her smile. They knew each other that way. "Oh, honey, you don't have to cheer me up when you're the sad one, you know."
"I know." She let the smile fall off her face. All she wanted was to make the people around her happy, especially her Daddy, but the best way to make him happy was to be happy herself, so she had to focus on that, instead of trying to make him happy. It was like a weird cycle of happiness. It confused her, but she’d learnt long ago that life was confusing.
Daddy ruffled her hair again. “Tell you what, the day of the field trip, you can stay home with me and we can watch movies in our pajamas, or do anything you want. And I can make pancakes for dinner. It’s no theme park, but we can have fun ourselves.”
Trucy ruffled Daddy’s hair back, knocking off the beanie she bought him with her birthday money. “Can we watch bad movies and make fun of them?”
“Of course! And we can see if Maya can come over, and maybe Pearls, if Maya will let her skip school for one day. Knowing Maya, it won’t take much convincing.” Daddy grabbed his beanie and shoved it back on his head, trapping Trucy’s hand temporarily.
Trucy gave a small smile, a real one this time. “Then that sounds super fun!”
“Are you still sad about the field trip? I think it might be sponge time.”
Trucy crossed her arms. “Daddy! I’m ten. I’m too grown up for that to work.” Daddy stuck out his lower lip in a fake pout. “You can try anyways, though.”
“Alright!” Daddy wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly, but not quite enough for it to hurt. “There we go. All the sadness squeezed out?”
Trucy giggled. “Yeah, Daddy, you goof. All better.” She thought hard for a second. “And you know what would make me feel even better? A magic show!” If there was one thing she loved, it was performing new tricks for Daddy, even if they didn’t always go as planned.
Daddy beamed at her. “Of course! But no fire inside the apartment, okay?”
She stood up and began rummaging in her bedside drawers, trying to decide what tricks she should use this time. “That time was an accident, Daddy, really! No fire.” She pulled out her favorite wand and a deck of cards that had been used so often that nearly all the cards were bent or torn. She had a nicer one for official magic shows, of course, but she didn’t want to ruin it by using it in her everyday magic shows for Daddy.
She gave Daddy her biggest, happiest smile, one that he deserved to see, and began to perform.