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Chapter Text

It was the third day of their honeymoon and Moss, although he would never admit it to his husband, was bored. 

The two of them, after careful deliberation, had chosen a beach getaway in a secluded corner of southern France. Tucked away in a small corner down by the beach, the two of them were enjoying being away from people. It was very different from London life, that was for sure! The thing was, Moss was feeling a little… out-of-place. Maybe it was being out of his regular routine, or perhaps it was being in a new place, but he was feeling restless. He was happy, of course he was happy, but he was missing his consoles and his own bed and, strangely enough, his job. He was putting it down to a lack of routine for now. 

“Babe, can I admit something to you?” Roy asked. They were sitting on the bed in the bedroom of the beach house they were staying in, flicking through French telly due the abysmal state of the Wi-Fi connection. Moss nodded, looking away from what he was guessing was a French version of Family Fortunes. “And it’s nothing to do with you, okay?”

“O-o-o-okay?” Moss said a little uneasily, giving his husband a strange look. 

“I’m kinda bored here.”

There was a pause. Roy was watching Moss, who was still looking at him with a slightly confused look on his face, with worry. Then it seemed to register to Moss what his husband had said and his face split into a huge smile. 

“I thought it was just me!” he exclaimed happily. Roy grinned then too, and the two of them shared a giggle. 

“I know it’s our honeymoon and we’re supposed to be having a great time away,” the Irishman said. “But it’s kinda dull here!” 

“ So dull,” Moss agreed. They giggled again, and then Moss sighed. “I miss home.” 

Roy nodded in agreement. There was a moment of silence, and then Roy bit his lip and looked down at the bedsheets. 

“D’you think maybe we should just go home?” 

“But we have the house booked for another week?” Moss said confusedly. 

“So nobody will be expecting us back,” Roy replied with a shrug. Moss mulled this over. 

“So we can go home, have all the comforts we like…” 

“And as long as we don’t say anything we can spend the whole week just the two of us, like we were ‘supposed to’.” 

They grinned at each other. 

“Let’s do it,” Moss whispered. He sounded like he was agreeing to a bank robbery or to abscond away in the middle of the night and start a new life in South America rather than cutting their honeymoon a little short, and Roy loved it. He smiled at his husband, reaching forward and pulling him into a kiss. Once they broke apart Moss sighed, looking around the room. “It seems like such a shame that this place is going to go to waste for a week.” 

“I owe my mum a birthday present,” Roy said with a cheeky grin. “Shall we give ‘em the keys, buy them a plane ticket and be done with it?” 

“Sounds fabulous, dear.” 

They kissed again. It was supposed to be a quick kiss, but neither of them pulled away and it quickly deepened. Roy shifted a little closer to his husband, smiling to himself as their knees bumped. It seemed that almost every kiss would be as clumsy as their first. 

“I love you,” he murmured as they broke apart for breath. Moss smiled gently at him, reaching up and resting his hand on his husband’s cheek as he pulled him into another kiss. That quickly deepened and the two of them moved closer yet to each other. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” 

“I love you too,” Moss replied breathlessly.  As they broke apart again, Roy looked towards the door and quirked an eyebrow. 

Moss smirked, kicked the door closed and pulled his husband towards him by the shirt. 

***

By the same time the next day they were happily snuggled up in their own bed back in London. Roy’s parents had been more than happy to accept the week’s holiday, and Roy had managed to fix the Wi-Fi for long enough to buy them plane tickets online. As far as they knew from Roy’s mum’s last text, they were now in France and were making their way to the house. Moss and Roy, however, were having food from their favourite takeaway, watching their favourite movie on functioning Wi-Fi and just generally being glad about being back home. 

“Have you ever enjoyed going away?” Moss asked. He was tucked under his husband’s arms, his arms around Roy’s waist. Roy made a small noise. 

“In a way, I guess,” he said. “I like goin’ round places and seeing new things, but I always find the logistical side of it a bit of a pain in the arse. Plus I always seem to forget something.” 

Moss giggled at this. He snuggled closer to his husband. 

“Can we talk about something?” he asked after a while. Roy reached over and paused the telly, sitting up a little more to look at his husband. 

“Course,” he said. Moss shifted now too, turning to the Irishman with a slightly nervous look on his face. 

“I wanted to talk about kids again,” he said. Roy nodded, trying to keep the shock off his face. He knew that there would be another conversation about children at some point, but somehow he hadn’t expected it quite so soon after the wedding. 

“Yeah, sure,” he heard himself saying. Moss tucked his legs beneath him, leaning forward a little. 

“It’s just I’ve been thinking about it all recently,” he replied. “I love the idea of us having someone to raise together.” 

“D’you think we’d make good dads?” Roy asked. Moss nodded enthusiastically. 

“We’d make great dads!” he exclaimed. Roy giggled. His husband’s enthusiasm was definitely something that he loved. “I’m getting better with not burning things down, you’re just… incredible… we’d be brilliant!” 

“If you say so love,” Roy laughed. Moss chuckled, pressing a quick kiss to his husband’s lips. “So… you want kids soon?”

“Well, kid ,” Moss admitted. Roy gave him a strange look. “I… I think I’d rather start with one. I’m not sure I even want more than one.”

“Me neither,” Roy replied. He shrugged a little. “I mean, I liked having my sisters growing up but part of me always wished I was an only child.” He paused. “What about you? Did you ever want a little brother or sister?” 

“Not really,” Moss shrugged. “But I was always quite happy with my own company.” 

They paused again. 

“So you’d want one kid?” Roy asked. Moss nodded with a shy smile. 

“How soon would you want to think about starting the process?” he said. 

“Honestly?” Roy replied. Moss nodded. The Irishman smiled, reaching forward and taking his husband’s hands. “As soon as possible, if you want to.” 

“Really?” Moss said, his voice hushed as his eyes lit up. Roy nodded. Moss flew forward, tackling his husband in a tight hug. Roy went flailing back, almost toppling off of the side of the bed but just managing to save himself. He chuckled, returning the hug. “I love you,” Moss whispered. His voice sounded a little choked. 

“Hey, I love you too,” Roy replied. 

“We’re going to be parents,” Moss said in a hushed voice. 

Roy smiled into his husband’s shoulder, and pulled him a little closer.

Chapter Text

Over the next week, Moss and Roy found themselves feverishly researching options open to them for having a child. The two of them had realised rather quickly that they had very little idea of what they could do. It was a difficult decision, they knew that, and so often they would find themselves drifting from forums and blogs over to Pinterest boards of nurseries and baby clothes. Roy was especially bad for this. 

As they had expected, their “honeymoon” week had been much more enjoyable at home. Moss in particular had been much more at ease at home, and Roy certainly noticed it. Instead of spending a week lounging on the beach and going out to fancy dinners, they sat in their pyjamas, played video games and ate probably their own bodyweight in junk food. 

“We’re gonna have to start eatin’ healthier if we’re gonna be parents,” Roy said matter-of-factly as he drizzled chilli sauce over his kebab. Moss, who was in the process of chewing his way through a handful of chips, gave him a strange look. Roy chuckled. “What? We’ve got to set a good example. That means no more Smarties cereal!” 

“Roy!” Moss exclaimed. He looked up from his food in order to give his husband the puppy-dog eyes. “You can’t make me give up Smarties cereal!” 

“You’re right, I can’t,” the Irishman said with a cheeky grin. He looked over him fondly. “God, look at you. You’re so beautiful.” 

Moss blushed, looking away. 

“Shush talking about yourself,” he replied quietly. He was smiling a little though. Roy grinned and went back to his kebab. 

Another key discussion they were having between shouting at people on games of Call of Duty was their options for having a child. The main two were obviously surrogacy and adoption. Whilst surrogacy would give them a child that was biologically related to one of them, it involved a lot of uncertainty and the two of them knew that they would never be able to decide whose sperm would get used. As they had discussed though, there were hundreds if not thousands of children who needed parents, and they would be more than happy to oblige. 

So they were fairly sure they wanted to adopt. As they started researching this though, they realised there were still so many options there as well. In fact it was all a bit overwhelming. After another night of flicking through adoption websites, Moss had pointed out that they knew people who were experienced with this: Morgan and Leanne. They agreed that at the end of their “honeymoon” (they couldn’t give up the ruse now, could they?) they would arrange to meet up with the two of them to discuss it. 

“Well I have had a simply wonderful honeymoon,” Roy said triumphantly. It was what would have been the last night of their holiday in France. The original plan had been to go for an extremely fancy meal together. Instead they were sitting on their bed in their pyjamas, Roy was more than a little bit tipsy (he was clumsily holding up a bottle of white wine with one hand) and Moss thoroughly loving it all much more than he would have enjoyed any fancy meal.

“Me too,” Moss giggled. As Roy held up his wine bottle again as if to make a toast, Moss held back laughter and copied the gesture with his carton of chocolate milk. 

“I bloody love you, you sexy beast of a man,” the Irishman proclaimed. Moss blushed again, but giggled. 

“You’re drunk,” he said. 

“So? ‘M still telling the truth.” 

“I know dear.” 

Roy took another gulp out of the wine bottle. 

“God, I can’t wait ‘til we become parents,” he said as he wiped his lips on the back of his hand. “Havin’ a little kid running riot in here. I love it.” 

“Jen does say that we attract chaos,” Moss remarked. He took a sip from his carton. 

“We do ,” Roy mumbled. He sat back against the back of the bed, glugging the end of the bottle of wine. Then he groaned, putting his hand over his eyes. “God-d-d-d, I drank that too fast.”

Moss glanced at the clock. Sure enough, they had only been here for fifteen minutes and already the bottle was empty. He shook his head, smiling at his husband as he reached over and took the empty bottle. 

“Silly,” he whispered. Leaning over, he kissed him slowly and softly. Roy reciprocated just as much. 

“Love you.” 

***

By the time the next morning came Roy had consumed yet another bottle and a half of wine, had drunkenly told Moss how much he loved him and then fallen asleep whilst halfway off the bed. Moss had hauled his husband back onto the bed so he didn’t have a bad back the next day before falling asleep rather quickly. He awoke at his normal time. Roy followed somewhere around ten with a swirling stomach and a head full of regret. 

“God I feel rough,” he groaned as he stumbled into the kitchen, clutching onto the breakfast bar to keep his balance. Moss gave him a look, pushing a glass of water and an aspirin over to his husband, who accepted them with a murmur of thanks. “How much did I end up drinking?” 

“Two and a half bottles,” Moss replied. He jerked his head over to the recycling pile where the empty bottles sat abandoned. Roy groaned again, burying his face in his hands. 

“I’m too old for this now,” he said, his voice a little muffled. Moss chuckled, shaking his head. 

“I called Morgan,” he said. Roy looked up as he made a questioning noise. “She says she’s happy to meet for coffee tomorrow. Asked me why we hadn’t put any pictures up of our honeymoon.” 

“What did you tell her?” the Irishman asked as he took the aspirin and dropped it into the water. Moss shrugged. 

“Nothing. I said I had to go and do something and hung up.” 

Roy laughed as Moss took a sip of his tea. His husband was looking at him very seriously over the rim of his mug. The Irishman rolled his eyes a little, forcing himself to sip at his aspirin water. He felt awful now, but he knew that it would help in an hour or so. 

“Plan for today?” he asked. Moss shrugged. 

“Nothing as far as I know.” 

There was a pause. 

“Wanna watch movies and fall asleep by midday?” 

Moss grinned at his husband. 

“Sounds wonderful dear.”

***

Whenever they met with Morgan for coffee, Roy always found himself confused by her and his husband’s orders. He himself tended not to stray away from lattes or mochas at a stretch. Moss, who he’d never actually seen drink coffee (he was fairly convinced that if his husband ever did he would be bouncing off of the walls for the next six hours), often went for some kind of sugar-filled drink akin to a milkshake piled high with cream, and Morgan would have something similar but with three shots of espresso to give her the power to stare God in the eyes round the back of the shopping centre presumably. No, it wasn’t something he understood at all. 

“How was the honeymoon?” Morgan asked as they sat down. Isabella wasn’t with them today, as apparently she was staying with Morgan's parents. 

“Fine,” Moss said. He sounded almost scared. Roy chuckled, leaning forward. 

“We ended up coming home early,” he said. “We got bored in France.” 

“How long have you been back for?” Leanne asked. 

“A week.” 

“A week !?” Morgan exclaimed. The boys nodded. She let out a sigh of disbelief, shaking her head as she sat back in her seat. “Wow. I’m impressed you managed not to tell anyone.” 

“So are we,” Roy remarked. Moss nodded, laughing. 

The four of them proceeded to chat rubbish for the next half hour or so. Both Moss and Roy were desperate to bring up the reason why they had really asked them there, but neither of them quite knew how to say it. 

Luckily, they didn’t have to. 

“Now you’re married, are you going to think about kids?” Leanne asked as she sipped her iced coffee. Both of the boys looked up at her with wide eyes. “It’s okay if you don’t want them, I was just wondering.” 

“No, um,” Roy said. “Actually, that’s why we asked you here.”

“We wanted to ask you about your experience adopting,” Moss continued. Morgan and Leanne beamed at them. 

“Well we talked about a lot of course,” Leanne said. “We thought about sperm donation but then we realised that neither of us wanted to be pregnant.” 

“And we didn’t really want a surrogate,” Morgan added. 

“So we started looking at adoption,” Leanne said. “There’s obviously so many options. We thought about going through the council and doing it that way, but we ended up watching a documentary one night about abandoned babies in China because of the one-child policy, and we knew that was right for us. Six months later we had Isabella.” 

“We’re not sure which agencies to go through,” Roy said. 

“I’m sure you’ll find one,” Morgan replied. 

“There’s just so many ,” Moss lamented. Morgan chuckled at him. 

“What about Barnardo’s?” she suggested. The two of them looked up at her. “I remember when we were trying to go through the council they would take forever to get back to us, but Barnardo’s were actually pretty quick with giving us information.” 

“Others said that too,” Leanne added. 

“Yeah, we read that on a lot of forums,” Roy said. He glanced at his husband. “Yeah, maybe they’re a good option.” 

Moss smiled, reaching over and squeezing his husband’s hand. 

“Do you want a boy or a girl?” Morgan asked. The boys laughed then. 

“God, we don’t quite know that yet,” Roy chuckled. Moss nodded in agreement. They looked at each other, wide smiles on their faces. “All we know is that we’ll love them.” 

“That’s the main thing,” Leanne remarked. 

And everybody knew that she was right.

Chapter Text

It was two a.m, and Moss was having a nightmare. 

It wasn’t often anymore than Moss had nightmares. When he had first come off of his meds they had been frequent, but as he had adjusted they had tapered off. Over extensive discussions with his therapist and his husband, his current theory on why they sometimes popped up was because of stress, unpredictability or a looming decision in his life. 

Considering that talking about adopting a child was a pretty darn big decision, he was hardly surprised that one had reared up. 

For someone who had been described as “creative” (his mother), an “out-of-the-box thinker” (Mr Reynholm senior) and “airheaded” (a particular music teacher he had who seemed to have a vendetta against him), Moss had a surprisingly analytical mind at times. Over time his nightmares were somewhere this skill had particularly excelled. There would always be tells, little nuances that reminded him that it was indeed a nightmare and not real. Sometimes they would be difficult to spot. Today, however, it was glaringly obvious, because it was happening at their old flat and so it couldn’t possibly be happening now. 

He was sitting in their old living room. Well, kind of. In actual fact he was on his knees, one of his attackers holding him down and forcing him to watch as his husband was beat up by the two of the others. That was another tell that it wasn’t real: at the time, they had not been married and neither of them had been wearing any sort of ring. There was blood trickling down his face from a cut above his temple which was throbbing something horrible. He knew it wasn’t real, but the sensations were so believable that sometimes he found himself slipping fully back into the nightmare. 

To be honest it was a fairly standard nightmare, which made it sound like it was easy to deal with despite the fact it really, really wasn’t, but there was one key difference to this one. In the corner of the living room, there was a bassinet, from which the cries of a baby were coming. Now logically Moss knew that this couldn’t possibly be real, because they didn’t have a baby (at least not yet), and yet his emotions were going haywire over it. The remaining attacker was stationed by the bassinet, aiming a gun into it. Moss presumed that this was part of why he was staying so still, and why Roy was taking the beating so calmly, and why the two of them both had silent tears flowing down their cheeks. 

“You really thought we were done there?” the attacker holding him down teased. The other two had, thank God, let Roy go and now his husband was slumped on the floor, breathing shallowly but breathing. Moss’ eyes widened as they travelled over to the bassinet. 

“No, please…” he heard himself saying. 

Before he could do anything, there was a bang and then he was waking up. 

As he looked around the comforting familiarity of their bedroom, he forced himself to take a few deep breaths. His heart was racing. He wiped his eyes as he reached for his glasses, taking a good look at his husband. Sure enough he was perfectly safe, surprisingly still asleep considering how lightly he slept and how much he himself tended to move around when he was having a nightmare.

The bassinet… that was new. He’d had many a nightmare since the incident, but this was a new addition to them. It was… strange. Such a fear had filled him, a similar amount to what he felt when he saw them attacking Roy but it had been an entirely unfamiliar sense of fear. Different. He took his glasses off again, wiping his eyes to get rid of the last of the tears. Okay. He would be okay. 

Even if he wouldn’t get back to sleep now. 

***

He did actually end up dropping back off to sleep around an hour later, but this ended in another nightmare. He woke up screaming with this one too (the tells had been significantly harder to spot), which then woke Roy up and led to the two of them sitting in the living room together with crap telly on as Moss sat with his face buried in his husband’s hoodie. 

“Bad night or bad day?” Roy asked quietly. It was around quarter to five in the morning, and the sun was just rising. Moss shrugged a little, not moving from the cocoon he’d made himself. Roy pulled him a little closer. “It’s alright.” 

“There was something new,” Moss replied. His voice was barely audible. Roy made a small noise, moving a little so he could hear his husband better. “In, um, the first nightmare I had. There was something new.” 

“What was it?” 

There was a pause. Moss sat up a little, looking at his husband. 

“A bassinet.” 

“A bassinet?” Roy repeated. Moss nodded. Roy made a slight face, tilting his head to the side. “That is new.” 

Moss nodded again. “Are you alright?”

“I think so.”

Leaning down, Roy pressed a soft kiss to the top of Moss’ head. Moss smiled, snuggling into his husband. 

“I love you,” the Irishman murmured. “You’re safe, sweetheart. You’re always safe with me.” 

***

It was later that same day that they got the email. 

After the conversation with Morgan and Leanne three weeks ago, they had spent even more time discussing what they wanted to do. It had filled the time at work, anyway. They (well, Moss) had been feverently looking up adoption agencies in between calls and meetings, and whilst they had sent an enquiry email to the council they had yet to hear anything back. Instead they had decided to try Barnardo’s, having heard good things about them on all of the forums they’d visited. They’d sent their online enquiry form just last week. 

“Moss,” Roy said, his voice quiet. The office had been essentially dead for the past couple hours, and Moss was lounging quite comfortably on the sofa playing World of Warcraft on his laptop. Unfortunately he was so absorbed in his game that it didn’t even seem to register to him that his husband had said anything. “Moss,” Roy said again, raising his voice a little. This caught Moss’ attention and he made an acknowledging noise, but didn’t look up from his computer screen. “Moss!” 

“What?” Moss replied, a little snappy but at least he looked up from his laptop. When he saw his husband’s wide-eyed look, though, any semblance of annoyance melted away. “What is it?” 

“A-an email,” Roy stammered. He pointed to his computer screen. Moss gave him a strange look. 

“I don’t understand,” he said. 

“Barnardo’s. They’ve sent us an email.” 

When he heard this Moss shoved his laptop to the side and immediately leaned over the side of the sofa, fixing his husband with an inquisitive look. Roy opened his mouth, looked down at his computer screen, closed it, looked up, opened it again, looked back down at the computer and then closed it again. 

“What? What is it?” Moss said insistently. Roy looked up at his husband again. 

“They said they’re very interested in our application and they can’t wait to talk to us,” he said. 

Moss stared. He stared and stared and stared. He stared for so long that Roy actually started to get a bit worried. Just as he was about to get up to make sure he was alright Moss moved, his face splitting into a huge grin. 

“Yes!” he yelled. He tumbled over the side of the sofa, nearly hitting his head off the floor in his eagerness. He jumped up, bouncing on the spot a little before running over and pulling his husband up into a hug. Roy chuckled as he returned it. 

“What are you two so happy about?” Jen asked. They looked over to see her leaning against her office door grinning at them. Moss tried to reply, but that came out was a squeak and he buried his face in Roy’s shoulder, clutching at his husband’s t-shirt in order to keep his hands still. 

“The adoption agency,” Roy said. “They like the sound of us and wanna call us.” 

“That’s amazing!” Jen exclaimed, clapping her hands together. Roy grinned at her, and Moss squealed a little again. “Oh I’m so happy for you two! When are they calling?” 

“Two-thirty,” the Irishman replied.

“Two-thirty!?” Moss shouted in surprise. The other two looked to him as he moved away from his husband a little, reaching forward and gently hitting him on the arm. Roy gave him a strange look. “That’s so soon!” 

“It’ll be fine, love,” Roy said, with a nervous chuckle that clearly meant that he did not believe that it would indeed be fine. Moss gave him a sceptical look. 

“Will it?” 

“Of course it will be fine!” Jen said. The two of them turned to her. It looks could kill she’d have been dead two times over. Recoiling a little, she rested her hand on her stomach. She didn’t have any sort of bump yet, being only 6 weeks along, but it still made her happy. “Alright, alright, no need to glare at me.” 

“Sorry, we’re just… nervous,” Roy replied. Moss nodded in agreement. Then Roy groaned, throwing his head back. “Oh God, what if I say somethin’ stupid?” 

“What if I say something stupid?” Moss added. There was a harrowed look on his face. 

“Look, neither of you are going to say something stupid,” Jen said. She looked down and cleared her throat as she added, “probably.” The boys looked up at her again in shock. “I’m kidding, of course you won’t!” 

“How do you know?” Roy asked. His tone was almost accusatory. “You know what Moss is like when he’s flustered.” 

“Hey!” Moss exclaimed with a pout. Roy shot him an apologetic look. 

“Sorry love, but it’s true. You say the most random shit when you’re trying to fill time, especially with somebody you don’t know.” 

Moss grumbled a little, but soon nodded. He couldn’t dispute that what his husband was saying wasn’t true, anyhow. 

“Alright, but how are you any better!?” he shot back. Roy gave him a confused look, pointing to himself. Moss nodded. “You helped three men rob a bank because you couldn’t say no!” 

“Me?” Roy exclaimed, outraged. “Me!? Sorry Mr Banned-From-Watching-Grand-Designs-Ever-Again, I don’t think you’re in a position to judge here!” 

“That was a mistake !” 

“I don’t--"

“Alright!” Jen shouted. Her voice was so loud and thunderous that the two of them fell silent immediately, but continued to shoot each other petty looks. A quick glare from Jen soon put a stop to that, though. “Now listen to me. Nothing is going to go wrong. The two of you are just hyping yourself up too much. Trust me, it’ll be fine.” 

The boys nodded a little. They glanced at each other. Moss flashed his husband a shy smile. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. 

“‘S okay,” Roy said, smiling. “I’m sorry too. Just… worried, that’s all.” 

“I’m worried too!” Moss exclaimed. The two of them giggled. Moss shifted in his seat a little, folding his arms across his chest. “No, it’ll be fine.” 

“Exactly,” Roy replied, although he didn’t sound too sure. 

***

By the time two-thirty rolled around the boys were even more nervous than before. Moss had taken to pacing up and down the office, wringing his hands in front of him, whereas Roy was flicking between lots of different activities and slowly becoming more and more agitated. Jen was watching them through her office window, her brow furrowed. Whilst she knew that the boys would be fine, their anxieties were starting to worry her a bit now. What if one of them did say something stupid? No, they wouldn’t. Hopefully, anyway. Even if they did it would probably just be innocent, especially if it was Moss who said it. Roy, alright, Roy was a bit iffy, but if Moss did most of the talking (as he sometimes could do when he got nervous) for them. God, she just wanted this to go well for them. Lord knew they deserved it. 

Then, of course, came the inevitable ringing of the phone. The basement had been so quiet before it that the three of them all jumped, Jen in her room and Moss and Roy in the main office. Jen bit her lip as she watched the boys murmur reassurances to each other. After a moment Roy took a deep breath, picked up the phone and she forced herself to stop watching. 

“Hello?” Roy said in the other room. As he glanced at his husband, who was chewing nervously on his thumbnail, he realised that it would be more helpful if they could both hear and so quickly put the phone on speaker.

“Hi, am I speaking to Roy Trenneman and Maurice Moss?” the voice on the other end of the phone said. They sounded friendly. 

“Um, y-yeah,” Roy stammered. Moss nodded in agreement. 

“Hi, it’s great to talk to you!” the person squealed. “I’m Cassie, one of the social workers here at Barnardo’s. I just knew I had to talk to you guys properly when I read through your interest forms.”

“Uh-h-h-h…” the Irishman croaked out. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say, and a quick look at Moss told him that he didn’t have much of an idea either. 

“Don’t worry,” Cassie said quickly. It seemed that she had sensed their panic. “This talk doesn’t commit you to anything, it’s just so I can explain the process to you a bit more, you can tell me what you want, ask me any questions you have, that sort of thing.” 

“Oh, erm, okay,” Roy said. He forced himself to smile. Reaching out, he took Moss’ hand in his, squeezing it gently. 

“I guess the first thing to say is congratulations!” Cassie said. 

“What?” 

“On your wedding. You did say on the form you got married recently?” 

“Oh! Yeah, yeah, we did.” Roy smiled at his husband, who smiled back. “About three weeks ago now.” Glancing at Moss, he pointed to his mouth with his free hand and mouthed something. In response Moss shook his head. Roy smiled at him again, kissing his forehead gently. 

“Well congratulations, anyhow,” she said. “You’re pretty quick to be thinking about kids. Most LGBTQ couples we have here come to us after a couple of years or so.” 

“Well we’ve been talkin’ about kids for about a year,” Roy replied. “And we’ve known each other for God knows how long.”

“Aww, how long have you known each other?” 

“Erm….. since 2001.” 

“That’s incredible! How long have you been together, if you don’t mind me asking?” 

Roy smiled. 

“It’s our two-year anniversary next week.” 

The woman on the other end of the work squealed a little. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just so adorable!” she exclaimed. There was a moment as all three of them chuckled. Moss shifted himself a little closer to his husband. “Sorry, sorry, I’m always like this when I’m talking to people. I guess my first question is how much do you know about the adoption process?” 

“Well we’ve done a lot of research…”

Over the next twenty minutes Cassie explained to them the ins and outs of the adoption process. A lot of it they had already known, but there was a couple of new bits of information and so the two of them were rather glad of it. Moss’ nerves seemed to have got to him and so he had gone non-verbal, frantically scribbling down any questions he had and even signing a couple of times (although Roy quickly realised that he knew little-to-no sign language and so just nodded along whilst making a mental note to try and learn some) when he couldn’t write the words fast enough. 

“So, any questions?” Cassie asked once they had finished discussing. Roy opened his mouth to reply but Moss hit him against the arm, not too gently although Roy was sure he hadn’t meant to hurt him. When he turned to look, his husband was scribbling frantically. After a few seconds, Moss pushed a piece of paper over. 

“Er, one, yeah,” Roy said. Cassie made a small noise. “Um, will my husband being neurodivergent affect our chances of adopting?” 

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Clearly this wasn’t a question she’d been expecting. Moss and Roy glanced at each other nervously. 

“It shouldn’t do,” Cassie said eventually after a minute or so. “Honestly, I’ll have to look into it for you.” 

“Okay, thank you,” Roy said. Moss bit his lip as he watched his husband with wide eyes. 

“I’d love to meet you two in person if you’re interested further,” she said. The two looked at each other. Moss nodded. 

“Yeah, we’d love that!” Roy exclaimed. She giggled. 

“Okay, great! How does next week sound?”

“Sounds good.” 

“We tend to do these visits in the prospective parents’ home. Is that okay?” 

“Of course.” 

“Brilliant. See you in a week?” 

“See you in a week!” 

As soon as the phone hung up, the two of them flew into each other's arms and didn’t let go for a good long while.

Chapter Text

If the boys had thought they were nervous for the phone call, then they clearly hadn’t foreseen their nerves for the first visit. 

After having two weeks off they had both gone back to their therapists this week, and had spent their separate sessions fretting about the visit. Roy hadn’t stayed in one spot for more than about ten seconds, pacing around the therapist’s office as he ranted, barely breaking for breath, for a good half an hour before the therapist could get a word in. Moss had simply lay awkwardly on the couch (his therapist had recently switched from a leather one to a much nicer cloth one) talking slowly and occasionally switching to sign language, something he’d been doing rather a bit over the past week. Roy had been doing his best to understand it, and had signed up to an online course. 

So yes, tensions were high, both in the office and at home. Jen had noticed over the course of the week that Roy’s temper with the clientele was much shorter, and Moss would often disappear altogether for a good twenty minutes or so at a time. They were insistent to her that they were fine, but almost as soon as they got home they would start fretting and worrying even more. 

“The nerves have got to be a good sign, right?” Roy asked one night. They were lying in bed together, not doing much else than staring at technology. Moss made a small noise as he looked up from his iPad. “I mean, the fact we’re so nervous about it all. That must mean we really want it?” 

“I guess,” Moss said. He shrugged a little. 

“God, I didn’t think I’d be this nervous,” Roy said. He leaned his head back against the headboard of the bed. 

“Me neither.” 

“Are you alright?” 

There was a pause. Roy watched his husband carefully, even shutting his phone off so he wouldn’t get distracted by the bright screen. Moss was staring at the bedsheets, looking almost confused as he did so. 

“I…” he eventually said after a minute or so of silence. “I-I…” 

He sighed frustratedly. Reaching for his iPad, he opened up the notes app. After typing, deleting and retyping for a minute or so, he turned the iPad to his husband. Roy leaned over, reading it quickly. 

I’m just worried that the social worker will think our house is a dump or that we’re not good enough to have a child and then we’ll never get approved by anyone anywhere. 

“Sweetheart…” Roy said. To be quite honest, he wasn’t exactly sure what to say. He allowed himself a moment of panic before he calmed down again and reread what his husband had written. “Well… I don’t think the house is a dump. Yeah, it gets a bit scruffy sometimes, but we can make an effort!” 

Much to Roy’s surprise Moss giggled at this. He moved his iPad to the side, reaching forward and pulling his husband into a hug. 

“Thank you,” he murmured. 

“No problem,” Roy said, smiling. He planted a kiss on his husband’s head. “Come on love, let’s get some sleep. Gotta be ready for tomorrow.” 

***

Neither of them slept well that night. Roy was constantly up and down, whereas Moss lay awake for the best part of five hours before finally dropping off from sheer exhaustion. When the morning came they were both still tired and a little grumpy. After breakfast Moss went straight back to bed, saying that he was going to try and have a nap whilst he still had a chance. Roy kissed him in the forehead and then proceeded to clean the entire apartment from top to bottom, occasionally poking his head into the bedroom to check on his husband. 

Moss reappeared around midday. He still looked tired, with bags under his eyes and slightly wild hair, but he looked a little happier than he had been. He came over to where his husband was wiping down the entire kitchen, wrapping him in a hug from behind and kissing him gently on the cheek. 

“You feelin’ better?” Roy asked with a smile as he paused in his cleaning. 

“A little,” Moss replied. He rested his head against Roy’s shoulder. 

“Manage to get any sleep?”

Moss let out a snort of laughter. 

“Of course not,” he said. Then he sighed, moving his head to the other side. “It’s going to be fine, isn’t it?” 

“I think so,” Roy replied. As he went back to cleaning the side down Moss moved away, going over to the fridge and opening it up. 

“Why do we have no food?” he said. When Roy turned to look at him he was pouting. 

“We do have food.” 

“But no good food.” 

Roy crinkled his nose in confusion. He stopped what he was doing again, coming forward and standing next to his fiance. As he’d thought, there was a good amount of food in there. 

“Have a cheese triangle,” he suggested. 

“Roy, you magnificent bastard,” Moss said. He sounded so sincere that Roy couldn’t help but laugh, leaning forward and kissing his husband on the cheek. 

“Here to help, love.” 

Much to the boys’ surprise the meeting was taking place once again at two-thirty. For the next couple of hours the two of them went over the flat over and over again, and tried on a multitude of different outfits. In the end Roy managed to talk Moss out of wearing his wedding suit, and eventually the two of them settled on their normal work clothes. That seemed to relax Moss, at least, and he looked much more comfortable after they changed. 

When the doorbell rang, they both looked up from the mind-numbing daytime telly they had been watching. They glanced at each other quickly. Moss nodded a little. Roy took a deep breath as he got up, heading towards the door. Just before he was about to open it he turned back to his husband. 

“It’s gonna be fine,” he said. It was mostly for himself but Moss nodded. 

Roy took another deep breath, and then opened the door. 

Cassie didn’t look like how they’d expected her to look. They’d both been expecting an older, almost frumpy woman. Instead a bright, vibrant young woman with an even more vibrant bright blue afro was standing on their doorstep, clutching a load of documents to her chest and grinning at him. 

“Hi!” she said. “I’m Cassie, one of the social workers from Barnardo’s. I would shake your hand but…” 

“Oh God, yeah,” Roy said quickly. “Come in, come in.” 

“Thank you,” Cassie replied as she scuttled in. Roy closed the door behind her. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you guys so much!” As she reached the living room, she turned to where Moss had gone over to stand with his husband by the door. “I love your flat.” 

“Thank you, it was very expensive,” Moss blurted. 

“Moss!” Roy hissed as he nudged his husband, but Cassie didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she was laughing! 

“I bet!” she said with a grin. Then she nodded down to the files in her arms. “Is there anywhere I can…?” 

“God, yeah, sorry,” Roy exclaimed. “Just chuck them down anywhere.” She did so, placing them down on the coffee table. Roy rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry, we, ah, we don’t get much company.”

“You don’t have to apologise,” she said. “You’ve already treated me better than some.” 

“Seriously?” Roy asked, unable to stop himself. Cassie nodded. 

“You’d be surprised.” 

“Can we get you anything? Tea, coffee, something else?” 

“A coffee would be lovely, thanks. Milk and half a sugar please.” 

Roy moved forward to go into the kitchen, but before he could Moss had shot past him and was already there. The Irishman shrugged to himself as he came over and sat down on the sofa, gesturing for Cassie to do the same. 

“I’ve gotta say, we’ve been really nervous about this,” Roy said with an anxious chuckle. Cassie gave him a reassuring look. 

“A lot of people are,” she said. “But don’t worry, there really is nothing to be scared of.” Pausing, she reached forward and grabbed the first of her massive folders. At the same time Moss arrived with the drinks, and she took hers with a quiet thank you . Once the boys were both seated in front of her, she looked up at them with a bright smile. “Right first thing, I looked fully into your question about neurodivergence and adoption, and it definitely won’t affect your chances.” 

At this, both of the boys let out a deep sigh of relief. 

“Thank God,” Roy said. 

“We were worried about it,” Moss added. 

“No, it should all be fine!” 

The next hour or so was a long, winding conversation that would take far too long to recount and was filled with a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo. The boys both took as much of it as possible in, but Roy especially had to admit that at times he did find himself drifting off a little. Still, he was fairly sure he’d got all the important information…

“So, I guess all that’s left for me to ask is if you want to do the Registration of Interest form,” Cassie said. Roy looked up from where he had been picking at a hangnail on his thumb in confusion, but when he looked to his husband he seemed to understand what was being said. Cassie, however, picked up on his confusion and said, “this form basically kick-starts the adoption process and lets us do the background checks, that sort of thing.” 

“Right, okay,” Roy said. He looked over to his husband, who was watching him with wide curious eyes. “So? Shall we do it?” 

There was a pause. 

“I… I think we should,” Moss replied faintly. Roy smiled at him, pulling him into a tight hug. Cassie grinned at them. 

“Awesome!” she said. “I’ll just need some quick details off you now then…”

After the details were exchanged, Cassie bid them farewell and told them that they would receive a package with the form they had to fill in and all the information they would need in a few days’ time. 

As soon as the door closed behind her, Moss pulled his husband into a tight hug. 

“We’re doing it,” he whispered as Roy wrapped his arms around his middle. “We’re actually going to adopt a child.” 

“Yeah,” Roy murmured in reply. They stayed like this for a little while, but then Roy let his husband go. Moss gave him a strange look. Roy grinned at him. “Let’s have a date night!” 

“A date night?” Moss repeated. Roy nodded enthusiastically. 

“Anywhere you wanna go. Hell, we could get in the car and go anywhere we wanted to.”

“What about work?” 

“To hell with work!” Roy came forward, grinning as he took Moss’ hands in his. “Let’s have some fun .” 

Moss nodded shyly. Roy let out a yell of delight, pulling his husband into a kiss. “The world is our oyster.” 

***

Most couples, especially ones that earned such decent money as they did, would spend most date nights at fancy restaurants or bespoke cinemas, where they would pay far too much for far too little food and would wallow in how sophisticated they felt. Moss and Roy, however, were not this sort of couple. They had agreed after their first “fancy” date, as it were, that they would never subject each other to it again unless they suddenly decided they wanted to and would instead have dates which they actually enjoyed . This normally meant a Wetherspoons pub dinner, a movie the two of them had been looking forward to looking forward to seeing for ages or sometimes coffee if they were feeling like it. 

Today, it meant chips eaten straight out of the wrapping and playing games at Namco. 

“I have held this high score for three years, you are not allowed to steal it from me now!” Moss yelled. They were playing one of the first person shooter games that was tucked away in the back of the arcade, and had been for the past ten minutes or so. Moss had utterly thrashed Roy every single game thus far, but now Roy was starting to bring it back and it was looking like he might win. The Irishman laughed as he aimed at another alien. 

“I’m gonna do it!” he shouted. “I’m gonna beat ya!” 

Before Roy could press shoot, though, Moss aimed and shot him right in the chest. 

Roy turned slowly to his husband, a betrayed look on his face. Moss was looking a little sheepish now, especially as the screen flashed with game over! “You vindictive little bastard,” the Irishman breathed. 

“I’m sorry but I couldn’t risk losing my high score!” Moss cried. He put the gun carefully back in the holster before turning to his husband with folded arms. “You would have done the same thing in my position.” 

There was a pause. 

“You’re right, yeah, I would.”

The two giggled, looking down to their feet. Moss looked up at his husband, a lovestruck look on his face. 

“I love you,” he said softly. Roy smiled at him. 

“I love you too.” 

“Doesn’t mean I’m not going to destroy you at air hockey!” Moss exclaimed. The Irishman laughed as he shook his head, brandishing a pound coin in the air. 

“Oh it is on .”

Chapter Text

One month later

The month since Cassie’s first visit had been a wild one, to say the least. Them completing the Registration of Interest form really solidified to them that this was real, this was happening, and thus everything else had become a bit more real too. Surprisingly to everybody they knew, Moss seemed to be dealing with it much better than Roy was. Whilst Moss was happily looking at baby grows and discussing nursery themes with Jen (who was happy to have somebody other than Peter to talk about baby things with), Roy would be at his desk trying to concentrate on anything other than the growing dread and doubt in the back of his mind. He’d been trying to hide it, but he wasn’t doing such a great job of it. 

“It’s okay to be nervous, you know,” Moss said one night. He was standing in front of the mirror, massaging coconut oil into his hair as Roy finished up his own shower in the other room. 

“What?” Roy called. A moment later his head poked around the door. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the shower. What did you say?” 

“I said, it’s okay to be nervous,” Moss repeated. He stopped what he was doing to look at his husband. Roy was looking very confused as he rubbed his hair with a towel, still not in the room. Moss shrugged a little, going back to what he’d been doing. “I wasn’t too sure about it myself, but you’ve been making the vegetable face--”

“The vegetable face?” 

“Yes, the face you make when you eat vegetables!” Moss paused to give his husband an are-you-stupid look. “Anyway, you’ve been making that face a lot and Jen said you’ve seemed a bit off to her too, so I’m assuming it’s to do with nerves.” 

“I’m not nervous ,” Roy said, sounding almost offended. Moss stopped what he was doing again, putting the pot of oil down and turning fully to his husband. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. 

“I’m fine,” Roy snapped. He disappeared behind the door for a moment before emerging from the bathroom in his pyjamas, looking moody to say the least. Moss watched him carefully as his mind jumped into almost immediate overdrive. Roy was saying he was fine when he certainly wasn’t fine. Did that mean he was fine? Had he, Moss, just assumed wrong? More to the point, had he said the wrong thing? Before he could say anything, though, Roy turned to him. “And you can stop lookin’ at me like that!” 

“Like what?” Moss asked, bewildered. 

“Like I’m some sort of kicked puppy you need to take pity on.” 

“I wasn’t--” 

“Yeah, whatever.” 

Moss watched in confusion as his husband grabbed his phone off the side and stalked out of the room. When Roy slammed the door, however, he winced a little, automatically raising his hands to his ears. This was… confusing. He didn’t like things being confusing when it came to people, especially when it came to Roy. Roy tended to be rather clean-cut: he always had been that way. It was one of the things Moss loved about him. 

He watched the closed door for a little while, puzzling over what to do. He could hear Roy crashing about the flat and muttering darkly under his breath. He wasn’t entirely sure if he should go out and talk to him, or stay in the bedroom until he cooled off and came back in. In order to distract himself, he reached for his phone and clicked in on, letting out a long sigh. 

The reminder on his home screen hit him like a freight train. 

The pre-assessment, of course. That was tomorrow! Now it wasn’t often that Moss and Roy had arguments, but when they did they could last days on end. If this was going to devolve into a proper argument, today was pretty much the worst day for it to happen. 

“Roy!” Moss called as he wrenched the bedroom door open and threw himself down the corridor. “Roy!” 

“Yeah, alright, I’m in here,” Roy grumbled from the living room. Moss ran in, almost falling over in his clumsiness as he rushed over and grabbed his husband’s shoulders. Roy looked rather alarmed at this. “Jesus, are you alright?” 

“We can’t fight!” Moss exclaimed. 

“What?” 

“We can’t fight!” 

“We’re not… look, just let me go a minute,” Roy said. Moss did so, looking awkwardly down at his feet. “Just… what? Explain.” 

“I think you’re annoyed at me,” Moss said quickly. “But you can’t be annoyed at me because the pre-assessment meeting is tomorrow and we can’t be fighting during that.” 

“Moss, you’re not makin’ any sense,” Roy said. He gave his husband a half-hearted glare and shifted out of Moss’ way to look at the telly. Moss stubbornly moved back in front of him. “Moss c’mon!” 

“You’re not listening to me, you need to listen to me!” Moss shouted. He was glaring at his husband, his fist clenched by his side as he started to feel the panic rising in his throat. 

“I am— we’re not even fighting though!” Roy exclaimed. Moss stopped then, staring at him for a moment. 

“What?” he said quietly. 

“We’re not fighting,” Roy repeated. There was a pause. Roy’s voice and face softening as he said, “did you think we were?” Moss nodded, looking down at the floor. “Sweetheart, just because I slammed a door and snapped at you a bit doesn’t mean we’re fighting.”

“It normally does,” Moss said. He sounded nonplussed. 

“Well we’re not, so…” Roy trailed off, shrugging a little. He shifted again. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” 

“But what if I want to have a fight!?” 

Now it was Roy’s turn to look confused. He stopped watching the telly, looking fully at his husband as he sat up on the telly. 

“Do you… want an argument?” he asked, sounding supremely confused. Moss shifted from his defensive stature. 

“Well no, but…” he stopped as he shook his head. “That’s not the point!” 

“Then what is the point!?” Roy exclaimed. 

“I don’t know!” Moss shouted back. The Irishman huffed, turning the telly off and getting up from the sofa. He pushed past his husband as he stormed over to the bedroom. 

“Just for context, this is now an argument,” he yelled before slamming the door behind him. 

Moss let out a long deep sigh, burying his face in his hands. Of course . He always did this. He threw his head back for a moment before taking his hands from his face and glancing over to the bedroom door. He knew he should go and apologise, and he did go to do so, but when he tried to open the door he found it locked. Now, Moss knew better than to try and talk to anybody, especially Roy, when they had slammed a door on him and then locked it. No, that most definitely meant “do not disturb”. Feeling more than a little depressed he trudged back to the living room, resigning himself to a night on the sofa. 

Once he closed the door and lay down under the old blankets he salvaged from the back of the airing cupboard, he was asleep within moments. 

“Shut up, you little fucker!” 

Moss did so obligingly despite the sheer amount of pain radiating through his abdomen. It was too much, far too much, but he knew keeping quiet would give him the best chance of survival. If he got too loud they might try to silence him to avoid being caught, and who knew what measures they would take to do it. 

Roy wasn’t here. They were back in the alley near his mum’s house where it all originally kicked off, and as so the tells were glaringly obvious and yet incredibly well concealed. You see, when they tended to be here Moss would get completely absorbed by the memory, entirely forgetting that it was a nightmare. 

Like tonight, for instance. 

The pain was real enough, that was for sure. Apart from his abdomen his head was throbbing something terrible, and he was choosing to ignore anything and everything else for now. The four thugs were still going for him and he was curled on his side in the fetal position, praying for this to just end somehow. Then he looked up for a moment, just to see if there was any chance of redemption, and he spotted Roy standing there. 

He was about one hundred metres or so away, out of sight of the attackers, and Moss was not about to announce his husband’s presence to the attackers. He lowered his head again, doing his best to seem like he was screwing his eyes shut whilst keeping one carefully open. Sure enough Roy was still standing there, but he was… watching. Just watching. 

Why was he just watching? 

Moss kept watching him carefully. Surely he couldn’t be believing his eyes? This couldn’t be happening. No. Roy loved him. Roy told him that if he’d been there, he’d have run over and stopped it. So why wasn’t he? Did that mean… did it mean…? 

No. It couldn’t. That couldn’t be it. He was making things up. Still, Roy was there, he could see him…

Then came the blow to his head and everything became bright. 

Moss awoke with a strangled cry just as he careered off the edge of the sofa. He landed on the floor with a muffled crash and immediately began to fight with the blankets which were tangled around his legs, panic rising in him. He eventually managed to get himself untangled and he stumbled upwards, pressing a hand to his chest. It was heaving, and he could feel himself trembling. 

Roy. He had to find Roy. He could help with this. He would reassure him and help him. On shaky legs he came forward, pulling the living room door open (he didn’t remember ever closing it?) and stumbling down the corridor. When he tried the door, though, it was still locked. Roy must have forgotten to unlock it, and in his sleep and panic addled brain Moss had forgotten that there was a spare key in the kitchen. At this the panic kicked up a couple of notches and he couldn’t help but shake his hands out in front of him, trying to knock on the door. He was shaking too much, though, and there was almost no sound. 

“Roy!” he tried to call, but his voice was hoarse and low. Drat. He must have been screaming. Roy normally woke up if he screamed. Had he woken up? Was he ignoring him? Oh God, what if his dream-self had been right? 

Too weak and too panicked to continue, Moss sank down by the bedroom door and let the panic take over. 

***

When Roy awoke the next morning he felt a lot more relaxed, and also a lot more guilty. He knew that Moss meant well, and he didn’t mean to say some of the stupid things he said, even if it seemed like it sometimes. No, he had to apologise. It was the right thing. He’d been half-asleep as he stumbled up out of bed, yawning as he rubbed his eyes and grabbed his phone, making his way towards the door. 

When he opened it and stepped forward, however, he stepped on something large, soft and warm. 

Confused, he lifted his foot up and looked down. Sure enough his husband was lying there. He was curled in the fetal position, his shoulders heaving as he trembled. He wasn’t making much sound. 

“Moss?” Roy said, bewildered. At that Moss paused, slowly uncurling after a moment or so. His face was covered in tear tracks and now he was sitting up, Roy could see more clearly how erratic his breathing was. The Irishman gasped a little, immediately kneeling down in front of him. “Oh my God, how long have you been there!?” 

“Three hours?” Moss forced out between heaving breaths. His voice was still hoarse. “Four? I don’t know.” 

“Why didn’t you knock on the door or call me or something?” Roy asked. Moss shook his head. 

“Can’t… can’t…”

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Roy said quickly. “How long have you been like this?” 

“On and… on and off since I got here,” Moss replied. “Mostly on.” 

Before asking too many more questions Roy knew it was imperative to calm Moss down. This ended up taking almost an hour, which was considerably longer than normal and started to really worry Roy and make him wonder whether this was maybe something other than a panic attack around the forty-five minute mark. After this Roy helped his husband up and they moved into the living room. 

“You love me, don’t you?” was the first question Moss asked.

“That’s a very silly question,” Roy said softly. He reached over, brushing a stray curl from his husband’s forehead. “Of course I love you. I love you more than anything.” 

“Okay, good,” Moss said. “It’s just-- I wasn’t sure, and I knew I was being stupid, but-but… I just thought it best to, y’know, check.” 

At this point Moss’ breathing started to get short again and Roy, not wanting a repeat of the previous hour, quickly went about calming him again. 

“Why would you need to check?” he asked once this had been done. 

At this, Moss described his nightmare and the ordeal afterwards. It was a short explanation, sparing a lot of the gorier details, but it was enough for Roy to feel utterly… well, shitty. He’d locked the door, left his husband, who he knew was vulnerable to nightmares and subsequent panic attacks after an argument or something stressful, on his own, locked the door and then somehow not woken up whilst he’d been screaming his lungs out (or at least it seemed he had been from the sound of his voice), forcing him to spend the night having panic attack after panic attack all by himself. That was the very definition of shitty, wasn’t it? 

“Sweetheart…” he said. He was unsure of what else to say. What were you supposed to say to something like this!?

“It’s okay,” Moss said. Before Roy could say anything more on the matter he continued. “My ribs hurt, though.” 

“I’m not surprised,” Roy said gently. Then he sighed a little. “I’ll call Cassie. I don’t think today is the best day for any sort of assessment, pre or otherwise.” 

“Won’t she be mad?” Moss asked, his eyes wide and scared. Roy shook his head. 

“She told us to let her know if we had to reschedule.” 

“But what are you going to say?” 

“I don’t know, I’ll say one of us is ill or somethin’. I’m sure she won’t ask.” 

Moss bit his lip and looked nervous, but nodded. 

“Okay.” 

Roy nodded too, grabbing his phone and making to leave the room. Just before he did, though, he hung back. 

“I’m sorry,” he said softly before disappearing, leaving Moss bewildered behind him.

Chapter Text

Six weeks later

In the end, Cassie did not ask any questions (as Roy had expected) and the pre-assessment had been completed a few days later. She had seemed rather happy with it, which the boys thought may have been why the email inviting them for adoption preparation training sessions came through so quickly. Their spat resolved, the two were more than happy to accept, Jen had given them the time off without even a second thought to it all, and the three-day course had been booked. 

“Have you got any idea what’s going to be in the sessions?” Jen asked them. It was the day before the first session and the office had been mostly quiet. She was sitting comfortably on the sofa with her feet up with one arm around her steadily growing bump, whilst the boys were sitting side by side at Roy’s desk in their office chairs. Roy, of course, had his feet up on the desk, whilst Moss was leaning awkwardly over the armrest of the chair to rest his head on his husband’s shoulder. 

“Not really,” Roy replied. When he shrugged a little Moss made an annoyed noise, and he murmured a quick apology. “We’ve done a bit of research and it seems like they can vary. Child development seems to be an overarching thing though. Moss has been reading up on it for the past week.” 

“It’s very interesting,” Moss said sincerely. He fixed Jen with a serious look. “Jean Piaget is an idiot, though.” 

“An idiot?” Jen repeated. Moss nodded, and Jen noticed that Roy was badly suppressing a smile.

“A complete cretin. The man had no clue how to run a study.” 

“I’ll take your word for it,” Jen said with a laugh. 

“Don’t get him started, we’ll be here for hours,” Roy said quickly. Jen chuckled again, nodding. Moss looked offended for a moment but it soon faded. “How about you? How’s it all going?”

“Oh you know, same old,” she sighed. “We started sleep-training Reggie last night.” Roy hissed in sympathy. “Should have done it months ago but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. We decided to get it done now, before the little one comes.” 

“How far along are you now?” 

“Seventeen weeks.”

Roy smiled at her at this, and Jen smiled back, and this led to an exchange of smiles that lasted far too long and utterly bewildered Moss, who retreated back to his own desk and started to answer his emails just so he’d have something to do. 

Later that night as they sat in bed, Moss reading about various theories of child development and Roy playing Candy Crush (Level 2457 if you must know), the two of their minds began to wander towards the events of the next day. How many people would they meet? Would there be free food? Were there any tests or examinations? If there was free food, would there be a limit? I’m sure you can surmise who was thinking what. Either way, they still both knew that they were thinking along roughly the same lines. 

“I wonder how many same-sex couples will be there?” Moss asked after a long stretch of amicable silence. Roy put his iPad to the side (he had just lost anyway) and turned to look at his husband. 

“I’m not sure,” he said. 

“How about single people?” 

“I guess we’ll find out.” 

“Will I be the only person of colour in the room?” 

“I don’t—“ Roy stopped himself, his full attention snapping to what his husband had just said. “Is… is that really something you’re worried about?” he asked after taking a moment to process. 

“A little,” Moss said with a shrug. “It’s happened before. It’s just a bit… strange, being the only person who looks like you in a room.” 

Roy nodded, although he didn’t really understand it too well. 

After this there wasn’t much conversation, with Moss falling asleep fairly quickly and Roy following not longer after. They both awoke at the same time, excited and anxious for the day ahead. 

“At least we’re more used to talking to people face-to-face now than we were a couple years ago,” Roy said. Moss nodded and held up two ties. Roy pointed at one at random. “Sometimes I miss never leaving the basement though.” 

“So do I,” Moss replied as he started to tie his tie. “It was much calmer.”

Roy chuckled, nodding. 

“We've had some crazy times down there…” he said fondly. Now it was Moss’ turn to laugh at his husband staring wistfully off into the distance like a forlorn milkmaid waiting for her lover to return from war. Moss came forward, turning Roy’s face towards him and kissing him softly on the lips. “God, I love you,” the Irishman murmured as they broke apart. He reached forward and gently adjusted Moss’ tie (just like all those years ago outside of the cannibal’s house) before holding his hand out to his husband. “Shall we go?” 

Moss took his husband’s hand with a nod of his head. 

***

It didn’t take them too long to get to the conference centre where the preparation course was being held. Thank God the place was well-signposted, as it was rather large and the boys were in no doubt that if the signs had not been there they would have been driving around for a good two hours before finally giving up and either calling someone or going home. No, they found their way there and were quickly signed in, given name tags and directed to a lobby where they were to wait until the session started. 

Immediately after getting themselves a hot drink (coffee for Roy and sweet tea for Moss) the boys retreated to the back corner. Over years of unwanted social interactions they had learned that the back corner was always the safest place. They were speaking lowly to each other, exchanging jokes and old stories between one another, when somebody tapped Moss on the shoulder and he jumped about three foot in the air, letting out a small yelp.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you!” the man who had tapped Moss on the shoulder said once the boys had both turned to look at him and his wife. 

“I’m always telling him not to do that, I’m always telling you not to do that aren’t I Harold?” his wife, Deborah, said disapprovingly, shooting him a glare. Harold chuckled, turning back to the boys. 

“This your first time?” he asked. Moss, still a bit shocked, could only nod. “Oh, it’s our second go round now.” 

“Although we did do this fifteen years ago so it’s probably changed a bit,” Deborah added.

“Our Peter’s gone off to university now and the house feels too empty,” Harold said. Then he stopped, looking at the two of them. “Sorry, we’re nattering on. So first time, then?” 

“Yeah, yeah, first time,” Roy said quickly. 

“Well there’s nothing to be scared of, lads,” Harold said with a jolly grin. 

“Sorry, um, we should introduce ourselves,” Roy said. He held his hand out and Harold took it. “I’m Roy and this is Moss.” 

“Nice to meet you, boys,” Harold replied. He turned to Moss. “Sorry for scaring you, Moss.”

“It’s okay,” Moss mumbled. He was staring at the ground, but looked up a couple of times. 

“I’m Harold,” he said. At this he smiled at his wife, putting his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “And this is my wonderful wife Deborah.” 

“Pleased to meet you,” she said with a smile. 

After this, Harold and Deborah proceeded to tell the boys about their experience adopting and raising their son Peter. They both nodded along politely, but Moss could tell that his husband was drifting off at certain points during the conversation. At some point (neither of them were exactly sure when) the room filled up, and before they knew it they were all being called into the main conference room. 

When they walked in, Moss’ first thought was that it reminded him of parents’  evening at secondary school. There were various tables set up around the room, with six seats at each table along with a pot of pens and a stack of paper. Once again the two of them slinked off to the back corner, where they were quickly joined by Harold and Deborah, and another younger-looking couple. After a quick introduction by the woman who was running the course, they were instructed to talk to the people on their tables and then left to it. 

It was fair to say that as the other two couples on the table were getting on with chatting happily to each other, Moss and Roy were feeling a little… well, awkward. It just felt like every group project or task they had ever been forced into at school. At least this time they had each other, they were both thinking. They just kept glancing at each other, occasionally murmuring quiet responses to what the others were saying to show that they were actually listening. 

“So what do you two do?” one of the members of the younger couple eventually asked them. They both looked up, equally stunned looks on their faces. 

“Um…” Moss said. The other two couples watched them expectantly.

“IT,” Roy coughed up after a moment. “We, er, we work in IT.” 

“Hang on…” Harold said. He leaned forward, squinting at their name badges. “I knew it!” he exclaimed, sitting back and looking very pleased with himself. 

“What?” Roy said, confused. 

“You two are the CEOs!”

“Oh, er, yeah,” Roy replied awkwardly. 

“Why did you say you work in IT?” one part of the younger couple asked. 

“Because we do,” Moss replied, nonplussed. 

“We do both,” Roy explained. “We started out in IT and, well…”

“It just sort of happened,” Moss said. 

“Jen Barber runs most of it.” 

“Impressive though,” Harold remarked. “The two of you can’t be older than what, mid-thirties?”

“Yeah, around that, yeah,” Roy said. Everybody else at the table looked to their other halves, looking very impressed. Moss squirmed in his seat whilst Roy fought the urge to sink down under the table out of sight. 

It was a blessing when the leader announced that discussion time was over. The next hour consisted of the leader of the course talking them all through a powerpoint describing the finer details of adoptions and all of the options available to them. The boys were just thankful that it allowed them (and everybody else) to sit quietly for a while. After this was a tea and coffee break, where Roy ate about half his body weight in Nice biscuits and Moss nearly spilled scalding tea all down his shirt, only saving himself at the last minute. The rest of the morning was another powerpoint talking about child development (Roy spent the whole time fascinatedly watching his husband murmur corrections and comments under his breath) until it was finally lunchtime. 

“Can we leave?” Roy hissed to his husband. They were still at their table, whereas everybody else had gotten up and gone into the other room. “Are we allowed to leave?” 

“I don’t know,” Moss murmured back. Then he paused, looking at his husband. “Why do you want to leave?” 

“I just remembered where that tupperware I’ve been looking for for ages is and I want to get it before I forget again,” Roy said. Moss made a small noise. 

“Where is it?” 

There was a pause. 

“Shit, I’ve forgotten again.”

Moss chuckled, leaning over and resting his head on his husband’s shoulder. 

“Do you think we’re doing okay?” he asked quietly. 

“Yeah,” Roy said after a moment. He put his arm around Moss’ shoulders. “Yeah, I think we are.” 

“We barely talked earlier, though. What if people think we’re rude?” 

“They don’t.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“I’m ninety-nine percent sure.” 

“I know what you’re like with percentages, dear.” 

They two of them chuckled. Roy rolled his eyes, pulling Moss a little closer to him. “Do you want me to get you food or anything?”

“No, I’m alright.”

They sat in comfortable silence after this, both scrolling through their phones and feeling fairly grateful that nobody else seemed to have come back yet. This was how they spent a lot of their time, actually: amicable quiet whilst they both got on with their own thing. They thought it worked very well. 

Before they knew it, though, people were returning, and all semblance of relaxation fell away from the two of them. They both sat up, and Moss in particular seemed a lot more outwardly anxious, his arms folded across his chest as he glanced between his husband, the other people in the room and the floor. 

The afternoon session was yet again more powerpoints and talks. The boys were fine with this, and Moss did start to take some notes on his phone at one point. There was a little bit of group discussion, but not too much. In fact, the two of them were thinking that it was all going rather smoothly, until the last ten minutes of the day. 

“Okay, so who here has never had kids before?” the teacher called. Slowly, around half the hands in the room went up, and at the last minute Roy put his up. The teacher grinned, looking around at everybody. “We’ve got a task for you all tonight. A bit of homework, if you will. Before you go today we want you to come up and take one of these.” The teacher paused, holding up what looked like a doll. “It’s a realistic baby model. You need to feed it, change it, comfort it, all the things you would with a real-life baby. You need to look after it tonight, and then bring it here with you tomorrow.” 

Moss and Roy glanced at each other in shock. 

When the session ended they went to the front of the room along with the others. Luckily an orderly queue was quickly formed and they took their place towards the end of it.

“So it’s going to cry?” Moss asked anxiously. Roy nodded. “A lot?”

“Babies do tend to,” Roy said. Moss made a slight face, and they both fell silent for a moment. “Can we hack it?” 

“Roy!” Moss hissed quietly, scandalised. Roy dipped his head down, lowering his voice as he said, 

“We’re clever, we could figure it out.” 

“That’s not the point ,” Moss replied, his voice forceful. Roy gave him a look reminiscent of a mardy teenager, but soon nodded. 

“Alright, fine.” 

“If we have a real baby we won’t be able to just ‘hack it’ ,” Moss said, making speech marks in the air. 

“We can, kind of,” Roy said. Moss gave him a strange look. “Well, think about it. Basic principle of computers is--”

“Input, processes, output,” Moss interrupted. Roy smiled at him, nodding. 

“Yeah, exactly. So if we input something into the kid, it leads to an output. ‘S all linear, really.” 

Moss took a moment to mull this over. 

“That makes sense,” he said. 

When they reached the front of the queue, the teacher was grinning like a maniac. She shook their hands, asking a few standard questions and whatnot. When her eyes flicked down to their name badges, neither of them missed the flicker of recognition. 

“Here’s your baby!” she said, handing them one of the dolls. Roy took it, and Moss found himself rather surprised by how quickly he positioned the doll perfectly in his arms. Moss took the carrier and a peculiar-looking keyring from the teacher. He looked down at the keyring in confusion and then up at the teacher again. She smiled at him. “In the back of the doll there’s a slot. If it’s crying and you need to ‘feed’ it, put the card in the slot and it should work.” 

“Okay, thank you,” Moss said. 

Once they were out at the car, it took Moss almost ten minutes to figure out how to strap the car seat into the back of the car. Then was the task of figuring out how to strap the doll in. That had led to lots of swear words from Roy and Moss stood leaning against the car with his head in his hands. 

The doll began to cry when they got back home, but plugging the card into the back of it soon stopped that. It had to be changed, too (Roy took that on), and then they set it in the carrier seat, set it by the bed and set about going to sleep. 

It was all fine, really, until it was two in the morning and the doll wouldn’t. Stop. Screaming. 

“Try feeding it again!” Moss said desperately. He was sat up in bed, watching Roy as the Irishman walked around the room, rocking the doll. 

“I’ve done that!” Roy hissed back. He came to a stop, still rocking the doll but staring at his husband in desperation. “We’ve changed it, we’ve burped it, Jesus Christ I’ve rocked it more than one of those pirate ship rides you get at the fair. It’s not gonna stop.” 

“It needs to stop,” Moss said. He put his head in his hands. “It needs to stop.”

“Well it doesn’t look like it’s gonna!” 

Moss let out a shaky breath, and for a moment Roy thought he was crying. He moved forward, but as he did the doll all of a sudden fell silent. 

Immediately he stopped moving, his mouth dropping open as he looked up and nodded down to the doll. Moss looked up too, his eyes bright. 

“It’s--” he whispered, but Roy shook his head and he stopped talking. Taking a deep breath, the Irishman stepped forward. Gently he placed the doll back into the carrier. Mercifully it stayed quiet. Holding his hands out, he took a few steps backwards. No crying. As quickly as he could he quietly climbed into bed, letting out a sigh of relief. 

“Finally,” he whispered as quietly as he could. Moss smiled at him. Leaning forward, they kissed quickly. 

Mercifully, the doll stayed quiet the rest of the night. 

***

The next morning the two of them weren’t exhausted, but they were still fairly tired. Roy woke himself up as much as he could with two cups of strog coffee, whereas Moss settled for tea with two and a half sugars in an attempt to give him an energy boost. This time Moss changed the doll before they left the house, and they headed back out to the conference centre. 

Comfortingly when they got there, all of the other people who had been given the baby dolls were looking tired too. There was a man on reception who took the doll from them when they walked in, and both of them couldn’t help but notice the twist of emotion in their chests when they handed it back. 

Once again they met up with Harold and Deborah, and the young couple from the day before. They all took their seats at the back of the room again, and today Moss and Roy were feeling a bit more chatty. 

“When did you decide on adoption, then?” Roy asked. Harold gave them a wry smile, taking a sip from his styrofoam cup of tea. 

“It was just sort of an agreement we came to,” he said. “Deborah said she wasn’t interested in being pregnant and I wasn’t interested in… well, all that, but we both wanted kids.” 

“What about you two?” Deborah asked. “Lord knows you two could afford all that fancy-dancy laboratory stuff.” 

“I guess we just thought adoption would be the best option,” Moss said. 

“Plus it would be a constant argument about whose, y’know, to use,” Roy added. 

“Fair enough,” Harold said brashly. Moss and Roy grinned at each other: the old man was definitely growing on them. 

“I do have one question, though,” Moss said. Everybody on the table turned to him, including Roy as he hadn’t been expecting Moss to ask many questions. Harold nodded. “How did you explain to your son that he was adopted?” 

“Well we’ve always been open with Peter about it,” Deborah said. 

“Taught him to be proud of it, didn’t we, Debs?” Harold guffawed. Deborah concealed a wry smile, nodding. Harold leaned forward, a twinkle in his eye. “Still remember the day he came home and told us that when someone was teasing him for being adopted at school, he told them ‘well at least my parents chose me’ !” 

At this Harold dissolved into laughter, and everybody else at the table couldn’t help but chuckle. Roy put his arm around his husband, smiling at him. 

“You two’ll be brilliant,” Harold said once he stopped laughing. He grinned at them. “I can tell.”

Somehow, that one sentence filled the two of them with more confidence than they’d ever had before.

Chapter Text

Two weeks later…

Today was a big day. 

On the last day of the course, they had all been informed that within the next couple of weeks they would receive a call from their social worker. This call would tell them whether they had been approved to carry on to the next stage of the adoption process. This morning, when the boys had woken up and checked their emails, there was one there from Cassie telling them that she would be calling them at some point that day. So, I’m sure you can surmise the nerves they were feeling. 

“What time are you getting the call?” Jen asked them. 

“No idea,” Roy said. Moss nodded in agreement. Both of them kept nervously glancing at their desk phones every few seconds or so. 

“Well at least you’ll actually answer all the calls today,” Jen said with a shrug. Roy glared at her then, and Moss just looked a bit confused. 

“If you think either of us are goin’ upstairs you can think again,” the Irishman warned. Jen rolled her eyes, giving him a look as she sipped her tea. 

“You still have to do your job.” 

“And neither of us are missing this call.” Roy fixed Jen with a look. “Your point?” 

“Well I’m not going up there!” 

“Then people will have to figure it out for themselves or make the arduous journey to the lift.” 

The two of them exchanged slight annoyed looks, before Roy sighed and looked back at his computer screen. 

It didn’t take long for Jen to disappear back into her office, and not long for the boys to become bored. Normally when things were being slow they would play games or read comics, but today it just wasn’t appealing to them. Roy was first to get bored, opting to face-plant his desk and try to forget about everything. Moss followed not long after, soon getting up from his desk and walking over to his husband, draping himself across him like a blanket. After about ten minutes of them sitting/lying like this they knew that they had to get up and do something, anything . 

Their first thought was to have a game of bicycle brush jousting, but that required Moss going into Jen’s office and they didn’t want to face her wrath. After all, the first and only time they had played a game in front of her she had confiscated both the bikes and the brushes, and had scolded them for a good hour or so on how dangerous it was. No, that was out of the window. 

“I can’t just sit here all day,” Roy groaned as he flopped down onto the sofa. Moss nodded from where he was sitting in the armchair, a slightly forlorn look on his face. After a moment of feeling very sorry for himself, though, Roy suddenly gasped and jumped up. Moss watched his husband in confusion as he ran into the kitchenette. He emerged a moment later, triumphantly holding up what looked like a kids’ toy. 

“Badminton racquets!” he exclaimed. “I knew we had some!” 

“So we’re going to play… badminton?” Moss said, confused. Grinning, Roy nodded. 

“Catch!” he shouted as he threw a racquet over to his husband. 

Moss just about managed this, and before long the two were stationed at either end of the office, the sofa dragged into the middle of the room to act as a net of sorts, and their desks pushed to the side to make room. 

“I haven’t played badminton since school,” Moss called over a little anxiously. Roy chuckled as he tried to bounce the shuttlecock on his racquet and miserably failed. 

“Neither have I,” he said. 

“So we’ve agreed, first one to seven points wins?” Moss said. Roy nodded. The two grinned at each other from across the office. Roy took a moment, turning the shuttlecock over and over in his hand before throwing it up and thwacking it with all his might. 

It landed on Jen’s head just as she came out from her office. 

“What the hell are you doing!?” she yelled after the initial moment of shock, which Moss had used to sprint over to the sofa and duck down behind it as a makeshift shield. 

“Um… playing badminton?” Roy squeaked. He too had inched forward to hide behind the sofa. 

“Not in here you’re not,” Jen said. She wasn’t yelling or anything, but the sheer rage in her voice was enough to make the boys quiver. “I know you’re bored, but this is dangerous!”

“It’s badminton, Jen,” Roy replied as he poked his head up over the edge of the sofa. As soon as he finished speaking he ducked back down again. 

“And knowing your track record one you will launch a racquet through the wall or something.” Storming forward as fast as a woman who is almost twenty weeks pregnant can, she stood at the side of the sofa. Meekly Moss handed his racquet back to her, followed soon by Roy’s. “Thank you. Now find something else to do.” She went back to her office, turning back just before she closed her office door. “Something safe!” 

With that, she shut the door on them. 

“Bugger,” Roy said once she’d gone. 

“Quite,” Moss murmured in response. 

“What are we supposed to do now ?” Roy lamented. He walked over to his desk (which was still pressed up against the wall), which was sat by the Red Door, throwing himself on it with a deep sigh. Moss shrugged as he shifted to sit more comfortably on the floor, his back resting on the sofa. “This call might not come for hours, and I can’t-- ARGH !” 

You see, dear reader, Roy had not suddenly gone insane and lost the ability to speak in coherent sentences. No, what had actually happened was that Richmond, fully goth-ed up (Goth-2-Boss had been sold not long after Douglas’ disappearance), had appeared silently behind him, making no indication of being there until Roy turned around. 

“Hullo Richmond!” Moss said jollily, giving the other a little wave from the floor. He and Richmond actually got on rather well now. Roy clutched his chest, trying to catch his breath as he glared at the goth. 

“Hello,” Richmond said. “Just to let you know, I go by they/them pronouns now.” 

“Okay,” Moss said. Roy said nothing, opting to look between the other two with a look of vague bemusement on his face. “When did you decide?” 

“A few weeks ago. Just thought you should know.” 

Richmond nodded before walking into the office, taking the KitKat from Roy’s desk. They cleanly avoided Roy’s swipe at them before smiling at Moss, tearing the wrapper with their teeth and disappearing behind the Red Door again. 

“Mental,” Roy breathed, shaking his head. Moss chuckled, getting up from the floor with a grunt and a groan (well, he wasn’t as young as he once was) before walking over to his desk, hoisting himself onto it. It was quickly becoming clear to both of them that the office was going to stay in this state of disrepair now until Jen came in and told them to put it back together. Roy crinkled his nose a little, his whole body sagging as he took on a disappointed look. “Can you Google us something to do?” 

“Already done,” Moss said, holding up his phone. He squinted at the screen as he said, “this website suggests that we try and get as dizzy as possible?”

There was a pause. 

“Fuck it, why not?” Roy said. 

“I’ll go first,” Moss said with a grin. He jumped up from his desk. 

“Are you sure?” Roy asked sceptically. “You got sick on the ferris wheel in Amsterdam.” 

“Well, I was drunk then.” 

“And on the roundabout those teenagers tied you to that one time.” 

“They were vicious, Roy,” Moss said indignantly, putting his hands on his hips. Roy suppressed a snort of laughter, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth and looking down. “ Vicious . I swear they were using a motor of some sorts.”

“Still, though, you--”

Roy stopped himself when he looked up to see his husband already spinning on the spot, his arms outstretched. He chuckled to himself, shaking his head and deciding to just watch. 

Moss lasted about a minute or so, much longer than Roy had expected. Eventually though he came to a stop, staggering a little. He let out a low groan, hanging his head. “You okay?” Roy asked with a small grin. 

Moss opened his mouth to reply, but quickly shut it again. He’d gone rather green, and Roy couldn’t help but feel a little smug (but also sympathetic, of course) as his husband stumbled towards the kitchenette, almost veering off course more than once. The Irishman followed him, leaning against the doorframe as he watched him hang himself over the kitchenette sink, groaning softly. 

He was about to go over and rub his husband’s back when the phone rang in the other room. 

Roy paused, turning slowly to look at the phone. Sure enough it was ringing. He looked back at Moss, but his husband didn’t even seem to have registered the phone, standing with his hands threaded into his hair at the sides of his head as he took deep breaths. Roy looked between the two desperately for a moment before deciding he couldn’t risk missing this call and ran over, picking it up. 

“Hello?” he said hopefully. 

“Um, hi, is this IT?” 

Right. Well, at least he hadn’t kept the important call waiting. He let out a sigh of relief, his shoulders sagging. 

“Yeah. Have you tried turning it off and on again?” 

The call didn’t last too long-- the woman had actually just kicked the plug out by accident-- and just as it was coming to a close Roy heard his husband retch from the other room. He hung up pretty quickly before spending the next twenty minutes looking after Moss, rubbing gentle circles into his back and getting him water from the other room when he stopped being sick into the sink. Jen had come back out from office (the sound of Moss being sick had made her worried) and had berated them for being idiots again. They accepted this telling off without any moaning, and had spent the rest of the day sitting on the sofa (still in the middle of the office) feeling very very worried, the phone balanced on Roy’s knee. 

The actual call came just before they were about to leave. 

They had been getting ready to go, resigning themselves to either an email later or a call the next day, when the phone had started ringing. Roy had practically dived across the office, grabbing the phone and holding it to his ear.

“Hello?” 

“Hi,” Cassie said. She sounded like she was barely containing happiness. Roy could feel his breathing speeding up as he looked over to Moss, who looked like a similar thing was happening to him. “I guess the only thing to say is congratulations!” 

“Congratulations?” Roy squeaked, his voice about three octaves too high to possibly be comfortable. On the other side of the room, Moss held his breath.

“You’ve been approved to go on to the next stage of adoption!” 

When Roy gave him the thumbs-up and a wide grin, Moss fainted right down onto the floor.

Chapter Text

Two weeks later

Now that they had received the go-ahead to proceed to the full assessment stage, it seemed that everybody was rushing to get things moving for them. Jen said that she reckoned that it was because they technically counted as high-profile, and the agency knew they could use this for their brand, so the quicker it all got through the better it would look. Moss and Roy weren’t exactly sure how they felt about this morally, but they did have to admit that they liked not having to wait a long time. 

According to Cassie, the next step was their full assessment. As their social worker she would carry out a full assessment on them and their home, as well as interviews with three referees, picked by them. After some careful deliberation, they had gone with Jen, Morgan and Moss’ mum. 

Considering the only other options were Richmond and Jeff/Dominator, it was hardly much of a difficult decision to come to. 

When the day of the assessment came, the two of them were surprisingly calm. Perhaps it was their now-familiarity with procedures, but really they were just so nervous that they had passed into calmness through sheer terror. 

“Did you pick up the nice biscuits from your mum?” Roy asked as he nervously straightened Moss’ tie. He’d done this quite a few times already and Moss was starting to get a little tired of it. 

“The M&S ones, yes,” he said. As easily as he could he slipped away from his husband, going over and readjusting the flowers in the vase. They were another addition from his mother, as she insisted that they would make them seem sophisticated. He argued that they didn’t need to look sophisticated, just good enough to be parents, and anyway it wasn’t like her house looked too sophisticated and she was a great parent. She had smiled at him then, telling him thank you but also to let Roy do a lot of the talking. It had taken him half of the trip home to work out that he maybe shouldn’t have said that. Which part he wasn’t sure, but he must have said something wrong. 

Anyway, Moss had never understood flowers. His mother said they smelled nice, but they all smelled the same to him, and a lot of them either made him break out in hives or made his eyes swell so much he could hardly see out of them. They looked kind of okay, he guessed… he shrugged to himself as he gently adjusted them again, just to make them that little more perfect. 

“Didn’t know you liked flower arranging,” Roy remarked. Moss turned to look at him, confused. “Thought you hated flowers.” 

“Mildly dislike,” Moss said. “And I don’t, not really.” 

“You’ve certainly made those flowers look nice.” 

Roy came over, hooking his arm around his husband’s waist and kissing him gently. Moss smiled into the kiss. 

“I mean, maybe I’d think about dabbling it in if half of the materials didn’t try and kill me,” he remarked, looking back to the flowers. Roy was right: they did look rather nice. Roy laughed. “I could use another ruddy hobby.” 

“Never change,” Roy said quietly. Moss went to pull him into another kiss, but just before their lips touched the doorbell sounded through the flat. They let each other go quickly, brushing down their respective suits. 

“How do I look?” Moss asked, holding his arms out. Roy looked him up and down with a smile. 

“Bloody gorgeous.” He did his own little turn. “Me?” 

“Ditto, dear.” 

Roy grinned at him. 

“Right, we ready?” 

Moss nodded. Roy took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment before walking down the corridor. Moss watched him until he couldn’t see him any longer. He listened as the front door opened, and his husband greeted Cassie. A moment later, they both appeared and came into the dining room area by the kitchen. 

“Hiya!” Cassie said. She raised her hand to Moss, who she had learned very early on wasn’t a hugging person, and he raised his back with a smile. Her afro was now a cotton candy pink. Moss personally thought it suited her more than the blue had done. “It’s a big day! You two excited?” 

“Nervous,” Roy said with a slightly pained chuckle. Cassie shot him a beaming grin. 

“Well there really is nothing to be worried about. I’m just going to have a quick poke around, okay? This should take half an hour, so feel free to do your own thing. Just pretend I’m not here.” 

At this Moss opened his mouth to ask a multitude of questions, but was stopped by Roy’s small shake of the head. Cassie smiled at them once more, produced a notebook from her back pocket, and went off towards the bedrooms. 

Once she disappeared Roy let out a deep sigh of relief, slumping down over the breakfast bar. Moss leaned against the wall, most of the tension released from him. 

“Thank God,” Roy said a little hoarsely. “I thought we were gonna be interrogated first thing.” 

“Will we be interrogated?” Moss asked nervously. Roy stood up a little. 

“No, I don’t think so.” 

“I’ve only been interrogated twice and neither time went very well.” Moss paused. “Well, three times if you count my mother’s interrogation about the patio door.” 

“Oh, definitely,” Roy said. “Your mother is formidable when she wants to be.” 

Moss nodded, and Roy couldn’t help but laugh at the haunted look on his husband’s face. “Come on,” he said, coming forward and linking his arm in Moss’. “Let’s watch crap telly.” 

It didn’t take them long to settle down watching Homes Under The Hammer, a show they both claimed to hate but very rarely missed an episode of if they were home, and they soon became so focused on critiquing paint jobs and saying how they would have done it differently that they didn’t even register Cassie pottering around in the background. Cassie herself thought the picture of the two of them sat together on the sofa, Moss with his legs tucked underneath him and Roy with his arm around his husband, was utterly adorable as well as evidence of the nature of their relationship, and made sure to take this down in her notebook. 

After waiting around for the end of the program, Cassie alerted them to the fact that she was done and the three of them sat down at the dining table to discuss things a little further. 

“Okay, I’ve been dying to ask this ever since your background checks came in,” Cassie started before either of them could say anything. “But Moss, how the hell did you get a conviction for shoplifting?”

“Because I shoplifted,” Moss replied, nonplussed. Next to him Roy made a pained noise. Cassie goggled at him. 

“What, really!?” 

“It was when we bunked off.”

“Things got a bit out of hand,” Roy butted in quickly. “It had been a stressful day, nobody really knew what was happening, he didn’t mean to steal them…”

“It says here that he had four Season Three Grand Designs DVDs stuffed down his trousers,” Cassie said, quirking an eyebrow. Roy squirmed in his seat whilst Moss simply nodded. It was factually correct, after all. 

“Okay, maybe he did a little bit, but he didn’t mean mean to,” Roy said desperately. A moment of silence hung in the air, and then Cassie chuckled, shaking her head. 

“Don’t worry, it’s a pretty minor thing,” she said. “A lot of people have stupid little things on their record.” 

“Do they?” Roy asked sceptically. Cassie paused. 

“Kind of,” she said. “You gave everyone in the office a good laugh, anyway.” 

Roy smiled weakly at her, whilst Moss seemed to have momentarily drifted away from the conversation. He came back to it pretty quickly, though. 

Cassie continued to ask them a multitude of questions, some of which they knew how to answer and a few which had involved some awkward silences and panicked looks thrown between each other. By the end of it, they were entirely unsure whether they had actually done well or not. Cassie certainly wasn’t giving any clues. 

“I’m off to talk to your referees,” she said as she got up, gathering her things. Moss bit his lip, glancing at his husband who was nodding. “Thank you for letting me come today. I’ll let you know when your adoption panel date is.” 

She offered her hand to them, and they both shook it one-by-one. Roy walked her to the door, Moss loitering behind, making small talk before finally bidding her farewell and closing the door behind her. When he did he leaned back against it, letting out a long slow breath. 

“Thank God ,” was all he said. 

***

“So how long have you known Moss and Roy now?” 

“God, it’s been so long that I can’t even remember,” Jen said with a small laugh. Her and Cassie were sitting at her kitchen table (she had shoved all of the washing and the new baby clothes away to the side) with cups of tea, all of the necessary paperwork and things spread out in front of them. “Ten years? Yes, ten years this year.” She paused, letting out a long sigh. Shaking her head, she took a sip of tea. “Jesus.” 

“And have they always got on?” Cassie asked. 

“Always,” Jen replied. She put her cup of tea down, clasping his hands on top of her bump. “I’ve only ever seen them argue once.” 

“When was that?”

“They got sensitive to my time of the month and they didn’t know how to deal with it.” She snorted with laughter as she thought back to that first month. They had all been so fresh-faced and young back then. “They’ve learned how to deal with it now, don’t worry,” she remarked. 

“Thank God,” Cassie said with a grin. The two shared a chuckle. “So you’ve obviously known them for a while. Did you always think they were going to end up together?”

“Nobody was ever really sure what was going on with those two,” Jen said. Reggie took that moment to toddle in, tugging at his mother’s hand. Without even looking Jen pulled him up into her lap, resting him against her hip. She looked down, nodded and smiled as he showed off his toy car to her (it was a new one that Peter’s brother had given him when he’d popped round the other day), and then looked back at Cassie. “It was sort of a will-they-won’t-they situation, but… more complicated. A bit of is-he-gay-is-he-not-gay thrown in there to mix it up a bit.” She shrugged. “Made it different from everybody speculating whether Margery and David from Sales were involved even though everybody knew they were.” 

“Everybody knew about them, then?” 

“Pretty much.” She smiled smugly, shifting her son on her hip. “That was all me.” 

“You’re a parent yourself,” Cassie continued. Her eyes flickered down to Jen’s bump. “Congratulations, by the way! Moss and Roy told me you were expecting. How far along are you?”

“Just over twenty weeks,” Jen said. 

“Are you finding out the sex?” 

“We’ve decided to keep it a secret,” Jen said. She gestured to Reggie. “This one gave us such a surprise that we thought it would only be right to keep the streak of mystery going.” 

Cassie laughed, and so did Jen. 

“Can I?” she asked, gesturing to Reggie. 

“Be my guest!” Jen exclaimed with a smile. Cassie took the young boy from her, setting him on her knee and bouncing him up and down. Reggie squealed with delight. “They’re great godfathers to him.” She smiled at her son, who turned to look at her with a bright grin. “Reggie? Can you tell me what Uncle Roy taught you?” 

“Have you twied tuwning off-on ‘gain!” the toddler exclaimed. Jen smiled to herself, and Cassie beamed down at the boy. 

“His speech is very advanced,” she remarked. “He can’t be older than, what…?” 

“He’s fifteen months,” Jen said. There was a pause as Reggie wiggled around on Cassie’s lap and he let her down. He immediately ran over to his mother, tugging her sleeve again. “Go on, go find Daddy and tell him Mummy needs another cup of tea.” 

The young boy nodded and toddled off. 

“I--” Cassie started, but Jen cut her off. 

“I know what you want to ask,” she said. She smiled, leaning forward. “Moss and Roy would make great parents. They’re idiots and they’re still twelve inside, but they’re also caring and loving and surprisingly responsible when they want to be. Have you seen their computers?”

“Haven’t I just!?” Cassie joked. They both laughed again. Cassie reached forward, grabbing her mug and draining the last of the tea from it. “Well, thank you for letting me come and talk to you. It’s been really helpful.” They shook hands over the table. Cassie stood and Jen went to too, but Cassie shooed her back down. “Don’t worry, I can show myself. I’ll leave you to your family.” 

With that she was gone, just in time for Reggie to return back from the living room. 

***

When Cassie knocked on Morgan Robertson’s front door, she had been expecting a butler or something to answer. She’d done a quick Google of her in the cab to the house, and she had quite a Wikipedia entry. 

She had not been expecting a seven year old girl. 

The two stared at each other for a moment, both looking equally as freaked out. Then some sort of recognition seemed to dawn in the girl’s eyes and she nodded at Cassie. 

“You’re the social worker coming to talk to Mum, aren’t you?” she said. Cassie was so shocked to hear this seven-year-old speak so confidently in a way that many teenagers didn’t even do that she couldn’t do much else but nod. “She’s in the study, shouting at some people for being silly.” The girl paused. “I’m Isabella. Do you want to come in?”

“Yes please, sweetheart,” Cassie said with a smile. Isabella stood aside and she walked in, wiping her shoes on the mat as Isabella shut the door behind her. 

“Mama!” the girl called as she led Cassie through the house. “The social worker to talk to Mum is here!” 

“Go and knock on her office door, would you?” “Mama” (Morgan’s wife, Cassie presumed) called from upstairs. Isabella nodded in a very self-assured way, gesturing for Cassie to follow her as she marched forward down the seemingly never-ending corridor to a very nice oak wood door. Isabella knocked, and when no response came after a few moments she twisted the handle and went in. 

“No, if you would take your head out of your backside for two seconds to actually listen to me then maybe we could--” 

Morgan had been talking very aggressively at her computer screen, but when she heard her daughter come in she stopped talking. She swivelled in her chair to look at her. “Hello, sweetheart. Did Mama send you?” 

“The social worker you need to talk to for Uncle Moss and Uncle Roy to get a baby is here,” Isabella chirped. 

“Thank you, love,” Morgan said warmly. When she turned back to the computer screen, she switched back to a cold and ruthless businesswoman. “We will continue this tomorrow, Jeremy. At my leisure, I’ll think you’ll find.” 

Clicking off from the call, she took her earphones out and got out of the chair. Cassie, who was by the door, couldn’t help but smile. Whilst Morgan was wearing what looked like a very expensive suit with full hair, makeup and jewellery on her top half, from the waist down she was in jogging bottoms and a pair of bunny rabbit slippers. On a nod from her mother, Isabella ran back out and down the corridor. Morgan gestured for Cassie to come into the office and she did so, shutting the door behind her. 

“Apologies for my state of dress,” Morgan said. “Thought the meeting would have been finished an hour ago, but I forgot one key thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Businessmen are dicks.” 

The two shared a chuckle. Morgan offered Cassie a drink, which the social worker happily accepted: she’d been eying up Morgan’s coffee maker since she walked in. “One thing you have to have as a CEO, especially a female CEO, is a good coffee machine,” Morgan said as she raised her cup slightly. 

“I’m not surprised,” Cassie said with a grin. 

“Also, I love your hair!” 

“Oh my God, thank you! I had it done last week.” 

The two exchanged a little more small talk (mainly compliments) before Cassie pulled all of her official documents out, started the tape recorder and started asking the questions. 

“How long have you known Moss and Roy?”

“I’ve known Moss since we were kids,” Morgan said as she took a sip of coffee. “We went to secondary school together, but lost touch until about two years ago. I met Roy around that time.”

“I gather you two were close?” Cassie asked. Morgan nodded. 

“Very.” She shrugged, letting out a small laugh at the memories. “I tried to kiss him, he told me he thought he might be gay, that kind of thing bonds you.” 

“Did he ever talk about wanting kids?” 

“God, all the time. Whenever we’d get talking about the future he’d always be banging about finding the one and having a kid.” She paused, smiling to himself. “He wanted what his parents had.” 

“Did you ever meet Moss’ dad?” Cassie asked. Morgan shook her head quickly. 

“No, he was dead for a good five years before I even met Moss,” she said. “I’ve heard stories, though, from Moss. He seemed nice.” 

“Patient?”

“Why do you need to know?” Morgan asked. She sounded suddenly suspicious. “The man’s been dead thirty-odd years.” 

“We’ve found that looking at family dynamics can help predict how people will parent in the future,” Cassie explained. “I’m going to see Moss’ mother after this, but I find asking outside sources can also help.”

“Well you don’t need to worry about Gillian trying to pull the wool over your eyes,” Morgan remarked. “She’ll be frank with you. But no, as far as I know Moss’ dad was as patient, loving and gentle as a good dad should be.” 

“What about Moss’ mother?” Cassie asked. “I know you knew her.” 

“Spent half my life at their house,” Morgan said with a grin. “Yeah, she’s lovely. Sometimes a little harsh on trying to teach the lessons. Did Moss tell you about the time she sued him for breaking the patio door?” Cassie shook her head. Morgan chuckled to herself. “She was trying to teach him about taking responsibility for things, but he wasn’t understanding it, so she tried to demonstrate the concept for him by holding a mock trial for him in the kitchen. He only finished paying it off last year.” 

“Do you think that would translate over to Moss’ parenting style?” Cassie said. 

“I’m not sure,” Morgan replied with a shrug. “Moss is a softie, but he can be firm when he wants to be.” 

Cassie nodded, taking a few notes. She was about to ask another serious question when curiosity got the better of her. 

“I’m sorry, how much did that patio window cost if he only finished paying it off last year!?”

***

As she approached Moss’ mother’s house, Cassie couldn’t help but reflect on how thoroughly lovely all of Moss and Roy’s friends were. Most people had at least one referee who, whilst they knew the person well, were an absolute shithole of a person. So far, though, she hadn’t been unlucky with the boys’ ones, and from what Jen and Morgan had told her Mrs Moss was just as lovely. Smiling to herself, she reached up and knocked on the door. 

“Oh, you must be that lovely social worker,” Mrs Moss said as soon as she opened the door, not even giving Cassie a chance to say anything. “Moss did say you’d be noticeable. Love the hair, dear. Do come in!” 

She saw where Moss got his through-and-through loveliness from now. 

“Thank you for letting me come and see you,” Cassie said as she set her paperwork down on the dining room table. It wasn’t often that she got to go to older peoples’ homes (people tended to try and avoid using their parents as referees), but she always thought they seemed like they were perpetually stuck in the 1980s. Mrs Moss’ house was no different, just with a few modern tech additions (surely Moss’ doing) dotted around the house. 

“Oh, it’s no trouble,” Mrs Moss said breezily. “I just wish that boy of mine had given me a bit more notice! I could have gone and got myself something a bit nicer to wear.” 

“I think you look lovely, Mrs Moss,” Cassie remarked. 

“Flattery will get you everywhere, young miss,” the older woman said with a smile. “And please, call me Gillian!” 

“Okay, Gillian,” Cassie replied with a smile. The two sat down at the table. “I have to ask, just because I’m super curious: what was Moss like as a child?” 

“It’s difficult to put into words,” Gillian said after a moment. “He was… well, he was a blessing in many ways and in some ways he was a nightmare. But he’s mine and I wouldn’t change him for the world.”

“How long did he go by Maurice for? I just can’t seem to put him with that name.” 

“Only until he was six,” Gillian said. “Honestly, my father and I spent months agonising over the right name only for him to discard it at the first opportunity!” Then she sighed a little, and Cassie noticed that there was now a bit of a sad look in her eye. “But he wanted to honour his dad and I wasn’t one to tell him no.”

“How did Moss cope with the loss of his father?” 

“He was so young that I don’t think he truly understood what was happening. He’s been gone so long that I sometimes think he can’t possibly feel the need for his dad to be there, but sometimes I look at him and I can tell that he misses him terribly.” 

“How did Moss being autistic affect him growing up?” Cassie said. Gillian shrugged at this, leaning back in her seat. 

“He struggled to make friends,” she said. “Especially when we moved into the city and he had to move schools. And he sometimes struggled in school with certains aspects of some courses. But I think it affected me more than it affected him.” She looked up then, looking almost guilty. “That doesn’t sound arrogant, does it?” 

“Not at all,” Cassie said soothingly. 

“It was just… difficult. When he was in meltdown and there was nothing I could do to help him, it was one of the worst feelings in the world. I guess I blamed myself sometimes, for not being able to help him when he had moments like that, but he’s since explained that I would actually help him rather a lot by making sure everything was perfect enough for him that he didn’t get overwhelmed too often.” She smiled then, looking down at the old wooden table where her and her son had shared so many meals together. “I wouldn’t change my son for the world. I love him to the moon and back, and then some.” 

“What about Roy?” Cassie said after a moment of doing everything she could to contain her squeals. “What did you think of him?” 

“I remember Moss coming home after his first day at that job,” Gillian replied. “He spent an hour talking my ear off about his new work mate over dinner. I was a little sceptical at first, but as soon as I met Roy I knew he was an absolute softie, no matter what sort of front he puts on.” She smiled to herself. “No, the two of them were always meant to be.”

“I’ve been hearing that a lot today,” Cassie commented as she scribbled down a quick note. 

Cassie asked some more standard questions before thanking Gillian and packing her things up. She allowed the older woman to push a tupperware of cupcakes into her hands (“keep the tub, dear, I’ve got plenty”) before heading towards the door. Just before she was about to go, Gillain caught her arm. 

“Please let my boy adopt,” she said, her eyes wide. “It will mean the world to him. He’s always wanted to be a dad.” 

Cassie smiled back at her as she felt her heart utterly melt. 

“I’ll certainly do my best, Mrs Moss.”

Chapter Text

One week later

It was adoption panel day. 

Both Moss and Roy knew that today was a big day. Actually it was more than big. It was huge, ginormous, humongous! They had spent ten minutes the night before trading adjectives until Roy had run out of words and had to google some more synonyms of “big”, which Moss argued rendered the entire game useless. Then Roy had insisted they play some violent computer games to, quote, “stop us being so sad” . Moss didn’t understand what he meant by this, but was more than happy to play Call of Duty for a bit. 

“If they did let us have a child, would we still be allowed to play these sorts of games?” Moss asked as he shot someone in the head and chucked a grenade towards the shipping container in front of him. Roy shrugged as he crouched down by a wall to reload. 

“I think so,” he said. “Yeah, I think it’s alright as long as you don’t play them in front of the kid. 

Then Roy got killed, and the conversation was diverted elsewhere. 

Now, though, it was the morning of their adoption panel date, and things were starting to hit home. Moss had been practically vibrating with anxiety ever since they’d got up, and Roy hadn’t stayed in one spot for more than ten seconds. 

“I can’t do this,” Moss said. He had opted to pick out one of the old fidget toys he used to use at school, clicking the switch on the side of the cube over and over. It was helping, a little. Roy took another deep breath from where he was pacing around the kitchen. “There’s no way I can do this.” 

“You can do it,” Roy replied, although his message was slightly tainted by the fact that he hadn’t stopped moving for a solid hour. “We can both do it. We’ll be fine. Of course we’ll be fine!” 

“How do you know that?” Moss said fearfully. 

“I don’t,” Roy said. Then he groaned, finally halting to put his head in his hands. “Oh God, I don’t know.” 

“Neither of us are very good at this,” Moss remarked. Roy took his face from his hands, mustering up a glare at his husband as he folded his arms. 

“Your mother will be here soon,” he managed to say after a moment. “She’ll snap us both out of this.” 

“Hopefully,” Moss agreed. Reaching up, he pressed the heels of his hands into his temples, letting out a long slow breath. 

“What’s up?” Roy asked. 

“My brain feels like it’s on fire .” 

“On fire?” 

“Well, maybe not fire. Like a slightly too-warm blanket you can’t get out of is smothering it.” 

Roy hissed in sympathy. Coming over, he sat down on the sofa next to his husband and rested his hand on his knee. 

“It’s gonna be fine,” he said. “I’m about eighty-seven percent sure about it.” 

“You’ve gone down nine percent from last night!” Moss exclaimed. Roy gave him a confused look. 

“Have I?”

“Yes!” 

“I just--”

Roy was cut off by a knock at the door. That had to be Moss’ mum (after a general meeting with everybody closest to them, it was decided that Roy should not be driving them) coming to pick them up to take them to the meeting. It was being held in the same conference centre where their training sessions had taken place. Moss shot his husband a frightened look. “It’s gonna be fine,” Roy reassured him as he took his hand. “Have we got everything?” 

Moss nodded dumbly. As gently as he could Roy pulled him up off the sofa, pulling him towards the front door. As quickly as he could with one free hand, he unlocked the door, putting the keys in his mouth in order to open the door. “Hiya,” he said, his voice muffled. 

“Morning!” Gillian chirped, smiling at them both. “Excited?” 

“If by ‘excited’ you mean ‘literally on the edge of throwing up from nerves’ then yes,” Moss said, his voice barely audible. She rolled her eyes at him. 

“Dramatic boy. Come on, in the car.” 

Moss let his husband’s hand go, following his mother (who had already started back down the stairs) with a bleak look on his face. Roy locked the door quickly before following them. 

“Y’know you could’ve used the lift if you wanted to,” he said to Gillian once he’d caught up with them and they were about halfway down. “Save you climbing all these stairs.”

“Are you trying to say I’m old?” Gillian asked, fixing him with a razor-sharp stare. Roy suddenly found himself gibbering, his whole body feeling like the static on the TV screen when it had no signal. At least Moss was giggling a little now. 

“No! Um, I-- er… I’m, erm…” 

Roy’s useless jabbering was cut off by Gillian’s laughter. “I’m joking with you, love.”

The Irishman let out a deep sigh of relief, nodding. Moss pressed his hand over his mouth as he tried to stop himself giggling. “Gosh, you two really are nervous.” 

“It’s a big thing,” Roy said with a short chuckle as he started to wring his hands in front of him. 

“This panel doesn’t make the final decision though, do they?”

“Technically not, the Agency Decision Maker does, but if you get a bad recommendation from the agency it’s unlikely you'll be approved.” 

“There’s very little chance of you not getting a good recommendation,” she said. Roy bit his lip, nodding despite the anxiety that was starting to swirl in his stomach. 

“I’m going to be sick,” Moss blurted behind them.

“There’s bags in the back of the car,” his mother replied breezily.

***

In the end Moss was not sick, just as his mother had predicted. He was just very jittery and panicky instead. Roy made sure to hold his hand the whole time they were in the car, only letting go to get out before taking it again when they were both out of the car. 

“Give me a call when you’re done love,” Gillian said to her son. Moss nodded at her, and allowed her to give him a quick hug. “I’m sure it’ll go great!” 

“Thanks for the lift, Gillian,” Roy said with a weak smile. Gillian beamed at him. 

“Don’t mention it, sweetheart. Now go!”

That made them both laugh a little. They both bid her farewell, Moss kissed her on the cheek and then they headed down into the building. 

The person on reception was the same one who had been there during the training sessions, and so getting into the building was relatively quick. They were instructed to take a seat in the waiting room, and then they would be called in when needed. Just as they were about to take their seats, though, somebody tapped Roy on the shoulder, making the two of them turn to see who it was. 

It was Harold and Deborah from the preparation training. After a bit of far-too enthusiastic greetings, Harold put his hands on his hips and grinned at them. 

“You two have nothing to be worried about in there,” he said. “It’s exactly the same as all those years ago, but nicer.” 

“Did you get a good recommendation?” Roy asked. 

“Oh, yes. They said we’d done a decent enough job with our Peter that we probably wouldn’t mess up with another one.” 

Deborah gave her husband a sharp elbow in the ribs at that, but soon smiled at him. At that moment, a young man emerged from the other room (presumably where the panel was). He was gangly as anything and had a mop of curly ginger. 

“Mum, dad, ready to go?” he asked as he approached Harold and Deborah. Harold beamed at his son, clapping him on the shoulder and pulling him forward. 

“Peter, my lad, meet Moss and Roy,” he said. 

“They’re the ones your dad talked the ears off at the training sessions? The ones he told you about?” Deborah added. 

“I remember,” Peter laughed. He offered his hand out, and Roy shook it. “Nice to meet you. My father seems to have taken quite a shine to you two.” 

“I really don’t know why,” Roy said with an awkward chuckle. Moss nodded in agreement. There was a moment of awkward silence. 

“Right, we best be off,” Harold announced. He leaned forward and gave the boys an overly obvious wink. “Promised the boy I’d do his washing before he went back up to uni.” 

“I can do my own washing!” they heard Peter complaining as the three of them headed towards the door.

“He seemed nice,” Moss said placidly once they’d gone. 

“He did,” Roy agreed. They were about to take a seat when Cassie emerged from the other room. She came over, giving them a wide smile. 

“They’re going to love you,” she said. The boys tried to smile at her, but both looked very forced. “Seriously, you two! They already think you’re fab. They’re ready when you are.” 

Roy glanced at his husband, who gave him a small nod. The Irishman took a deep breath before taking Moss’ hand. 

“Thank you, for everything you’ve done for us,” he said to Cassie. She smiled at him, and he could have sworn there were tears in her eyes. 

“Go smash it,” she whispered. 

The two looked at each other, took simultaneous deep breaths and headed forward into the room. 

***

As soon as they got out, the first person they called was Moss’ mother. The panel, after an hour or so of them talking, had told them that they needed to have a little discussion time, and had told them to make themselves comfortable in the waiting area. Gillian had been in a cafe around the corner and had rushed around as soon as they called her. 

“So, how did it go?” she asked insistently once she’d pushed a box of cream cakes into Moss’ hands (she insisted that they both needed “get off that rabbit food diet you’ve decided to try and eat properly”). 

“Yeah, okay I think,” Roy said with a small sigh. “They said the referee references were very good.” 

“Oh yes, thank you,” Moss said, his words muffled by the cream cake he’d just eaten half of in one bite. 

“They did ask about Moss’ shoplifting, though, and he nearly mentioned the football incident,” Roy continued, giving his husband a small glare. Moss’ mother chuckled to herself. 

“Oh yes, I remember that,” she said a little fondly. 

“What, Moss told you!?” 

“No. But he shouted it so loudly into his pillow upstairs that I knew.” 

Off to the side and now on his second cream cake, Moss flushed a brilliant shade of crimson. 

“Other than that it seemed to go well,” Roy said. He reached forward, taking a cake from the box before his husband had a chance to eat them all. 

“Oh I’m glad for you boys,” Gillian said. She had the biggest smile on her face, her hands clasped in front of her. “My son, adopting a child!” She looked up at Moss. “Your father would be so proud.” 

“I hope he is, wherever he is,” Moss said quietly. His mother smiled softly at him, and Roy thanked God that his phone took that moment to ring so he could let the two of them have their own private moment. It was his own mother, actually. 

“Have you been recommended yet!?” she yelled as soon as he picked up. 

“And hello to you too!” Roy laughed. “We’ve just come out of the panel meeting actually.” 

“And?” 

“Has he been approved yet?” he heard his dad say in the background. 

“Yeah, I think it went okay,” he replied. 

“Are you just waiting?”

“Yeah. Moss’ mum brought us cakes.” 

“A woman after my own heart,” his mum said approvingly. Roy chuckled at that, shifting his phone to the other ear. “Are you two coming for Christmas this year?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Tell Gillian she’s more than welcome to join us if she wants to!” 

“I’ll let her know,” Roy said, smiling. As he looked up, though, he saw one of the panel members coming out of the door. “Oh, mum, I have to go.” 

“Good luck sweetheart!” his mother squealed before she hung up. Roy quickly pocketed his phone and ran over to join his husband. 

“Mr Moss, Mr Trenneman?” the woman from the panel said. They both nodded, stepping forward. 

“Yes?” Roy said.

“We’ve made a decision.”

Chapter Text

“Mr Moss, Mr Trenneman?” the woman from the panel said. They both nodded, stepping forward. 

“Yes?” Roy said.

“We’ve made a decision.”

Moss and Roy glanced at each other. This was it. Whatever they got told now would most likely determine the outcome of this entire process. Hell, it would determine the rest of their lives. They gave each other small nods, and Roy took a deep breath as he turned back to the woman.

“And?” he said. He heard his husband inhale sharply next to him, and he reached down, taking his hand in his. There was a pause, a horrible long drawn-out pause that both of them could have sworn lasted far longer than it needed to. Then the woman smiled at them. 

“We’ve unanimously decided to recommend that you be approved to adopt,” she said. Roy gasped and put his (free) hand to his mouth, whilst Moss’ grip on his husband’s hand increased to an obscene level of strength neither of them quite realised he possessed. “We all think you’d be brilliant parents, and I really think the Agency Decision Maker will agree. You should get the call from them in three days’ time. Congratulations!” 

“Thank you,” Roy said after a moment of stunned silence. The woman smiled warmly at him.

“It was our pleasure. You’re free to go.” 

With that, she turned on her heel and went back into the room. 

Slowly, the boys turned to look at each other. In the background, Moss’ mum was beaming and scrabbling for her phone. Moss barely appeared to be breathing, staring down at the floor in utter shock. Roy kept glancing between the door and his husband. Eventually, Moss looked slowly up, locking into his husband’s gaze. 

“Oh my God,” was all he whispered. 

“Oh my God indeed,” Roy replied with a small laugh. He looked around the room, still looking entirely shocked. “We might have just basically been approved to adopt.” 

“Oh my God ,” Moss said again. 

“Congratulations!” Moss’ mum squealed. She clapped her hands together before rushing over and giving Roy a huge hug, then her son a quick squeeze of the shoulders. “Oh my God, this is amazing!” 

“I-I need to call my mum,” Roy said. Still he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. There had always been a little voice at the back of his mind, telling him that they were never going to be approved, that this was all going to be a big waste of time and they were going to spend the rest of their lives wondering what could have been, but now it was there, within reaching distance, and he couldn’t comprehend it. Gillian grinned brightly at him, nodding, and he slipped off to the side to call his mum. 

“Tell me, tell me, tell me!” his mother screamed as soon as she picked up. Roy chuckled a little, looking down at his feet. 

“Um, yeah. They’re recommending us.”

His mother squealed so loudly that he actually had to take his phone away from his ear a little. “Right, well thanks for shattering my eardrums,” he said more than a little sarcastically once he put the phone back. 

“Oh my boy, a dad!” she exclaimed. Roy chose to think himself lucky that she hadn’t seemed to have picked up on his little comment. 

“Not yet mum, remember? Three days still until we find out properly.” 

“Still!” 

Roy paused. 

“Yeah alright, it is pretty exciting,” he said with a grin. 

“I’m so proud,” she said. “I just want to go out and tell everybody!” 

“And I’m sure you will as soon as you get off the phone,” he replied with a laugh. She sighed at him then, and he could just see her rolling his eyes at him. 

“Well, well done!” she said. “I’d love you to chat to you a bit longer, love, but we’re at the supermarket and I’ve just lost your father, so I need to find him before he buys yet another pair of pruning shears.” 

“Alright, speak to you later,” Roy said. 

It was another few minutes until he reflected on how strange it was that he didn’t even question his mother’s excuse, and more pressingly the fact that it was almost 100% true. 

***

Even three days later it hadn’t really sunk in, not properly. Every so often, they would find themselves glancing at the other and they would smile at each other. It always ended in them right next to each other, quietly talking about what the future could hold. Roy personally was loving how Moss pretty much hadn’t stopped smiling since about half an hour after they’d received the news. 

“Today,” were the first words that Moss said to his husband when he woke up on the morning of the day when they were expecting the phone call from the Agency Decision Maker. “We find out today.” 

Roy let out a throaty chuckle as he rolled over onto his back. Moss was propped up on his elbow, grinning down at him with bright eyes. He reached up and rubbed his eyes, trying to wake himself up a little more. 

“Yeah,” he said. 

“We find out if we can adopt today .” 

“I know, sweetheart.” 

The two smiled at each other. Roy sat up a little, rubbing his eyes again. He was still exhausted for some reason. “What time are we gettin’ the call?” 

“Cassie said it’d probably be around midday.” 

“Midday, right,” Roy said with a nod. As he started to get up out of bed, he glanced at his husband. “We’re agreed we’re not stepping foot outside the office.” 

“Of course,” Moss said. He gave Roy such a cheeky grin that the Irishman stumbled back a little, giving him a surprised look. Moss waggled his eyebrows, and Roy decided that escaping to the bathroom was the best option before things got out of hand. 

They made it to the office without too much of an incident, where they were greeted by a very excitable but tired-looking Jen. 

“The baby kicked for the first time last night,” she said once they’d come in and all exchanged greetings. The boys grinned at her, and she smiled back. “Little bastard basically hasn’t stopped since.” 

“Is it weird?” Roy asked. Jen gave him a confused look. “Already havin’ a kid but experiencing all the pregnancy stuff for the first time?” 

“A little,” Jen replied. “All the midwives and stuff tend to go ‘you’ll know all of this already’ and it’s always fun to watch their faces as I have to explain it all. It’s starting to get a bit old though.” 

“I could make you a card?” Moss offered. Jen turned to look at him. 

“Could you?”

Moss nodded. She smiled at him and he smiled back, quickly starting to click around on his computer. Once he was distracted, Jen pointed to him and mouthed to Roy “is he okay?” . Roy mouthed back “better than me” with a small grin. 

The morning passed surprisingly quickly, and whilst the boys were in agreement that right now a big greasy package of chip-shop chips would really hit the spot, they were too nervous to leave the office lest they accidentally missed the call. Jen had disappeared, citing a midwife’s appointment, and whilst Moss had mentioned that it wasn’t normal for women to have midwife appointments at twenty-two weeks the two shrugged it off as a precaution and set about chucking a soft ball between the two of them. Originally they had started with a normal tennis ball, but after it had bounced off of Moss’ forehead and nearly broken a mug they had switched to something a bit less dangerous. 

The entire building had been warned that they were not to call if they had a problem. Instead the boys had spent the last couple of days setting up a text alert system, which delivered to their computers and let them message back without having to actually talk to anybody. Already Moss had proclaimed it to be a much better system, and that he wanted to keep it in place forever. 

So when the phone rang just after one, they knew exactly who it was. 

The two had been sitting at Roy’s desk together for the past hour, waiting for the phone to go off. As they listened to it start to ring, they looked at each other. Moss smiled a little and held his hand out. Roy took it. They took simultaneous deep breaths, then Roy reached forward and picked up the phone. 

“Hello, am I speaking to Roy Trenneman and Maurice Moss?” the person on the other end of the phone asked. It was a deep voice, surprisingly deep to the two of them. Unlike when Cassie had first called, the person sounded rather formal and flat. Moss bit his lip, and Roy shifted uncomfortably in his chair. 

“Yeah, that’s us,” he said. 

“I’m the Agency Decision Maker,” the person said. “And I’ve been reviewing your full application for the past few days.” The person let out a long sigh, and the boys glanced at each other nervously. “I have to say, I haven’t seen such glowing references from a social worker and adoption panel in a while.” 

“Thank you…?” Roy said in confusion. 

“Obviously this is a big decision, both for you and us. We want to make sure the children who we provide loving homes for go to the right place and have the support they need.”

Uh oh. Now they were getting worried. Moss began to rub his hand along his thigh, concentrating on the familiar feeling of the fabric rather than the panic rising in his throat. Next to him, Roy rubbed the back of his neck nervously. Neither of them were really sure whether they were supposed to say anything. They heard the person sigh and stretch out. “After a careful review of your application, and having a long chat with your social worker, I’ve come to a decision.” 

“Yes?” Moss mumbled. Roy, for one of the first times in his life, found himself speechless. 

“I think… well, I guess I should say congratulations?” the person said. They sounded a little more upbeat now. 

“Congratulations?” Moss squeaked. It was the highest pitch Roy had ever heard his husband’s voice go. 

“I’m happy to tell you that I’ve decided to approve you as adopters.”

That short sentence was it. That sentence was enough for Moss to let out a high-pitched squeak, and Roy to lean so far over that he went toppling over the edge of his chair with a loud crash. He hopped back up pretty quickly, staring at the phone. Moss was doing the same. After a moment, the person started to chuckle. “I’m hoping that it’s shocked silence I’m hearing!”

“Yeah,” Roy squeaked after a moment. “God, y-yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” the person said breezily. “Stunned silence is a pretty standard response.” 

“Just… thank you,” Roy said. 

“Yes, thank you,” Moss added. 

“It’s no problem. Your social worker should call you soon to talk about family finding. You have Cassie, right?”

“Yeah, we do,” Roy said.

“She should be in contact soon.”

“Okay. Bye.” 

“Bye.”

As the end tone sounded, the two turned to look at each other. 

“ Fuck ,” Moss murmured.

***

Roy’s first job, after he and his husband jumped around the office and screamed with happiness, was to call his mother. He screamed with her too, and she fervently congratulated him before passing him over to talk to his father so she could run around the neighbourhood and tell everybody about it. Whilst he’d been talking to his mum, Moss had been talking to his, and whilst he hadn’t told her about their approval yet she had told him to come round as soon as he could. Once they both got off the phone, they had another small screaming session before jumping in the car and heading down to Moss’ mum’s. To hell with work, people could manage without them. 

As soon as they walked into Moss’ mum’s, they were greeted by streamers, confetti, balloons and yells of “congratulations” ! 

Moss jumped back a little, whilst Roy just looked very shocked. In the front room was Moss’ mum, his Aunt Brenda, Jen, Peter, Reggie, Morgan and Leanne. For seven people, including one who couldn’t talk properly yet, they could make a damn lot of noise. Jen was holding forward a cake, and the boys couldn’t help but glance at each other and smirk as they noticed a corner missing from it. 

“We knew you’d get approved,” Gillian said once the mandatory greetings had been exchanged and drinks had been forced into the boys’ hands. Moss had stolen the cake from Jen, and the two of them were in the corner making quick work of it. Roy gave her a watery smile. 

“I just… I never thought we’d really get approved,” he said. He didn’t miss how wobbly his voice was. 

“Oh sweetheart!” Gillian exclaimed quietly, putting her arms around his shoulders. 

As Roy looked over at his husband, he felt the happiness swell in his chest and he let a small tear fall.

Chapter Text

Three months later

It was Christmas, and Moss and Roy were in Ireland. 

Since getting their approval to adopt, the entire process seemed to have ground to a halt. Cassie had said that the paperwork had to all get processed, and then things had gone a bit crazy at work (something went completely wrong with all the computers and all of the routers which led to a lot of overtime, a bit of screaming into cushions and then having to reschedule some adoption meetings). This led to things getting pushed back, so they had resigned to waiting until after Christmas. 

Once again, everybody was at Roy’s parents’ house. One thing that Moss was a little amazed about was how big the youngest baby had gotten. When they had first gone to Ireland for Christmas she had been three months old, but now she was over two years old and was doing very well at making a nuisance of herself whilst laughing like a maniac. It was adorable, really, even if Moss had nearly tripped over her nearly ten times already. 

The kids were all in bed now (the old attic room that used to be Roy’s den as a teenager had been stripped and lots of sleeping bags put on the floor for them) and the adults were all tipsy. Well, all the adults but Moss. Moss had quickly learned that when the Trennemans got tipsy, the board games came out: even at their wedding somebody had produced Trivial Pursuit from somewhere and set it up on one of the back tables. 

“Was it-t-t-t-t… hic — was it the purple bloke in, um, in the… what’s-it-called , the book room, with the rope?” 

Moss giggled, pressing his hand to his mouth. His husband was adorable when drunk, and currently the only thing keeping Roy from pitching forwards into the Cluedo board was Moss’ arm gently thrown across his lap. 

“Dear,” Moss said softly. His husband turned to look at him, a goofy drunken smile on his face. “You might want to change your answer.”

“What?” Roy mumbled, confused. Moss smiled at him. He leaned forward.

“Because we’re playing as a team and that’s the cards we have,” he whispered in his husband’s ear. 

Roy made a small noise before lunging forward and accidentally knocking over the entire board. 

After this, everybody cleared up the board together whilst Roy and Shania had a drunken argument in the corner about Shania’s suspicions that Roy had knocked the board open on purpose (spoiler: he hadn’t, he was just very clumsy). Joan had broken up the fight between her oldest and youngest child, scolded them a little and then sent everybody off to bed. 

“I love Christmas,” Roy proclaimed as he stumbled over to the bed. He tried to sit down on it, but misjudged and ended up on the floor. Moss chuckled, coming forward and helping his husband sit on the bed.

“I can tell,” he said. Leaning down, he pressed a gentle kiss to Roy’s lips. Roy squeaked a little, but as Moss started to pull away he wrapped his arms around him and pulled him down. He’d been intending to pull him down on top of him, but the alcohol had ruined his already limited coordination and instead Moss ended up face-down on the bed next to him. Roy paused, staring at his husband, and after a moment started to giggle. “You berk !” Moss laughed as he sat up, adjusting his glasses. 

“Sorry,” Roy said. His apology, however, was slightly tainted by the fact that he was laughing as well. It didn’t take long for the two of them to end up sitting next to each other bent over double, laughing their heads off for reasons they weren’t even entirely sure about. Moss reached up, wiping his eyes as he leaned against his husband. 

Then somebody hammered on their wall, and they decided that maybe it was time to go to sleep. 

***

The next day, the boys (well, Roy: Moss was up at his normal time) were awoken by the tantalizing smell of frying bacon and sausages wafting in from the kitchen. Roy knew from his later teenage years that his dad’s fry-ups were the best hangover cure out there, and so it didn’t take him long to rush into the kitchen and accept a big plate of fry-up from his dad. Moss followed not long after, his hair damp from the shower, and he kissed his husband before taking a cup of tea and allowing Roy’s mother to tell him about all of the gossip going on in the town. Moss would never admit it but he loved gossip. It was one of the only things that used to keep him going during his mother and Aunty Barbra’s long, long talks as a child. 

Roy’s sisters, husbands and families disappeared back home soon into the morning. This left just Moss and Roy at Joan and Michael’s, which quickly paved the way for Joan to try and do everything to spoil her youngest child. 

“Have another biscuit, love,” she insisted, shaking the box towards him. Roy laughed as he shook his head. 

“Mum, I’ve already had five.”

“So? You need feeding up, you two do.” 

“We eat plenty, Ma.” 

She rolled her eyes at him and put the biscuit tin down next to him. Without even thinking about it, Roy reached down and took one from it. When he saw his mother smirking he realised what had happened and he glared at her. “Mum!” he exclaimed. 

“What?” she replied. Her son didn’t say anything else, but shot her a look and put his arm around his husband’s shoulder. 

The rest of the day passed rather slowly. Roy was still a little hungover, and it wasn’t like there was much to do anyway, so the two spent the day playing games on the Playstation they’d brought with them. Then Moss had decided to check his emails, and he ended up hitting Roy just a tad too hard on the arm. 

“Ow!” Roy said as he rubbed his arm, giving his husband a betrayed look. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Moss said quickly. “But Cassie’s emailed. She has a slot free tomorrow!” 

“What, r-really?” Roy stammered. He sat up a little more, pressing pause on the game and turning to look at Moss fully. Moss nodded. He turned the phone around and Roy quickly read the message. “Shit!” he yelled once he had. 

“Language!” his mother called sharply from the other room. 

“We can’t miss another meeting!” Roy continued. “If we miss this one it’ll be another few months before we can get another one.” 

“What are we supposed to do?” Moss asked, biting his lip. “Do we go back to London?”

“I doubt we can get a flight on such short notice.” 

“So what are we supposed to do?” 

There was a pause. A moment later, Joan poked her head around the doorframe. 

“What are you two nattering about?” she asked. 

“The social worker, she just emailed,” Roy explained. “She’s got a family finding meeting free tomorrow and if we don’t take it we could be waiting months for the next one.” 

“Why don’t you just Skype her?” Joan suggested. 

“Skype?” Roy scoffed. “Nobody uses--”

Then he paused. “Wait,” he said after a moment. “That’s actually quite a good idea.”

“See, I’m not just a pretty face,” Joan beamed before going back into the kitchen. 

Roy didn’t miss the small smirk that Moss shot him, and he gave him a small shove that accidentally ended up with Moss on the floor. 

***

The next day, the two of them were set up in Roy’s parents’ dining room, thanking God that Moss never went anywhere for more than a day without his precious laptop. They had plugged the laptop straight into the LAN cable to ensure that the Wi-Fi wouldn’t cut out on them during the call. Roy’s parents had watched them do this like they were fixing the transporter on the Starship Enterprise. Roy had then ferried his parents out of the room, threatening them on the pain of death not to come in unless somebody was dying, before closing the door and setting up the call. 

“Hi guys!” Cassie said as she joined the call, grinning at them. Thankfully the picture was surprisingly clear. “Have you had a good Christmas?” 

“Yeah, it’s been good thanks,” Roy said with a smile. Moss nodded next to him. “Sorry we’re not there in person, but…”

“Don’t mention it, there’s no problem, really,” Cassie replied. “Now: family pairing! We’ve obviously discussed this over phone calls, so shall we just dive straight in?” 

The boys nodded. 

Over the next forty-five minutes, Cassie went over prospective children. There were rather a few, and it was quite interesting looking at all the different profiles. For a lot of the time, it felt like almost an impossible decision, but then one popped up and it felt like destiny. 

“Hang on, can we go over this one again?” Roy said, leaning forward and pointing to the screen. Cassie nodded, pulling out the file again. 

“Um… young mother, just under twenty years old,” she said. “She’s about four months along, and she’s specifically requested a couple with at least one BAME partner.” 

Moss and Roy glanced at each other. 

“We do that,” Moss said. 

“Where’s she based?” Roy asked. 

“Pretty close to you, actually,” Cassie said with a smile. “She’s also said that she’s more than open to LGBTQ+ couples.”

“Wow,” Moss murmured. The boys glanced at each other. Strangely, the feeling was familiar in a way. They’d had something similar when they’d found their house, but this time it was magnified by so many times. 

“Sound good?” Cassie asked. The two nodded as enthusiastically as they could. She clapped her hands together, letting out a small squeal. “Awesome! I’ll contact her now and send her your profile!” 

The three exchanged quick goodbyes, and Cassie signed off pretty quickly, presumably to contact the mother. Moss and Roy stared at the computer screen for a long, long time as the feeling started to sink in. 

“Did we just…” Roy asked, trailing off. Moss nodded. There was a shell-shocked look on his face. 

“I think we did.” 

“We might have just chosen a kid to adopt.” 

“Yeah.”

There was a pause, and then Moss giggled a little. Roy giggled too, and he was about to lock the door to show his husband how much he loved him when he spotted his parents’ eager faces pressed up against the door watching them. 

“MUM!” 

Chapter Text

One month later

The pregnant woman had liked their profile. 

To be fair, “liked” was an understatement. She had loved it. As their email address had been included in their profile, within half an hour of Cassie contacting her, a glowing email had dropped into their inbox. Moss had been so happy that he had bounced around the entirety of Roy’s parents’ place. 

The past month had involved a lot of them emailing back and forth with the woman. She was called Acacia, and had apparently recognised their names from the article with the interview they had done just before their wedding. She thought that they were, quote, “adorable”, and thought that they were the best couple she had been offered so far. Cassie had been emailing her too, and had agreed to orchestrate a meeting between them. 

Right now, though, it was Jen’s last day before maternity leave and they were supposed to be organising a buffet. 

“Stop! Eating! The cocktail sausages!” Moss said as he hit his husband on the arm with the stack of napkins he was holding. Roy snatched his hand out of the packet, a guilty look on his face as he quickly swallowed the cocktail sausage he’d just eaten. “You’ve eaten like half of the packet!” 

“They’re nice, okay?” the Irishman exclaimed, giving his husband the puppy-dog eyes. Moss didn’t take the bait, instead rolling his eyes and taking the packet away from him. “Moss!” 

“We have half a building to cater for, you can’t eat all of the food before anyone even gets here,” Moss said critically. Then his face softened and he came forward, giving his husband a quick kiss. “I’ll make sure to pick up a packet on the way home. 

“Thank you,” Roy said. Moss giggled, kissing him again before taking the packets of the things he knew his husband liked best and putting them just out of reach. 

“Now come on! Help me sort this out.” 

In the end, Roy only got to steal a few more things before Moss had had enough and sprinkled some hot sauce over the food he knew his husband would take next. Two bites, a scream and half a pint of milk later Roy decided taking on Moss was a bad idea and left the rest of the food alone. Jen had loved the party, revelling in all the attention she was getting from everybody. 

“As much as I love it, I’m ready for this baby to get out of me now,” Jen told them. She was sipping at some fake Prosecco, a drink which Moss said he wanted them to always have in the house from now on. “Honestly, this child is treating me like a football.”

Roy let out a laugh, whilst Moss looked away to the side and tried not to make it obvious that he was on his phone. Jen smiled at the two of them, letting out a long sigh and resting her hand over her bump. 

“I’ll miss you two, you know,” she said fondly. 

“Stop it,” Roy mumbled with a smile. 

“No, really! I love working with you two idiots.” 

“It’s not like you’re leaving forever,” Roy said. He nudged Moss a little, who grumbled and put his phone away. “Is she, Moss?”

“What?” Moss said. Jen chuckled, looking down. 

“Jen’s not leaving forever, is she?” 

“What, no?” Moss looked to Jen, confused. “You’re not leaving forever, are you?” 

“No Moss,” Jen said gently with a smile. “I’m just going off for a little bit to have the baby.” 

“Oh, okay.” 

Roy chuckled and shook his head, putting his arm around his husband and pulling him close to him. Moss smiled up at his husband. 

“You’ll have to come and visit once the baby’s born,” she said. The boys nodded. 

“Oh definitely,” Roy said. She grinned at them, taking another sip of her drink.

“Speaking of kids, aren’t you two meeting with that mum soon?” she asked. 

“Tomorrow,” Moss said. He had a huge smile on his face now, glancing at Roy every few seconds or so. “At the coffee shop near our house that’s run by the woman who lives three buildings across from us at exactly eleven o’clock.” 

“Precise,” Jen remarked. Roy gave her a tell-me-about-it look whilst Moss nodded. There was a serious look on his face but his eyes were bright and dancing. 

“You definitely have to tell me what she's like,” Jen said. 

“We will, don’t you worry,” Roy said. 

The three smiled at each other, and Moss and Roy realised that the office wouldn’t be quite the same without Jen there. 

***

Roy was poked awake at precisely quarter to eight by Moss, who was hanging over him. It took him another hour to wake up properly, by which time Moss was already dressed and sitting on the sofa, nervously flicking through his phone. Sometimes he wondered how the two of them functioned as a couple, especially since Moss was such a punctual person and Roy tended to be very last minute. Certainly since they’d been an item Roy had found himself being late much less often. They complimented each other, he supposed. 

Still, it did mean that it was half past ten, he wasn’t nearly ready to go and Moss was fretting. 

“We need to go ,” Moss pushed. He was standing by the door, watching Roy (who had just got out of the shower, was wandering a little aimlessly around their bedroom with a towel around his waist and was not missing the way his husband’s eyes kept flicking appreciatively over him) with an anxious look on his face. 

“I know, love,” Roy said. He gave him a small look as he grabbed the clothes Moss had set out for him from the side. “It’s like five minutes away.” 

“What if there’s traffic?”

“Five minutes walking .” 

“But still!” 

Roy sighed. He finished pulling his jeans on, buttoning them as he walked over to his husband. He took him by the shoulders, gently tilting his head up. 

“Hey,” he said softly. 

“I know,” Moss replied. He already knew what Roy was going to say. 

“It is. It’s gonna be fine.” 

“I know, I know, it’s just…” he sighed frustratedly, looking away to the side again. He let out a nervous chuckle before looking back up. “You know what I’m like.” 

“And I love you for it,” Roy said. He kissed his husband’s nose before moving away to grab his t-shirt. He pulled it on, sprayed some deodorant on as an afterthought then grabbed his wallet and came forward. “There, ready.” He dramatically offered Moss his arm. “Shall we go, m’lord?” 

Moss giggled and took his husband’s arm. 

***

They were, of course, early, and took their seat towards the back of the cafe with their drinks. Roy opted for black coffee in an attempt to wake himself up more (even though it was now closer to midday) and Moss had hot chocolate. They had wanted cake, but had agreed that they wanted to look responsible and so shared the emergency Maltesers that Roy had in his bag under the table. Moss joked that it felt like being back at school and trying to sneak sweets under the desk. Roy agreed with a laugh. 

Cassie appeared first at five to eleven, getting some healthy-looking fruit concoction and toast before joining them at their table. 

“Acacia says she’ll be here soon,” Cassie said as she sat down. “She’s just running a little late.”

“That’s fine,” Roy said quickly through a mouthful of Maltesers. Cassie chuckled a little, smiling at them. 

“You know she won’t care if the two of you have cake, you know,” she said.

Immediately Moss had shot up and headed for the counter. 

When Acacia arrived, the boys didn’t even realise at first. They were debating what to watch that night on telly after they’d been to Moss’ mum’s for dinner. In fact, they hardly looked up until Cassie nudged them and gently told them that this was her. 

“Cassie, hiya!” Acacia said as she approached them. Cassie smiled at her, and the two women hugged quickly. 

“This is Moss, and this is Roy,” Cassie said, gesturing to the two in order. They awkwardly raised their hands. 

“Oh my God, it’s awesome to meet you guys,” Acacia gushed. She rushed forward (well, as fast as a woman who’s twenty-two weeks pregnant can rush forward) and enveloped Roy in a hug. The Irishman’s eyes widened and he looked to his husband, who simply gave him a what-do-you-want-me-to-do look. When Acacia let Roy go she went to give Moss a hug, but stopped herself at the last minute. “Not a hugger, right?”

Moss shook his head with a smile. 

“It’s good to meet you,” Roy said as Acacia settled herself down at the table next to Moss. Roy shot his husband a quick look to make sure he was okay, and Moss nodded a little. “As great as emailing is…”

“Yeah, it’s just not the same, is it?” Acacia replied. Moss made such a sceptical face here that Roy couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Sorry, sorry, just thought about somethin’ stupid,” he said quickly before glaring a little at Moss. Acacia just laughed. Roy cleared his throat, shifting in his seat and leaning forward. “So, um, how come you’re offering your baby up for adoption, if that’s not a rude question?”

“It’s not a rude question at all,” she said with a warm smile. She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I just made a stupid mistake and ended up pregnant. I’ve never wanted kids, and it would completely mess up university, my career, basically everything I have planned. Thing is, the idea of having an abortion terrified me, so I had to have the baby, so I decided that I would offer them up for adoption so they could have the best life possible.” 

“You’ve already said you don’t want contact,” Cassie said. Acacia shook her head. 

“Yeah, after the birth the kid is all yours,” she said. “Obviously if they ever wanted to meet me they could, but I’d rather not be in contact.” She paused, biting her lip. “Oh God, does that sound horrible?”

“Not at all,” Roy reassured her quickly. 

They chatted for a bit longer about general baby and pregnancy stuff, during which Moss did his very very best to keep a neutral face (although he did have to excuse himself when Acacia started talking about the more graphic details of birth). 

“Look, I really like you two,” Acacia said once the conversation had started to die down a little. “I think you’d make great parents.”

“Are you not worried?” Moss asked. He looked nervous, wringing his hands on the top of the table.

“About what?” Acacia asked, nonplussed.

“My autism. The mental health problems.”

“Not at all,” she said. She paused, fixing him with a look. “Are you?” 

Moss shrugged a little, looking down to his lap where he was fidgeting with his hands. Roy was watching him carefully as a little bit of panic started to build in his stomach: Moss certainly hadn’t mentioned this to him. “Seriously, I think you two would be great,” Acacia continued. She glanced over at Cassie. “And I know there’s obviously a lot of paperwork and stuff before it’s all official, but if you two wanted, I’d love for you to adopt that baby.” 

Moss looked up at this, looking straight to his husband. Roy was staring at Acacia, barely seeming to be breathing. 

“I-- um…” he said after a long pause, his voice breaking a little. He looked down, clearing his throat before looking back up. “I need to-to just go and…” he trailed off again, pointing towards the door. “Go and, um, scream outside for a little bit.” 

“I’ll join you,” Moss said with a small laugh. 

“I’m guessing that’s a yes?” Acacia said with a bubbly giggle.

“God… God yeah,” Roy stammered after glancing at Moss. “I’m just gonna… yeah.” 

With that, he absconded out of the side door of the shop, Moss following not far behind. 

Roy leaned against the brick wall of the back alleyway, letting out a long and deep sigh. His emotions were just… everywhere. He really was considering screaming just to get some of the happy emotions out, but he didn’t want to accidentally frighten somebody or cause an accidental police call out (believe him, it had happened before and having to explain to a very pissed-off police officer in the middle of the night that you weren’t being murdered, you were just screaming because you finally got to kiss your best friend again was not the best thing in the world). 

“Did that just happen?” Moss asked. He was standing in front of him. Roy looked up from where he’d been staring at the ground. He flashed his husband a smile. 

“I think it did,” he said. He leaned his head back again. “This is--”

But he never finished his sentence, because Moss was kissing him and, well, kissing against random walls was their speciality, after all...

Chapter Text

Two months later

Jen was forty-two weeks pregnant, and she was so done with it. 

Unlike Reggie, who had sprung himself upon them unannounced, this baby seemed to want to take their sweet time. As much as she enjoyed the attention around being pregnant (okay, she was a bit of an attention whore, sue her), she didn’t enjoy the swollen feet and the painful back and the dietary restrictions so much. Because the baby was now two weeks’ overdue, the hospital had agreed to induce her, and she had the appointment for the next day. 

The problem was, she had a one-and-a-half year old toddler and no-one to look after him. 

Peter’s parents were, annoyingly, in Gran Canaria, so they weren’t exactly a viable option. Her parents lived all the way down in Cornwall, and there was no way she was handing him off to a babysitter for the day because she really didn’t know how long the labour would end up lasting. 

That left just two really viable options: Peter’s friend Colin or Moss and Roy. 

Colin was notoriously unreliable. From flaking out on the dinner party at the last minute all those years ago to more recently promising to build a handmade crib for the baby and then informing them on her due date that he actually hadn’t been able to, causing Jen to send Peter off to IKEA to get a flat pack crib which he then spent the whole afternoon trying to assemble, teaching their son some very colourful new words in the process (most notably, “Mama, Dada use fucknut!” which Jen did have to admit made her giggle). No, she knew she couldn’t trust that man to look after Reggie. That left the toddler’s godfathers. 

Moss and Roy had spent the last two months meeting with Acacia every Saturday morning. With the baby due in just ten weeks’ time, they were rushing to sort out their nursery and get prepared along with completing all the necessary paperwork and attending the meetings with Cassie. According to Roy, who had phoned her the other night to ask about bottle sterilisers of all things, Moss had made so many lists that they could hardly see the actual door of the fridge for bits of paper. Maybe they were a good option? It would certainly give them some practice! 

“Peter!” she called. She was sitting as comfortably as she could on their bed, pillows wedged beneath and to the side of her to try and make the weight a bit less… well, weighty. She was finally in some semblance of comfort, and didn’t want to ruin her hard work by moving to get her phone (which was lying on the side just out of reach). A moment later, Peter appeared in the doorway. 

“What is it, my love?” he asked, smiling at her. She felt her heart swell as she smiled back. She really had got lucky with her man. 

“Can you pass me my phone, please?” 

He did so, leaning down and kissing her softly as he did so. “I’ve found someone to look after Reggie,” she said as she unlocked her phone. “Well, maybe.”

“Who?” Peter asked. He perched himself on the edge of the bed, sweeping her hair out of her face and behind her ear. She was grateful for that, as she’d been meaning to reach up and do it for the past twenty minutes. 

“Moss and Roy.”

Peter made a small noise. 

“You know, I really don’t know why we didn’t think of them sooner,” he said after a moment. Jen laughed, nodding. “Alright, love. I’m going to give Reggie a bath and put him to bed, and then I promise I’m all yours.” 

As he backed out of the room, he blew kisses at her, and Jen found herself with just the widest smile on her face as she scrolled through her contacts. She really was so, so glad she hadn’t blocked Peter on Friendface when he contacted her again. Plus it gave her a little bit of leverage with Moss if he was ever really annoying her (although she wasn’t sure she’d ever be cruel enough to use it). 

“Hi, how can-- yeah, it’s Jen love… I know, I’ll go back to it in a minute -- how can I help you?” Roy said when he picked the phone up. He sounded almost out of breath. 

“Bad time?” Jen asked, arching an eyebrow. 

“No, no, you’re alright,” Roy said. Yes, he sounded tired. “We’re just-- babe, seriously, I’ll be two minutes! ” He cut himself off, chuckling. “Sorry, we’re painting the nursery and Moss is worried if we don’t paint it on quick enough the paint will dry onto the rollers.” 

“It’s a real possibility!” Jen heard Moss’ faint voice yell somewhere in the background. She chuckled, shaking her head. Those two would never change. 

“Have you had the baby?” Roy asked. 

“I wish,” she said. She accompanied this with a slight glare at her pregnant belly. “No, I’m booked in for an induction tomorrow.”

“That’s awesome!” Roy exclaimed. “Did you hear that, Moss?” She heard Moss make the noise that he makes when he’s been zoning out and then suddenly zones back in. “Jen’s having the baby tomorrow.” 

“That’s good,” Moss said placidly before his voice disappeared again. 

“Yeah, that’s why I was calling, actually,” she said. “Peter’s obviously coming with me to be there through it all, so we need somebody to look after Reggie. Do you think you could…?”

“Of course!” Roy said. There was a pause, and Jen assumed the boys were exchanging a series of looks. “He’s our godson, we’re more than happy to look after him.”

“Oh, thank you,” Jen said. She let out a long sigh of relief. “Really. It shouldn’t be more than one day and one night.”

“Don’t worry about how long it is,” Roy reassured her. “In ten weeks we’re gonna have our own little baby, we need all the practice we can get.” 

In the background, she heard Moss squeak. 

“Thank you,” she said again. “We’ll drop him off tomorrow morning on our way to the hospital, around nine?” 

“Yep, sounds good,” Roy replied. 

“I owe you two.” 

“Please, Moss and I must owe you a million times over now,” he laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Reggie’s our godson and we’d never turn down time with him.” 

Jen smiled, telling herself the tears forming in the corner of her eyes were just hormones. 

***

After their painting escapades and being too lazy to shower the night before, it took Roy nearly half an hour to scrub all the paint off of his arms, face and hair that morning. His skin was tingling when he got out of the shower, waking him up at least even if it was absolutely killing him at the same time. Moss had been sensible enough to shower the night before, and was wasting no time in subtly bragging with his non-irritated skin and paint-free hair (alright, he’d given up with the hair after a little while: it was only little flakes left anyway). 

“You’ve got--” Moss started to say when Roy walked in, but the Irishman shook his head. 

“I know, I know,” he said. He sighed heavily as he sat down at the kitchen table, grabbing the mug of coffee Moss had made him and taking a sip. “What are we gonna do with Reggie today?”

“What do godparents do with their godchildren normally?” Moss asked. He fixed his husband with a look as he took a bite of his toast (with seedless raspberry jam of course). Roy thought for a moment.

“Fill ‘em up for sugar and then send them back, I suppose.” 

“So why don’t we do that?”

“Because we’re not sending him back, remember? We promised to keep him for tonight.” 

“Right, yep.” 

The two fell silent as they racked their brains, thinking of activities to do with a one-and-a-half year old. After a moment Moss looked up. 

“We could take him to the zoo?” he suggested. 

“The zoo …” Roy breathed. He leaned back in his seat, giving his husband a lovestruck look. “Where do you get these brilliant ideas?” 

“Well, I remembered that I loved going there when I was little, so I thought it might be somewhere nice for Reggie to go,” Moss said. He was blushing a little as he took his last bite of toast.

“Sounds like a great idea,” Roy said. The two smiled at each other, and shared a quick kiss over the table. “Plus it’ll hopefully tire him out so much he goes right to sleep when we get back and doesn’t wake up ‘til morning,” he murmured as he took a deep gulp of coffee. 

Moss snorted into his orange juice. 

***

Sure enough Reggie was dropped off just after nine. Jen didn’t get out of the car, but she did wave to them through the window. Peter had handed them two gigantic bags along with a list of instructions from Jen. He told them that they didn’t need to worry too much about the instructions, just as long as they returned the toddler happy and in one piece. He gave them a smile, gave his son a kiss on the cheek and left them alone. 

They felt very grateful that once a day they both practiced with the car seat they’d bought for their new baby when it came to strapping Reggie into the car. Roy took the role of strapping the car seat in whilst Moss held the toddler on his hip, bouncing him a little and making silly faces to make him laugh. 

“It’s been years since I’ve been to a zoo,” Roy said once everybody was strapped in and they had started driving. 

“I went a couple of years ago,” Moss said. “Mum and I took one of my youngest cousins.” 

It didn’t take long for them to get to the zoo. Even though it was early there was still a decent amount of people already there. They were directed to a car park that seemed to be a million miles away from the entrance to the actual zoo where they unbuckled Reggie from his car seat, wrestled with the pushchair only for the young boy to insist on walking and headed towards the entrance. 

“Monkey?” Reggie asked. He’d been naming animals the whole way there. 

“Yeah, we can see the monkeys,” Roy replied. He was in charge of pushing the pushchair (which was currently being used to hold all of the stuff they had with them) whilst Moss was holding the boy’s hand. 

“Lion?”

“Yep, they have lions,” Moss said with a smile. 

Reggie continued to name animals, and his godfathers continued to confirm that yes, they would indeed be able to see them. For Roy, he was pretty sure this was the first time he’d been to a zoo since he’d first moved to London for college at sixteen. The family he was staying with had insisted on taking him around all of the tourist spots in the city, and that had included the zoo. From what he remembered it had been okay, but the memory was a little faded. 

They headed straight towards the penguins. Helpfully there were routes posted on the floor, so the boys weren’t too worried about getting lost. Despite it being March the sun was shining and it was surprisingly warm, so after seeing a few animals they made sure to stop off to get an ice cream. This is when they learned that giving a one-and-a-half year old a Mr Whippy was a bad idea, as they spent the next fifteen minutes trying to find somewhere to sit to clean the toddler up. 

They spent the whole day at the zoo, looking at all of the different animals. Reggie seemed to love it, laughing and smiling at most of the animals. By the end of the day he was fast asleep in his pushchair, and Moss and Roy found themselves enjoying the gift shop all to themselves. 

“Dear Lord stop me, for I am about to sin,” Moss whispered as he looked at the wall of large stuffed animals. Roy had to stifle a giggle at that, pressing his hand over his mouth as he leaned down and checked on Reggie. The young boy was still fast asleep. 

“You can buy one,” he said. Moss pouted at him then. “You heard me, one .” After a moment though Roy melted, smiling at his husband. “Okay, fine, two. Pick one out for the baby too.” 

Moss’ eyes lit up and he grinned, leaning forward and kissing his husband gently before turning back to the wall. 

That’s when Roy heard the tut. It sounded like it was supposed to be soft, but it had turned out rather loud and that was why he heard it. He turned to see where it had come from. It was an older looking woman, probably in her late fifties or early sixties. The child she’d come with (presumably her grandson) was making a mess of one of the displays next to her. She was looking him up and down, her lip curling in disgust. Roy felt his heart sink. He recognised the look in her eyes from when he’d been a waiter. Deep down he knew he shouldn’t interact with her. He let go of the pushchair, murmuring to Moss that he was going to go and look elsewhere for a moment before going over to the woman. 

“I’m sorry, is there a problem?” he asked, plastering on his best customer care voice. The woman turned to look at him fully. If looks could kill, Roy was sure he would have dropped dead there and then. 

“Yes, there is, actually,” she said. She straightened out so that she was at her full height, and despite the fury vibrating through her entire being making him want to crawl into a hole and die Roy forced himself to stay at his full six foot and four inches. “I want to know why you thought it was appropriate to come here with your abhorrent lifestyle when this is clearly a place for children ?” 

“Because we have a child with us?” Roy replied, deciding to ignore the blatant homophobia for now. The woman scoffed, tossing her hair a little. 

“Disgusting,” she said. “When did they start letting people like you have children?”

“He’s not our-- wait a second, what do you mean ‘people like us’ ?” Roy snapped. He began to glare a little now, the anger building in the pit of his stomach. He forced himself to glance over to his husband (who seemed to be agonising over the stuffed lion or the stuffed otter now, holding each of them out to Reggie, who had woken up, to see which he thought was better) to calm himself down a little. 

“Faggots.”

Okay then. He’d been expecting something bad, but not a straight-up slur . He took a step backwards, unable to believe what he’d just heard. He opened his mouth to speak, but found himself unable to formulate words and shut it again, shaking his head before turning and going back to his husband.

“Pick one,” he murmured in Moss’ ear. 

“What?” Moss replied, confused. 

“Just pick one, we need to go. If it helps, the otter is way cuter.” 

It did help, as almost immediately Moss put the lion down and tucked the otter under his arm. They paid quickly and headed out of the shop, much to Moss’ confusion as he had been expecting them to spend a lot longer in the gift shop. 

Roy seemed on edge the whole drive home. He was gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were turning bright white, and he kept glancing around every so often. They didn’t end up talking about it until after they’d fed Reggie, given him his bath and put him to sleep in the travel cot they’d set up in the office room. 

“Serious,” Moss said as he sat down next to his husband on the sofa. Roy sighed, stretching out a little. “What happened in the gift shop?”

“A woman called us…” Roy sighed, trailing off. “I’m not repeating the word, but it wasn’t very nice. And it made me feel… weird.”

“What do you mean?” Moss asked. He tilted his head to the side. 

“Well… I guess I’m just worried,” the Irishman replied. “That that’ll be what happens all the time when we get our baby.”

Moss bit his lip. He glanced at the telly for a moment before looking back to his husband. 

“I--” he started to say, but the phone ringing cut him off. 

It was Jen. The boys glanced at each other: this could only mean one thing.

“Hi,” Roy said as he picked up. He clicked the phone on the speaker, putting it between them. 

“It’s a girl!” Jen said. She sounded tired but delighter. 

“Congratulations!” Moss said. 

“She was born about an hour ago,” Jen continued. 

“What have you called her?” Roy asked. 

“Jemima,” she said.

“That’s a lovely name.” 

“Isn’t it?” There was a pause as Jen sighed, and the boys found themselves wondering what to say. “How has Reggie been?”

“An absolute delight,” Moss said. Roy smiled, putting his arm around his husband. 

“We took him to the zoo. He’s fast asleep now, but he seemed to love it.”

“Thank you again for taking him, guys.”

“Seriously, Jen, stop thanking us!” 

They chatted for a little longer before the boys insisted on letting Jen go, saying that she needed to get some rest. She agreed with them there, and said her goodbyes, telling them to bring Reggie up to the hospital to meet his little sister the next morning. They promised they would before hanging up. Moss sighed as he leaned over, putting his head on his husband’s shoulder. 

“I love you,” he said softly. Roy smiled at him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. 

“Love you too.”

Chapter Text

Three weeks later

It was 4:37 a.m on a Tuesday when they got that fateful phone call. 

Obviously they were both asleep, curled around each other in the middle of their bed. Roy was snoring, Moss was doing very well at tuning it out. It was Moss’ phone that actually rang, and luckily Moss was the one who always got so nervous that something was going to happen with the company that he always kept the sound on his phone on. 

Which is why they were woken up by the racket of Moss’ phone at 4:37 a.m. 

Roy actually woke up first. When he realised what had woken him up, he groaned and poked Moss in the stomach in an attempt to wake him up. Moss just mumbled a little and rolled closer to Roy in his sleep. Roy sighed frustratedly, reaching over, grabbing the phone and not even looking at the Caller ID before answering. 

“Hello?” he said, his voice gruff. “Do you know what time it is?” 

“Roy!” 

The sound of Cassie’s voice destroyed any remnants of sleep still in Roy’s system. He sat straight up in bed, clutching the phone to his ear. 

“C-Cassie?” he stammered. “What—“ 

“Look, Acacia’s having the baby!” Cassie said, sounding harried. “Right now! St George’s Hospital, I will meet you there!” 

“But the baby isn’t due for another 4 weeks!” he exclaimed. 

“Both mother and baby are in good hands,” she assured him. “But your child is coming into this world, and they’re coming now . Hurry!”

And with that, Cassie hung up the phone. 

“Moss!” Roy hollered, shaking Moss’ shoulder as roughly as he could without hurting him. “Moss!” 

“What?” Moss mumbled into the pillow. He was clearly still ninety percent asleep. Roy shook him again. This made Moss open his eyes and groan as he looked up at Roy, an irritated look on his face. “Wha-a-a-a-a-at?” 

“We need to go!” Roy said frantically, jumping out of bed and running over to the chest of drawers, wrenching one open and throwing a t-shirt out of it onto the bed. Another followed, landing on Moss’ head. Moss removed it, watching his husband bemusedly as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. 

“Why?” he asked.

“The baby’s comin’!” 

Moss had a similar reaction to the news to Roy. He sat straight up in bed and started scrabbling for his glasses. 

“What!? But--” 

“They’re not due for a month, I know!” Roy said, grabbing a pair of jeans from the floor and pulling them on. “But they’ve decided they're gonna come anyway.” 

Moss was out of bed now, his glasses askew as he pulled his shoes out from under the bed and started to put them on, tossing Roy his t-shirt. Roy pulled it on, then gave his husband a look. “You’re not getting dressed?” 

“There’s no time!” Moss shouted from where he was bent over the edge of the bed. One shoe came flying out, and then another, both narrowly missing Roy’s head. “I have trousers on, I have a t-shirt on, I’ll be fine.” 

Roy nodded, too preoccupied with hopping around the room trying to put his shoes on to actually reply. Once shoes were on, they ran through the flat. Roy grabbed their coats and the baby bag (some newborn clothes, a dummy, just general newborn things) they’d had ready for a month, Moss got the keys and their phones. At the door they both stopped for a moment, embracing each other. 

“We’re gonna meet our baby,” Roy whispered. Moss nodded, kissed him quickly and opened the door. 

“Let’s do it, then.” 

***

Cassie was waiting for them at the front of the hospital when they arrived. Hopping out of the cab, Roy ran straight over to her as Moss paid the driver. When she stayed silent, he gave her a hopeful look. She was looking a little… grim. Roy could feel the worry building, heavy in the pit of his stomach. He glanced back, watching Moss run towards them. Cassie let him reach them before saying, 

“She’s here. Your daughter was born about half an hour ago.” 

They both gasped. Roy felt his eyes filling with tears as he clutched his husband’s hand, and a quick look at Moss confirmed that he was in the same state. Cassie smiled gently at them, but there was still that crease in her forehead. 

“Premature babies can have lots of health problems,” she said. She was keeping her voice soft, looking between the two of them. “And you’re perfectly within your rights if you want to drop the adoption…” 

“Why?” Moss asked, sounding fearful. “Does… does Acacia want to keep her?” 

“No, nothing like that,” she said quickly. “She’s insistent that she’s yours.” 

“So why--” 

“You could be signing yourself up for a lifetime of hard work,” she interrupted. “It… puts some people off.” 

Moss and Roy gave her an appalled look, shaking their heads. 

“She’s our baby,” Roy said. “ Nothing would make us not want her.” 

Cassie beamed at them, nodding. 

“You might not be able to hold her just yet,” she explained, gesturing towards the hospital. “She’s in an incubator, but it’s just a precaution, don’t worry. Everything seems to be fine with her so far.”

They nodded, glancing at each other almost as if for strength. Their baby girl was waiting for them in that building, the baby girl they’d been waiting for three months to meet!

“She looks a bit like you, Moss,” Cassie chirped as she led them into the hospital. Moss looked down, bashful, and Roy grinned. 

“Looks like she’s unbelievably pretty, then,” he said. Moss hit him gently, but he was smiling, a light blush on his cheeks. They followed Cassie through the labyrinth of whitewashed corridors, up what felt like a million staircases until they came to a set of double doors marked Neonatal Unit . They were about to go in, but Moss stopped dead just before Cassie opened the door. The other two stopped, turning to him. 

“Moss?” Roy prompted, squeezing his hand. “You alright?” 

Moss murmured something unintelligible. He looked thoroughly terrified, breathing shallowly as he stared at the sign on the door. 

“It’s normal to be nervous,” Cassie said reassuringly. 

“C’mon,” Roy said, tugging at his hand gently. “It’ll be alright, don’t worry.” 

Moss sucked in a deep breath, seemingly coming back to himself. Looking around, he got his bearings before turning to Roy and nodding. 

“Right, yep, it’ll be alright,” he said. Roy smiled. 

With that, they followed Cassie into the ward. 

When they approached reception, the woman on the desk recognised Cassie straight away. She waved to her, a big smile on her face. 

“The little girl is doing well,” she said once the three of them reached the desk. Cassie nodded, grinning. The woman turned away from her and looked at Moss and Roy. When she saw Moss still in his pyjamas, she let out a chuckle. “Eager to meet her, I see!” 

“Yep,” Moss said, addressing the floor rather than the woman. Roy squeezed his hand and gave the woman a smile. 

“He’s just nervous,” he explained. The woman nodded knowingly. 

“We don’t see two dads very often,” the woman said as she got up and came round the other side of the desk. “She’s a very lucky girl.” 

Roy nodded. She smiled at them, then started to lead them down yet another corridor. 

“Do we have a name yet?” she called back to them, turning down a corridor with low, gentle lighting. 

“Eliza Joan Gillian,” Roy replied. 

“Oh, that’s just lovely!” the woman said, turning to smile at them. “Where are the middle names from?” 

“Our mothers,” Roy said with a laugh. “They can’t say that we forget them after this.” 

The woman laughed, a bubbly fun laugh as they came to a stop by a door. Moss could just see through the door, and could see that the room had low ultraviolet lights, and contained about four intubators. By the other three were three sets of doting parents, watching their babies through the glass. The fourth incubator, the one furthest from the door, had only a nurse standing by it. 

That had to be their daughter. 

The receptionist held the door open for them, ushering them inside. All the nurses in the room glanced up. The woman pointed to Cassie and then Moss and Roy, mouthing something to them all. The nurses nodded knowingly. 

Cassie led them forward. Roy raised his hand in greeting to the other parents in the room, who all returned the gesture. Moss was staring straight at the incubator. When they reached the end of the room, the nurse by the incubator smiled gently at them, holding out her hand. Roy took it. 

“Congratulations!” the nurse said. Her voice was so low that they could barely hear it. “You have a gorgeous baby girl.” 

She moved out of the way so they could see the incubator. Creeping forward, the two of them lowered themselves into the chairs by the incubator. 

Then they looked in and saw their daughter. 

She was very small, her fingers tiny. She weighed four pound four ounces, according to her notes that were on the side of the incubator. There was a cannula attached to her tiny nostrils, providing her with extra oxygen, and a feeding tube too. There were countless wires and sensors attached to her, and everything was being monitored. Her eyes were closed. Already, she had a little hair, and Cassie had been right, it was just like Moss’. 

“She’s beautiful,” Roy breathed. Moss nodded in agreement, but he looked too emotionally overwhelmed to be able to actually speak words. 

“Do you want to hold her?” the nurse asked. Roy looked up at her, confused. Moss’ eyes stayed fixed on the baby. 

“Isn’t she--” 

“She’ll still be connected to everything, and it won’t be for long,” the nurse explained. “But sometimes human connection does wonders for these babies.” 

Roy nodded and opened his mouth to reply to her, but Moss cut in before he could. 

“I’d like to hold her.” 

The nurse beamed at him and nodded, coming forward and gently lifting the baby out of the incubator. She wrapped her in a blanket, then handed her to Moss. She rearranged the baby in his arms, showing him how to hold her just right so he didn’t accidentally knock out any of the wires. Once the baby looked comfortable, she backed off, a small smile on her face as she experienced her favourite part of her job. 

Moss looked down at the face of his daughter. She was yawning a little, her nose scrunching in the most adorable way possible. He could feel Roy’s hand on his arm as he leant over to see her. 

“God, she’s perfect, isn’t she?” Roy whispered. Moss nodded. Slowly, the baby’s eyes began to open. They were a gorgeous chocolate brown, and they were filled with wonder as she stared up at them. She didn’t even start crying, just gurgling a little. Moss smiled, bouncing her up and down a little. 

“Welcome to the world, Eliza,” he said. He glanced up at Roy for a moment, only to see that his husband was struggling very hard not to cry. He gave him a smile, and then turned back to Eliza. “We’re going to be your dads.” 

“You’re gonna have the best life, baby girl,” Roy said. His voice sounded sodden with tears. 

“The best life,” Moss agreed. “Only the best for our little girl.”

Chapter Text

Moss stood by the window of the neonatal care ward, watching the sun rise in the distance. They’d been on the ward with Eliza for nearly an hour and a half now, watching her in her little incubator. Not ten minutes ago the receptionist had come in with a trolley full of tea things, and had made everyone in the room a drink. The three other sets of parents had come up to him and Roy individually and introduced themselves very politely, asking what her name was, how early she was, the like. One father had asked them, upon learning that they were adopting Eliza, whether they had met her birth mother. When they had replied that they had, but she had decided that after the birth she would have no involvement other than the signing of the adoption papers, the father had looked very confused, but had nodded and accepted the answer. 

Now all of the panic and the rush had died down, Moss felt a little silly still being in his pyjamas. Everyone else in the room who hadn’t recently given birth was at the very least in sweatpants and a hoodie, and there he was in a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms and a ratty long-sleeved black top, which may or may not have had a pasta sauce stain down the front of it. He wasn’t even wearing socks! His shoes were rubbing rather uncomfortably because of that. 

He was so absorbed with staring into the distance that he didn’t even realise that Roy was there until his arms were around his waist, and his husband was planting a scratchy kiss on his cheek. 

“You alright?” Roy asked. His voice was low and husky, a bit like it was when he’d just woken up. 

“Of course,” Moss replied. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Roy didn’t answer, instead kissing him again and joining him in looking out of the window. 

“We should probably tell somebody we aren’t coming to work,” he said after a few minutes of quiet. Moss nodded, taking a sip of tea. 

“We should probably tell our parents,” he added. 

“God, that’s gonna be an interesting phone call,” Roy chuckled. Moss laughed too, smiling out at the world. Everything seemed somehow better now: colours were brighter, sounds were more musical, the weather seemed beautiful even though it was drizzling. However, Roy’s voice threw him off his train of thought. “Why don’t we just put a photo up on Friendface and wait for the phone calls to come to us?” 

Moss made a face, shaking his head. 

“Can you imagine how many messages we’d get?” he said. He smiled again when he felt Roy chuckle against his shoulder. “I think we should just tell our parents and Jen for now.” 

“Alright then,” Roy said, tightening his grip. They were quiet for a little while longer, and then Roy piped up, “you’re going to have to go home and change, y’know.” 

“I just don’t want to leave her,” Moss whispered. He looked back to where Eliza was sleeping in her incubator. 

“I’ll be here with her, and you can’t live in your pyjamas,” Roy said. Moss nodded miserably, knowing that he was right. Turning away from the window, he gave Roy a quick kiss on the lips before going back over to the incubator and grabbing his jacket from the chair. Slipping his hand into the incubator, he gave Eliza’s head a gentle stroke before turning around to see that Roy had followed him. 

“Do you want anything?” he asked. 

“Pick up some snacks?” Roy replied. “There should be some in the cupboard.” 

Moss nodded. 

“I’m going to go to my mum’s,” he said. “Tell her the news.” 

“Do you want me to send you the pictures I have of you and her together?” 

“Please.” 

They kissed again quickly, bid each other farewell, and Moss grudgingly left the room and started to make his way home. 

***

The apartment felt incredibly lonely without Roy there, Moss thought. 

It was very rare that Moss and Roy were apart. Occasionally, Moss would go and visit his mother on his own, and sometimes Roy would go and do the weekly shop when Moss wasn’t feeling up to it, but other than that they spent every minute of every day together. As Moss walked through the flat after showering and dressing, he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable at how quiet it was without Roy’s snores echoing through the flat. 

He shook his head as he went into the kitchen, checking the cupboards. Roy had been right, they had more than enough snacks in there. He grabbed some at random, stuffing them into his open backpack. Yawning, he decided to check his phone. He smiled at his lock screen: he’d already changed it to a picture of Roy holding Eliza. He had three miscalls and a multitude of messages from Jen, so he could only presume that Roy had already told her. 

It was just coming up to 7 a.m. He’d only been away from Eliza for an hour, but he was already itching to get back. No, he had to go and see his mother, though. She may not have been up, but he was sure she would be okay being awoken for something like this. Should he call ahead and let her know he was coming? No , he thought, grinning mischievously, I’ll make it a surprise . 

As he left the flat and locked the door behind him, he resisted the urge to give Roy a call. Eliza would be fine, right? Roy would have called him if something had happened. He was getting increasingly nervous now, as he walked out of their building and hailed a cab, climbing in and giving his mother’s address. Grabbing his phone, he knew he couldn’t resist any longer and called Roy. It rang for an uncomfortably long time before Roy picked up. 

“Hiya baby,” Roy said. “You alright?” 

“Yeah,” Moss replied, relieved. “Eliza… she’s alright, isn’t she?” 

“Of course she is,” Roy said. 

“Good, I was just worried.” 

On the other end of the line, Roy chuckled. 

“You’re gonna be a great dad, aren’t ya?” 

Moss could feel himself blushing as he mumbled something or other back. Was he going to be a good dad? It was a question he’d been asking himself for a long time. He’d never actually discussed it too much with Roy, because he knew his husband would just tell him he would be fine, and deep down he knew that too, but he couldn’t help but worry that he was going to irreversibly mess up his child. He wasn’t exactly the greatest role model in the world, he didn’t think. That wasn’t his parents’ fault: it’s just how he was. Was that going to be good for an impressionable child? He wasn’t sure if he was being honest. Hopefully Roy would mitigate any damage that was done. As long as he wasn’t awful , it would be okay. 

He hadn’t realised it, but Roy had been talking whilst he’d been thinking. He only noticed when he heard Roy say his name in a concerned voice. 

“Yep, I’m here,” he said quickly. 

“Ri-i-i-ight,” Roy replied, sounding sceptical. “Well, give my love to your mother and try to eat something whilst you’re there? You know what you’re like if you don’t eat.” 

Moss agreed, saying his goodbyes and hanging up just as the cab pulled up outside of his mother’s. He threw the cabbie some money, he wasn’t even sure how much, and scrambled out of the cab, half-running to the front door. However, he paused just before he knocked on the door. His mother was going to be fine with this, right? 

It was an irrational thought, he knew that. She’d been overjoyed when he’d told her they were adopting, and she’d never had a problem with him and Roy. He was just being silly, really, very silly. Probably new parent nerves kicking in. Shaking himself, he raised his fist and knocked on the door. 

It was opened very quickly, and the first thing that Moss thought upon seeing his mother was she does not look happy . Indeed, she was frowning, one hand holding her dressing gown closed and the other resting on the door. Her face softened a little when she saw who it was. 

“Hello, my love,” she said, hurrying to tie her dressing gown properly. “It’s… very early, isn’t it?” 

Moss nodded, scratching his head. 

“Well…” he said. All of a sudden, he had no idea what to say. Instead, he pulled his phone from my pocket, clicked it on and turned it to her. 

She screamed. She actually screamed . Moss winced, pulling his phone back and pocketing it again. She’d clearly seen the picture. 

“Oh baby!” she squealed, reaching forward and pulling him into a hug. Moss just let it happen, used to it by now. “Oh, you have to come in!”

She ushered him into the house, closing the door firmly behind him. Giving him an excited look, she gestured for him to follow her into the kitchen. She clicked the kettle on, and he found himself hoisting himself up onto the counter. His mother hit him gently on the leg, but didn’t tell him to get down. 

“So? Tell me everything!” she exclaimed.

Moss did, telling her all about the drama of being woken up practically in the middle of the night, having to rush to the hospital, that feeling of seeing her for the first time. 

“It was like a rush of… unstoppable love,” he said, accepting a cup of tea from her. “Does that make sense?” 

“Yes, my love,” she replied, smiling at him as she sipped her coffee. “I felt the exact same way when I saw you for the first time.” 

There was a pause as the two smiled at each other. “When are you bringing her round, then?” his mother asked, clapping her hands excitedly. Moss shifted uncomfortably. 

“She’s still in the hospital,” he said. “I think she will be for a bit longer.” 

She nodded, but she looked a bit shocked. 

Moss stayed there for maybe half an hour longer, allowing his mother to force some food into him. He knew he probably wouldn’t eat a proper meal again for a while, more out of nervousness than anything else. Eventually, though, he bid her farewell and promised to text her the ward number for her to come and visit.

He had to get back to his daughter. 

***

When he got back onto the ward, the first he noticed was that Roy was fast asleep. He was curled up on one of the chairs, head resting on the wooden armrest. Someone had thrown a blanket over him, and he looked quite at peace. Moss chuckled, going over and pressing a kiss to his husband’s head before settling down in the other chair. 

Eliza was sleeping too, her chest steadily going up and down, up and down. It was therapeutic to watch, he thought. As a side thought, he grabbed his phone and took a quick picture of her before flicking through the messages that Jen had sent. It was just a lot of frantic congratulations, and a request for a picture. Moss sent her one with a chuckle. 

“Morning,” a nurse said as they came over. Moss looked up from his phone at them, raising his hand in greeting. It was a different nurse to when he’d left. “I’m guessing you’re dad number two?” 

“Word gets around fast,” Moss remarked with a smile. “Yes, I am.” 

“Well congratulations on your daughter,” they said. “I’m just here to check her over, make sure she’s doing okay.” 

Moss nodded, moving slightly so the nurse could get to the incubator and watching as they lifted Eliza out, checking over the heart monitors and ensuring all the wires were in place. 

“You escaped the dreaded first nappy change,” they joked as they readjusted the cannula slightly. Moss laughed a little. He could only imagine Roy’s face as that went on. They chuckled too, lowering Eliza back into the incubator and adding nonchalantly, “it’ll be skin-on-skin time soon, though.” 

Moss cocked his head to the side, confused. They noticed, and made a small ahh noise. “In order to bond with the baby, we encourage parents to sit with their newborns on their bare chests. We usually do it at about ten in the morning, with privacy screens and all that.” 

Moss nodded, eyes transfixed back on his daughter. 

“Thank you,” he whispered to the nurse. He looked up at them for a second, trying to fix them with a sincere look. “For everything.” 

They smiled, a strange shininess coming over their eyes. Moss was confused. Why did they look so grateful?

“It’s our pleasure,” they replied. “Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee, something to eat?” 

“I was just at my mother’s, she made me eat there,” he said. 

“Was she pleased at becoming a grandma?” 

Moss chuckled, nodding. The nurse laughed too, promising to come back later when they weren’t busy before going over to the couple next to them to check their baby. 

“You’re adorable when you’re not paying attention, y’know.” 

Moss jumped, looking down to see Roy’s sleepy face smiling up at him. His blue eyes looked simply stunning in the early morning sunlight, and he couldn’t help but think how lucky he was that this beautiful, handsome, gorgeous man was his husband. 

“I could say the same to you,” he said, leaning down and giving him a gentle kiss. 

“You didn’t shave, did ya?” Roy said as he hauled himself into a sitting position with a groan. Moss gave him a slightly perturbed look. 

“Um… of course I did?” 

Roy let out a frustrated groan, playfully pinching him on the arm. 

“You know you look handsome with a beard,” he complained, folding his arms as Moss rubbed his arm, glaring at him. “Don’t look at me like that, you do!” 

Moss wasn’t sure how to respond, so instead settled for fixing Roy with a furious look. It didn’t work, because Roy just started laughing, reaching over and ruffling his hair. Moss made a small harrumph noise and turned back to watch his daughter sleeping. 

***

The hours slipped by surprisingly quickly, and it wasn’t long until it was 10 a.m. and the privacy screens started to go up one-by-one. As the ones furthest from the door, Moss and Roy watched as the other screens went up, getting closer and closer towards them like a killer in a horror movie. Soon, the angry cries of babies roused from their sleep started to fill the room. Moss bit his lip, glancing at Eliza. She was still fast asleep in her incubator: it seemed to be all she did. 

“Alright, who wants to go first?” the nurse from before asked as they approached, a smile on their face. They reached up and pulled the privacy curtain round, shielding them all from view. Moss and Roy exchanged a slightly alarmed look. They were both a little nervous about removing their tops in front of another person. The nurse noticed, giving them a sympathetic look as they removed the lid from the incubator and reached inside to pick Eliza up. “Don’t be nervous, nobody can see and,” they paused, winking jokingly, “don’t worry, I’m happily engaged!” 

They both laughed, nodding. 

“Congratulations,” Roy said, smiling at the nurse. “Moss can go first.” 

Moss shot his husband a nervous look. He wanted to hold his daughter, of course he did, but at the same time he didn’t want to accidentally wake her up from her peaceful slumber. Roy smiled encouragingly at him, nodding a little towards the incubator. Slowly, he unbuttoned his shirt, staring down at the ground the whole time. Roy reached over and put his hand on his thigh, squeezing gently to let him know that he was there. Moss gave him a small, shy smile. The nurse smiled as they watched the interaction. They had already lifted Eliza out, and was holding her in their arms. Once Moss was ready, they passed her over, showing him how to lean back and balance her properly on his chest. Once they had retreated, Moss rested a protective hand over Eliza’s back, who mercifully had not woken up during this whole thing. As Moss’ hand touched her back, she yawned and opened eyes to gaze silently up at her father. 

The two regarded each other with a strange sense of curiosity, the type you may see when a biologist encounters a new species. Infernally curious, but filled with barely-contained excitement. Roy watched the two people who he knew he loved most in the world as they examined each other. When Moss crinkled his brow a little, Eliza copied him. That made Roy chuckle a little. They were mirror images of each other. 

“I love the two of you so much,” he murmured, slipping his arm around his husband in order to lean over and take a closer look at their daughter. Moss looked up at him, smiling. 

“I love you too,” he replied. 

They kissed quickly, and Eliza picked that exact moment to start crying. 

***

It was two a.m, Roy had just drifted off to sleep and Eliza started crying. 

Again. 

Suppressing a groan, he opened his eyes again, sitting up in the chair. It was a bit of a relief to be sat upright, actually, since he was curled up in the chair, his head on the uncomfortable wooden armrest, and it had been doing his back bloody murder. She’d been so good during the day, barely making a peep. He should have known it was too good to last. 

He got up and stepped carefully over crinkly crisp packets and half-eaten tubes of biscuits to go over to the incubator. Sure enough she was crying, but he didn’t know what for . The feeding tube was still in, so it couldn’t be for food. He’d changed her nappy (with some help from the kindly on-duty night nurse) not half an hour ago. She’d slept most of the day away. Why now, when the sleeping conditions were bloody perfect, was she insisting on crying her little heart out? 

Moss, of course, was still asleep, sprawled starfish-style across one of the other chairs. Snoring, too, as if taunting Roy with his luck. Roy swears that his husband could sleep through a zombie apocalypse, and only wake up because of his internal clock or something else equally as ridiculous. He did his best not to glare at him, turning back to Eliza. 

“What’s wrong, baby girl?” he whispered. She didn’t respond--obviously not, she’s a baby--except with more crying. “Hey hey hey, shh.” 

Surprisingly, this did not work. She paused for a moment to glare at him (in a remarkably similar fashion, he noted, to how Jen often glared at him and Moss when she was particularly annoyed at them) before doubling back with her screaming. “No no no, don’t cry, don’t cry!” 

In desperation he reached his hand into the incubator, putting it within reaching distance of her. Immediately she reached out, her tiny fingers clasping onto one of his. As soon as their skin made contact, she stopped crying. 

He let out a quiet laugh. That was all it took? There was an inexplicable lump forming in his throat, and he tried to swallow it down but it stayed stubbornly there. He looked back down to his daughter. She was so beautiful, gazing up at him with wide eyes and kicking her little legs up like she was riding some sort of invisible bicycle. 

Before he knew it, he was blubbering away to himself in the darkness. 

Leaning his forehead gently against the top of the incubator, he let the tears flow but tried to keep it as quiet as possible. Almost everyone else in the room was either asleep or at the very least drifting off, you see. He didn’t really know why he was crying. Tiredness, that was probably all. His heart was going so fast he thought it was going to burst. 

“Roy? Are you crying?” 

He’d never stood up so quickly. With his free hand he wiped his eyes, but didn’t dare turn around in case he disturbed Eliza. 

“No?” he whispered in the least convincing voice possible. 

There was a bit of shuffling, and then Moss rested his head on his shoulder, wrapping his arms around his waist. Roy moved his head slightly, letting Moss lean up and press a kiss to his damp cheek. 

“What’s wrong, dear?” Moss asked, his voice still thick with sleep. 

“Nothing’s wrong ,” Roy said quickly. “I just… I don’t know.” 

They rested their heads together as Roy began to cry a little bit again. Moss let him cry, only reaching up occasionally to wipe the tears away. A moment later, there was a quiet knock on the wall, and they both looked up. 

It was the night nurse. She was watching them with concern in her eyes, and now she came forward towards them. 

“Is everything alright?” she asked. Moss looked up and nodded. 

“Yeah, we’re fine,” he said. Roy nodded in agreement, moving his hand and bringing it out of the incubator. 

That was his fatal mistake, as Eliza immediately began to cry again. 

Roy put his head in his hands, taking a deep, shaky breath. He was tired, he was hungry, and Eliza’s crying was making him already feel like a terrible father. All of a sudden there was a hand on his arm that wasn’t Moss’, gently pulling him away. He opened his eyes to see the nurse leading him towards the back room. Unable to stop himself, he followed, looking momentarily back at Moss before they went into the room and the nurse shut the door. Out of habit, he began to fidget with his wedding ring. 

“Is everything alright?” she asked, her tone soft and kindly. 

“Yep,” he said as he stared down at the floor. She gave him a caring yet stern look. 

“Nothing with… your husband?” she said. Roy shook his head quickly. “It’s okay, you’re safe here. If you tell us what’s going on--” 

“I’m just worried about being a bad father!” he blurted. He did not like where she had been going with that sentence, no-sir-ee. Moss was the best husband anybody could ever ask for! There was nothing like that going on. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” the nurse cooed, coming over and resting her hand on his shoulder. “Everybody’s worried about that at first.” 

“But the crying…” 

“She’s a day old,” she said. “At this point all they do is eat, sleep, poo and cry. And sometimes they just cry and there isn’t much we can do about it. When she’s out of the incubator it will get better.” 

“Really?” he asked hopefully, sniffing and wiping his eyes. She smiled and nodded, squeezing his arm. 

“I’m sure you’ll be an absolutely wonderful father,” she said. 

***

Eliza fell asleep somewhere around daybreak, Roy not long after. Moss, who had managed to sleep overnight, was left with the task of entertaining everybody who had taken it upon themselves to show up that morning. 

Moss’ mum came first, arriving at about eight o’clock along with her sister. Barbra was looking haunted and was holding an innumerable amount of shopping bags. His mother was beaming. 

“Hi,” Moss said, coming forward to greet them. Gillian rushed forward and threw her arms around his neck, standing on her tiptoes to reach him. 

“Congratulations again!” she squealed once she let him go.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling at her. “Roy and Eliza are both asleep at the moment.” 

“Fatigue already hitting?” she chuckled. He laughed, nodding. 

“I didn’t realise such a tiny thing could make so much noise!” 

“You were the same,” Gillian said. They started to make their way towards the back of the room, Barbra dutifully following them. “You’d think someone was trying to murder you, the way you used to scream! Isn’t that right, Barbra?” 

“Oh God, you don’t have to remind me!” Barbra laughed, shaking her head. “The week you and Jerry decided to bring him back to mum’s house was the worst of my teenage life. Why do you think I stayed at friends’ houses all week!?” 

“What’s with the bags?” he asked in a desperate bid to change the subject before the two got to nattering. Barbra made a face, and Gillian’s broke into an even wider smile. 

“I made you both some food,” she said proudly. “There should be enough for a few days in there…” 

“A few weeks, more like,” Barbra murmured. Moss suppressed a giggle, grinning at his aunt. She smiled back at him. “I told her yesterday when she called me, the boys don’t need this much food, but would she listen?” 

“They need to eat!” Gillian said in an indignant voice. “Anyway it’s nothing fancy, just some pasta, a few simple meals, a couple of roasts…” 

“You didn’t have to, really,” Moss replied, but took some of the bags off of Barbra anyway. He wasn’t about to turn down home-cooked meals, especially from his mum. He often said that the thing he missed most about living with his mum was her meals. “Thank you, Mum.” 

She smiled at him as they reached the back of the room. Moss moved to move the curtain back, but then stopped and turned back to his mum and aunt. 

“It looks a lot more serious that it is,” he whispered. They nodded solemnly. 

“Will we be able to hold her?” Gillian asked, his voice quiet. Moss shrugged. 

“Maybe. But maybe not.” 

She nodded again. Apparently satisfied, Moss moved the curtain out of the way and ushered them into the makeshift cubicle. 

Roy was curled up on one of the chairs, a blanket pulled so far over him that only his hair was visible. Moss put the bags he was carrying down next to the rest of their stuff, leaning over and pressing a gentle kiss to his husband’s head. Gillian gasped a little, shuffling forward to look into the incubator. Eliza had woken up whilst Moss had been gone, and was now looking up at them, her thumb in her mouth. Gillian put her hand to her mouth. 

“She’s beautiful ,” she murmured. Moss smiled, nodding and folding his arms across his chest. 

“Isn’t she just?” 

“Oh, she really is.” Gillian clasped her hands to her chest, beaming at him. “She’ll be a stunner when she’s older.” 

“Just so long as she’s healthy she can be whatever she wants,” Moss said. Barbra and Gillian nodded, smiling. There was a quiet knock on the wall, and then a nurse came into the cubicle. 

“Morning everybody,” the nurse said with a smile. They looked over at Barbra and Gillian with a kindly look. “Who have we got visiting today?” 

“Gillian Moss,” Gillian said, holding out her hand. The nurse took it with a smile. “We’re the grandparents. Well, grandma and grand-aunt.” 

“I bet it’s scary, your baby having a baby,” they said conversationally as they moved forward, taking the top off the incubator and starting to fiddle with Eliza’s wires. Gillian nodded with a chuckle. 

“He only moved out three years ago!” she remarked. They laughed, shaking their head. They turned to Moss.

“I think we can try taking the feeding tube out later,” they said. 

“R-really?” Moss stammered, his face splitting into a huge grin. “That’s just-- that’s just… wow. Thank you.” 

“Yeah, hopefully once we’ve done that we can wean her off the oxygen and get her out of NICU as soon as possible,” the nurse explained. “Then we’ll keep her in hospital for a couple of days for monitoring, and if all goes well, you can take her home!” 

Moss smiled at them. They smiled back before going over to the incubator and performing what Moss was now coming to recognise as the normal checks. 

“Are you feeling the tiredness yet?” Gillian asked. Moss shrugged a little, shaking his head. 

“Not yet, not really. Poor old Roy though, he’s exhausted. Apparently she was awful last night, but I slept through the whole thing.” 

“I was like that at first too, with my oldest,” Barbra said. “Give it a few weeks and you won’t remember what sleep is.” 

Moss nodded, glancing at the floor. He felt a little trepidation at that ominous warning. Gillian gave her sister a small glare, shaking her head at her. 

“It’s really not that bad,” she reassured him. Moss gave her a weak smile. 

“Gillian? When did you get here?” 

They all turned to see a disheveled Roy sitting up in his chair, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and reaching blindly for his drink. Moss went over and handed it to him, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. 

“About ten minutes ago, love,” Gillian said, giving her son-in-law a warm smile. “Tired?”

“Very,” Roy mumbled. Both Gillian and Barbara chuckled, glancing at each other quickly. Too tired to say anything, Roy forced himself up, looking over to the incubator. Sure enough Eliza was still sleeping peacefully. 

“They said they’re going to try taking the feeding tube out later,” Moss said quietly. Roy smiled at that, coming forward and putting his arm around his husband. 

Gillian and Barbra stayed for about an hour or so after this and eventually bid the boys farewell, promising to visit again soon. Once they were gone the boys found themselves sitting together by the incubator, eating all matter of shite from the snacks Moss had picked up the day before from home. Around lunchtime they were granted use of the microwave and heated up a couple of the meals Moss’ mum had brought. They had been lovely. Then, as promised, somebody had come along and gently removed Eliza’s feeding tube. Moss had fed her for the first time earlier. 

“I was thinking,” Roy said that night. It was around ten o’clock and somebody had put on some gorgeous nightlights in the wards, which gave off the impression of constellations gently dancing along the walls and ceiling. 

“Always dangerous,” Moss said. He always made this joke, but Roy still found himself laughing each time. 

“No, really, I was thinkin’ about maybe starting a blog.”

“You already have a blog.” 

“I have a Tumblr account where I shitpost about video games, that doesn’t count,” Roy said. He shifted closer to his husband. “I meant a proper blog, where we could talk about raising Eliza and stuff like that.” He shrugged a little. “I doubt anybody will actually read it, but it could be a good place to talk about anything that happens.” 

Moss thought about this for a moment, and then nodded. 

“Yeah,” he said. He smiled up at his husband. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

“And when she’s all grown up we can show it to her. Like a diary of everything we’ve done as a family.”

A family, Moss thought to himself. 

He couldn’t help but smile then.

Chapter Text

Over the next few days the boys found themselves adjusting to this new life they now had. Instead of video games and asking people if they’d tried turning it off and on again they were changing nappies and making sure that the bottles were properly sterilised for the night feed. They were moved out of NICU after three full days and were given their own private room on the neonatal unit. Roy in particular was very grateful for the bed in said room, mainly because it meant his back wasn’t trying to kill him anymore but also because he loved the bed controls on hospital beds. Eliza was doing very well. She was a little jaundiced, but the doctor said that this was relatively normal. Even so, they had placed her under a blue UV light to see if it would help. 

They had received lots of visitors. Jen had popped round (without Peter and the kids), along with Moss’ mum again and Roy’s sister Jessica, who happened to be in London that week for work. Roy’s parents had been desperate to come over and see their granddaughter, but as Roy had pointed out to them in one of the many, many phone calls he had shared with them if they came over now they wouldn’t really be able to see much of Eliza or them. They had agreed to wait a few weeks or so.

Eliza was now a whole week old. In Moss and Roy’s opinions she was the most beautiful thing in the whole world, and they had agreed they would do anything for her. Moss had now fine-tuned to Eliza’s crying, and whilst Roy was still waking up when she was crying he almost always found that Moss was already up and dealing with her. 

Because of this he was very, very tired. 

“I’ve got her,” Roy murmured as the little girl’s cries awoke them again. Since the curtains were closed, neither of them were quite sure what time it was. What they did know was that they were desperate to get some sleep. 

“No, no, I’ll do it,” Moss said. He could barely lift his head due to his tiredness, though, and Roy shook his head at him. 

“She’s fed and you changed her not ten minutes ago, she prob’ly just wants some comfort,” he said. He came back over and gave his husband a small kiss on the cheek. “ Sleep, sweetheart. It’ll do you some good.” 

Too tired to argue, Moss nodded, rolled back over and closed his eyes. 

Roy smiled at him before going back over and carefully picking Eliza up. He held her against his chest and she quieted a little, looking up at him. “Hey, honey. How you doing?” She gurgled a little as she reached up with a little hand, grabbing at his shirt. “Yeah? And you’ve been having a good day?” She made another small noise, wriggling in his arms. “Well I’m glad to hear it!” As she gurgled a second time, she tilted her head to the side. Roy noted that she did this in the exact same way that his husband did. “I’ve had a good day too, thank you for asking. Been looking after you, haven’t I?”

He smiled at her, holding her close to him. “You’ve tired your Pa out. Look, he’s over there, fast asleep.” With this he turned, tilting his daughter up a little so she could see her dad. “See? Asleep. Like you should be, little miss.”

At this Roy realised that he didn’t actually know what time of day it was. Carefully repositioning Eliza in his arms, he crept over and opened the blinds a little. Part of him was very thankful that it did indeed turn out to be nighttime, as it meant that the light wasn’t quite as harsh on his eyes. It was just the gentle shimmer of the streetlights and the headlights of the cars on the main road just over from the car park. The pediatrics nurse was standing by the other building against the wall again, like he had done for the past three nights. Roy wanted to know what was going on there. He looked down at Eliza. “Do you like the look of the outside?” She made a sweet little noise, rolling a little closer to him. “Yeah, it’s nice, isn’t it? I bet you’ll like it outside.” 

Sighing quietly, he held his daughter against him and turned back to the window. 

***

Eliza was relatively okay for the rest of the night, only crying when she needed her feeds. She was doing slightly better with her feeding now (they had been having problems towards the start of the week) and the two took it in turns to get up with her. By the morning Moss was feeling a little more awake, and the two were sat on the bed together watching daytime telly when the doctor came in. 

“Good morning!” the doctor said as he came forward. They murmured a quick good morning to them, and Roy reached up and clicked the telly off before they could get too distracted by it. “How’s the little madam doing today?”

“Yeah, she’s okay,” Roy said. 

“As beautiful and as loud as ever,” Moss added with a tired smile. 

“They do tend to be,” the doctor replied, laughing. 

After this the doctor checked Eliza over: all the normal stuff. When he finished he had a rather wide smile on his face. “I think you can take her home today,” he said once he’d set her back down in the cot. 

“Really?” Roy said. Moss grinned from where he was sitting by the window trying very hard not to fall asleep. 

“I mean, the common jaundice is clearing up perfectly and the other problems she experience before were most likely just shock from being born so early.” The doctor scribbled something down on his clipboard before looking back up. “You’ll have a health visitor once a week, check up on her, all the normal stuff. Have you got a way home?”

“We’ll get a cab,” Roy said. 

They gathered their things quickly. It wasn’t like they had much anyway. Most of the stuff they had was actually Eliza’s (and most of it was too big because of how small she was). Once everything was packed they gently strapped her into the car seat and headed out. They made sure to thank everybody profusely on their way out, and everybody wished them well whilst also saying they hoped they wouldn’t see them again with Eliza. 

The cab ride was quiet, the boys constantly leaning over and checking Eliza’s carseat. The cabbie complimented them on how pretty Eliza was, which they took with a smile. These compliments continued from everybody who saw them on their way into the building, which is why it took them nearly twenty minutes to get up to their flat. Moss then insisted on taking Eliza around every single room, giving her a mini-tour of the flat. 

“And here’s your room!” he exclaimed as quietly as he could with a smile as he held his daughter up. They’d taken her out of the carseat once they’d got upstairs. “You can do what you want with it once you’re older, but your dad and I decorated it for now.” 

“Finished giving her the tour then?” Roy asked as he came over, leaning against the doorway. 

“She seemed to enjoy it very much,” Moss said with a giggle. Roy smiled at him, kissing his husband on the cheek. 

“We did it.” 

Chapter Text

The first month had been, in the lightest way possible, hellish.

Not all of it. It would be inaccurate to say it was all hellish. Actually, most of the time it was lovely: Eliza was beautiful, they were loving being parents and it turned out that the excuse “there’s no-one to look after the baby” worked wonders on everybody when trying to get out of social situations. There was just one problem.

Eliza would. Not. Feed. 

Sometimes she would be okay. Probably about one in ten times she would feed perfectly well and there wouldn’t be a problem. It was the other nine times out of ten that were the problem. 

“This is the… eighth formula we’ve tried,” Roy said to the health visitor. Eliza had been out of the hospital for three weeks at this point, and Moss was currently sitting with her attempting to feed her and not get baby sick on the sofa (an endeavour which usually ended in failure). “We’ve tried all the normal stuff, the hypoallergenic stuff, the lactose-free, everything we can think of, and she just spits half of it up.” 

“Is the spitting up worse at any particular points in the day?” the health visitor asked. 

“Not particularly. It’s either constant or not at all.” 

The health visitor glanced over to Eliza. She seemed to be fussing again, Moss gently trying to encourage her to take the bottle. 

“She’s a little under what we’d want weight-wise,” the visitor said. Roy’s eyes widened a little. “It’s relatively normal for preemies, but still something to keep an eye on.”

“Is there anything we can do?” the Irishman asked anxiously. Over on the sofa, Moss made the pained noise which Roy knew meant that Eliza had just chucked over either him, the sofa, or both of them at once. The health worker let out a long sigh, shrugging a little. 

“Try feeding her less, but more often,” she said. “See if that helps.”

“Okay.”

“How is she sleeping?”

“Surprisingly well, when she’s not crying for food,” Roy said with a pained chuckle. 

“Whereabouts is she sleeping?”

“Cot, in our room.” Here Roy chuckled again, glancing over to his husband and daughter. Moss was desperately dabbing at the sofa with a muslin cloth, attempting to give Eliza a cross look but failing rather miserably at it. “Moss read enough scary articles online about SIDs to get him following every NHS guideline to the letter.” 

“That’s good,” the health visitor said with a warm smile. She took down a few notes before closing her notebook and standing up. She offered her hand, and Roy shook it. “Well, you two seem to be doing a great job.” 

“Thanks,” Roy said, with some difficulty. For some reason a huge lump had formed in his throat at that. The visitor smiled at him again, and he had to look down for a moment. “We’ll see you next week?”

“Same time as always!” 

Roy made sure to see her out (he wanted to make a good impression, after all) before going back to the living room. Moss was still dabbing at the sofa. 

“Here, let me take her,” the Irishman mumbled as he sat down. Moss nodded, handing her over. Roy positioned her gently in his arms. “As awful as it sounds, at least she did it whilst Kathy was here.”

“Evidence,” Moss said with a snort of laughter. Roy chuckled, nodding. He gazed down at his daughter. 

“God she’s beautiful, isn’t she?” he whispered. 

“She is,” Moss murmured in response. He let out a long sigh, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. 

“Tired?” Roy asked. 

“Exhausted.”

“You were up with her for ages last night, weren’t you?”

“She didn’t want to go back to sleep, then by the time she did go back to sleep she woke up hungry again.” Moss sighed again, leaning back against the sofa. “Babies.”

“Babies,” Roy agreed with a giggle. “Well, she’s quiet now. Get some sleep love.”

Moss nodded. Roy leaned over to kiss him, but he moved out of the way. 

“I haven’t brushed my teeth in about two days,” he said with a slightly guilty smile. Roy tilted his head forward, kissing him anyway. 

“ Sleep, love,” he said. Moss nodded before getting up and padding into the bedroom. Roy watched him go before looking back to his daughter. She stared innocently up at him. He sighed. “What are you gonna do with you, missus?”

In response, she threw up on his t-shirt.

Chapter Text

Two months later

Over time, Eliza did improve with her feeding. Moss and Roy had managed to find a formula that she didn’t entirely hate, and so Moss was now spending much less time shampooing the sofa cushions. They had also learned how to take the night feeds in shifts, which had actually been more difficult for Moss than it had been for Roy: he was so anxious about her all the time, despite the fact that she was just there across the room from them that he had to be coaxed into letting his husband take some of the night feeds. The lack of routine and an outside life, however, was surprisingly stifling, and when it came to Eliza’s three month birthday and their sixteenth consecutive day of not leaving the flat (apart from to go on the balcony), they knew they had to do something. 

“When’s Jen off maternity leave?” Roy asked one night. They were watching telly and eating some sort of takeaway in their bedroom, a now far too familiar routine for them to be in. Eliza was fast asleep in her crib in the corner. 

“A couple of months, I think,” Moss said. He put his container to the side as he brushed the crumbs off his fingers. “She said she wanted to take a little extra time with Reggie and Jemima.”

“Right, right, yeah.” There was a pause. “And us?”

“What about us?” Moss asked. He shifted onto his side in order to look at his husband better. 

“When are we gonna go back?” Roy said, as he too shifted a little. “I mean, it’s been three months now. We can take up to another nine months off, but…” 

“The routine,” Moss continued for his husband. Roy nodded. “Are you worried about getting Eliza into a routine?”

“In a way, it’s almost like I want her to get used to us not being there every second of every day,” the Irishman replied. Moss’ eyes widened a little and he quickly backtracked. “We’ll still be there, obviously. We’ll be just downstairs. But it’ll be nice. To wear proper clothes and talk to adults who aren’t Miguel the delivery boy from the pizza place.” 

“It’ll be nice to fix computers again,” Moss mused as he leaned back against the headboard. He smiled over to Roy. “Do you think you can manage to remember what to say after so long away?”

“Is it… have you disconnected the mouse? No, no, that’s not right.” Moss began to giggle as Roy pretended to look confused, as if he was searching his mind for the right words. “Oh yeah, it’s have you tried… have you tri-i-ied … God, you know, I don’t know.” 

“Have you tried turning it off and on again!” Moss laughed. 

“Ah yes, of course, that’s it,” Roy said. The two shared a giggle. As Eliza yawned and squeaked in her cot, the two fell silent for a moment. Once she fell quiet again they started to talk. “Seriously though. It’d be alright to get back to… all that.” 

“You think Eliza will be okay in the nursery upstairs?” Moss asked, sounding a little anxious. Roy tilted his head to the side slightly as he glanced over to the crib. 

“The best people are up there,” he said after a moment. “Jen made sure of that.” 

“You know I just worry about her.” 

“Of course you do, you’re her dad!” 

The two smiled at each other. Moss shifted so that he was tucked under his husband’s arm, wrapping his own arms around the Irishman’s waist. In return Roy pressed a kiss to the top of his head. 

“We’re both her dads,” Moss murmured. Roy smiled a little. 

“Yes. Yes we are.” 

***

As soon as they walked into the office, it felt like they’d never been away. Neither of them could deny the slight excitement in the pits of their stomachs as they got themselves and their daughter dressed that morning. It was a perfect excuse to put Eliza in one of those sweet outfits they’d got off Amazon, anyway. They’d dropped her off at the nursery upstairs (with some fretting from Moss) and then had made their way to the basement. 

Moss took a deep breath as they walked in, his eyes fluttering closed. It smelled of dust, stale coffee and printer ink, just like always. Perfect. He smiled to himself, opening his eyes to look at his husband. Sure enough Roy was already flopped in his desk chair. He looked rather pleased with himself. 

“Oh I’ve missed this,” the Irishman said. 

“Never thought I’d hear you say that ,” Moss remarked as he sat down. Roy chuckled, nodding. 

“Neither did I.”

They fell into a comfortable silence as they booted their computers up and set about starting their work day. It was a familiar routine, one they seemed to be doing on pure muscle memory. Once everything was set up, drinks had been made and things seemed in order, they glanced at each other. “We’re gonna go and get her, aren’t we?” Roy said. 

“Probably,” Moss replied. 

“Just one thing first? For me?”

Moss stopped. He narrowed his eyes at his husband a little. 

“What?” he said cautiously.

“Can we have a nap?”

Moss’ face split into a grin.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

***

Their “nap” quickly turned into a six-hour solid sleep, during which not even Richmond being their normal creepy self (and seeing how close they could get to the boys’ faces) could wake them. When they awoke it was mid-afternoon, and that of course led to Moss getting into a bit of a flap as they had supposed to be going up to see Eliza at lunchtime at least. To placate his husband, Roy went upstairs and fetched Eliza from the nursery. He got stopped a million times on his way back down by people wanting to see her, but eventually managed to worm his way back downstairs. 

“Here she is,” he said as he entered the office. Moss jumped up, coming over and giving their daughter a quick look over. Eliza smiled up at them. 

“She’s okay,” he breathed out in relief. 

“Of course she’s okay,” Roy said, a little perturbed. “Everybody up there is DBS-checked, board certified, all that crap. Best of the best.”

“But they’re not us .” 

The Irishman softened a little at that.

“I get that,” he replied, his voice gentle. Eliza mewled a little at them and he repositioned her in his arms. “That nap was… brilliant, but maybe we can keep her down here with us? Just until she gets old enough to understand where we are. Hell, I showed her her toes the other day and she was surprised.” 

“I am more than okay with that,” Moss said. The two smiled at each other. Leaning in for a kiss (being careful of Eliza of course), their lips had been just about to touch when Roy’s mobile rang and broke the moment. 

Roy fumbled around, trying to steady Eliza and reach for his phone at the same time. After a moment it became apparent that this was not going to work and Moss reached forward, slipping his hand into his husband’s pocket and taking the phone out. 

“Hello?” he said as he answered. 

“Moss?” It was Cassie. She sounded… well, he couldn’t quite place how she sounded. “Where’s Roy? I’ve been phoning all day, why didn’t you pick up!?” 

“Sorry, um, we went back to work and, er, we, um…” Moss stammered. Over to the side, Roy rolled his eyes and came over. 

“Sorry Cassie, we were both conked out,” he explained. The social worker let out an audible sigh of relief. 

“Thank God, I thought something had happened to you.” A pause. “Look, it’s about the court date?”

“What, to confirm the adoption?” Roy asked. Moss inched forward a little, biting his lip. 

“Yeah. They weren’t expecting you for at least another week or so, realistically a month, but then madame came along early and it all got thrown into disarray,” Cassie said. “But a slot opened up.” Both of them couldn’t help but gasp a little at that. Moss glanced down at their daughter, who was nestling comfortably in her father’s arms. “Half twelve tomorrow. Do you want it?” 

“Of course!” Roy exclaimed. His sudden change in voice volume seemed to upset Eliza, as she screwed her face up and began to cry. “Shit, sorry.” 

“Don’t apologise,” she said warmly. Roy gave Moss a quick peck on the cheek before going to the other side of the office and setting about calming the wailing baby in his arms. 

“Sorry, she just… doesn’t like loud noises,” Moss said. 

“How is she?” Cassie asked anxiously. It had been nearly three week since the social worker had made a visit now. 

“Perfect as ever. Still gaining that weight she needs bit-by-bit.” 

“Well, slow and steady wins the race.”

“But that defeats the whole idea of a race?”

Cassie chuckled, and Moss couldn’t help but smile. Part of him loved making people laugh… even if he didn’t really understand why they were laughing sometimes. 

“Well, I’ll be looking forward to seeing her tomorrow,” she said. Moss nodded before realising she couldn’t see him and verbally confirming. “And dress nicely! It’s a big day.” 

***

They did, in fact, dress nicely. They dressed so nicely that when they turned up to the courthouse, it looked like they were going to a wedding, a funeral, divorce court or all three. Eliza was in her pushchair, dressed in a sweet yellow babygrow and floral shorts, with a headband to match. Cassie was waiting for them outside the building, and greeted them with such enthusiasm that it actually took them aback a little. The three chatted for a little (and Eliza was passed around to everyone), before she let them go. 

They were both understandably nervous, both because it was a court (something neither of them had ever done very well in) and well… this made everything official. Obviously for them it was official right from the very start, but this made it official official, didn’t it? Yeah, they were okay to be nervous. 

There were a few people sitting in the courtroom, and they took a quiet seat towards the back. It was family court, which meant there were various scenarios playing out. There was the clearly divorced couple, glaring at each other from opposite sides of the room, the young mum clutching her toddler’s hand who was probably applying for more child support, the couple looking nervous. They sat for what felt like an age, enough time for Eliza to fall asleep anyhow, before they were finally called up in front of the judge. 

“Names?” the judge said. He sounded almost bored and he wasn’t even looking up at them, instead shuffling through the papers on his desk.

“Um, Roy Trenneman and Maurice Moss,” Roy said. “We’re here for--”

“Adoption papers, yes?” the judge cut in. He looked up, fixing the two with a certain look over the top of his half-moon glasses. Roy couldn’t help but squirm, the man’s look reminding him far too much of his old headmaster at school. “They’ve all been signed by the birth mother, you just need to sign where indicated and it’ll all be sorted.” 

Roy nodded, and went forward to get the papers, but before he could grab them Moss piped up. 

“That’s it?” he said. Roy turned back to see his husband holding their daughter on his hip, one hand protectively on the back of her head. 

“Is what it?” the judge asked. He narrowed his eyes as he removed his glasses. Roy let out a small sigh, looking to the floor. 

“We just sign some papers and she’s ours?” 

“That is how this works, Mr Moss.” 

“Aren’t there any checks?”

“The court has access to all of the health visitor and social worker visit records. If there’s any suspect that a child is in danger an adoption can be put on hold.” 

“Still…”

“Leave it, love,” Roy said. He turned back to the judge. “Just ignore him, he’s just nervous.”

“No, I’m worried about this!” Moss yelled. 

“Mr Moss, keep your voice down or I will put you in contempt of court!” the judge snapped. Roy had been expecting his husband to shut up at that point, but, sod’s law be it, he didn’t. 

“I’m worried about all of the children you could potentially be endangering! Don’t you think it would be better to--”

“I warned you!” the judge interrupted. Roy sighed heavily, putting his head in his hands. “Out, and into holding.”

The Irishman slipped over, taking Eliza from his husband. 

“I told you to leave it,” he hissed. 

“Save it for the car,” Moss whispered back as a court official grabbed his arm and started to lead him away. 

“He’s not gonna get into trouble, is he?” Roy asked anxiously as soon as Moss had disappeared. The judge laughed a little, shaking his head. On her father’s hip, Eliza started to chew on her fingers as she fixed her gaze on the judge. 

“No, he’s not.” Roy let out a deep sigh of relief, shoulders slumping. “Just thought maybe it would remind him to keep himself to himself sometimes.”

“He does, normally.” 

The judge laughed again. 

“So, sign the papers and hand them in to the clerk on the front desk on the way out. The adoption certificate should arrive in the next couple of weeks.”

After a few more courteous words, the judge banged his gavel, dismissed Roy and called up the next case. The Irishman couldn’t help but chuckle to himself, adoption papers tucked under one arm and his daughter balanced in the other. 

“Come on,” he murmured to Eliza. “Let’s go and get your Papa from jail.”

Chapter Text

It didn’t take too long to get Moss out of holding, given that “holding” looked suspiciously like an old disused cupboard. Eliza reached out to him as soon as she saw him, and grumbled until Roy handed her over to him. She calmed then, and they made their way home, Roy lecturing his husband the whole way. 

After this everything settled down. They got up, they went to work, they came home again. The basement was being steadily filled with baby things: cribs, toys, all that stuff. Everything was… well, normal. 

And unfortunately, normal meant having to do interviews. 

Normally Jen would take charge of any official interviews. It made sure neither of the boys said something stupid and that Jen could vet anything that went out without having to do any extra work. The problem was, Jen was still on maternity leave, would be for another few months or so, and some magazine or other wanted to do an interview. With them. 

“You have to do it,” Jen told them. They were round at her house, Eliza and Jemima sleeping soundly whilst Reggie ran riot in the living room. 

“We’ve barely been back a week,” Roy complained. “Can’t we just lie and get out of it?”

“You could,” she said. “But they’ll just keep coming back and back and back. Trust me, I should know.” 

“So we do the interview?” Moss said. Jen nodded. 

“You have to.” She sighed, taking a sip of her tea as she glanced over to the children. “Just get it over with. Quickest way to do it.” 

Roy grumbled a little, folding his arms over his chest. Jen couldn’t help but chuckle. Even parenthood hadn’t matured him. Moss was sitting next to him looking a little uncomfortable. “Don’t make a big deal out of it,” Jen said with a shrug. “If you make a big deal, they’ll make a big deal. Just… talk.” 

“Yeah, great advice,” Roy muttered. 

***

“It’s stupid,” Roy mumbled. It was the next day and they were at the office, waiting for the journalist to show up. Well, Moss was waiting. Roy was sulking. 

“What’s stupid?” Moss said. He tried to turn to look at his husband, but Eliza (who he was in the middle of feeding) started to gripe and he stopped. 

“This!” Roy said. He threw his comic down onto his desk, swivelling to look at his family. “All this… bureaucratic crap! Why is any of this needed!?” 

“Who knows?” Moss sighed. His husband had a tendency to get annoyed over the littlest things, and whilst he usually found it rather endearing Eliza hadn’t been the best the night before and he had spent most of the night walking around the flat trying to settle her, so he wasn’t exactly in the best mood to listen to Roy moan about something they couldn’t change. 

“It’s so stupid !” 

“It’s only one interview.” 

There was a pause. Roy watched his husband, who didn’t look up from their daughter, in confusion. 

“You don’t have a problem with this?” he eventually said. 

“Why would I?” Moss answered quietly with a small shrug. 

“You’re normally the first person to have a problem with this sort of stuff!” Roy exclaimed. He huffed to himself, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up on his desk. “You hate talking to people if it’s not necessary--”

“Well it is necessary, isn’t it?” Moss snapped. Roy hadn’t been expecting this as he sat up and nodded, suitably subdued. When Moss looked up, he softened a little. “Sorry. I’m just…”

“Tired, I know,” Roy said softly. “It’s okay, love.” 

Moss smiled slightly at him, and that’s when his desk phone rang. 

“Can you…?” he asked, trailing off as he jerked his head towards the phone. “I’m just a bit…”

“Yeah, course,” Roy said quickly. He came over, kissing his husband’s forehead before leaning over and grabbing the phone. “Hi?... Yeah, hi Stephanie…” As he listened to whatever Stephanie was saying, he gave his husband a strange look. Moss shrugged. Then Roy’s eyes widened. “He’s not supposed to be here for another twenty minutes! Can you--...” Roy sighed. “Yeah, yeah, alright, send him down.” 

Not even saying goodbye, Roy slammed the phone down. 

“What is it?” Moss asked. 

“That bloody reporter is here already! Twenty fu-u-u…” Roy saw Moss give him a look and quickly changed his words. “Flipping minutes early!” 

“Well Eliza will just have to stay down here,” Moss said. “I’m halfway through feeding her, I can’t just put her upstairs.”

“I know, I know,” Roy said hurriedly. He groaned, putting one hand over his eyes. “Great. Two idiots, a baby and a reporter. This is going to go well.” 

In the two minutes it took for the journalist to get downstairs, Roy seemed to go through all five stages of grief. Moss watched him curiously with a small smile on his face. Eliza was too busy eating to notice either of her fathers too much.

The journalist was quite young, fresh-faced but still with that sneer that a lot of them who visited them seemed to possess. He greeted them cordially, shaking Roy’s hand and going to shake Moss’ but being met with a small smile and a shake of the head. 

“Is this your daughter?” he asked. Roy stiffened a little at this question, his protective nature kicking in. 

“Yes it is,” Moss replied. 

“Didn’t realise I’d be babysitting as well as doing an interview today,” the reporter sneered. Roy saw red then, forcing himself to go over to his desk and take a few deep breaths to calm himself down. Moss, however, didn’t seem to realise. 

“Don’t worry, she’s quite content to sit in her bouncer,” he said breezily. 

“Isn’t she a bit young for that?” the man said. Once again, Roy decided it was best if he remained at his desk and quiet. 

“Oh no, I checked with the health visitor, the GP and the internet, and they all say she should be fine,” Moss replied. 

“How old is she?” the journalist asked as he whipped out a notepad. Roy noticed and moved forward to stop his husband from saying much more, but he was too late. 

“Just over three months now.”

“And you don’t think putting a three-month old baby, a baby who was premature no less, into an environment like this is dangerous?”

“There isn’t anything dangerous down here.” Moss paused, thinking. “Maybe the soldering iron, but that’s locked in the top cupboard and only Roy has the key since the fire incident.”

“The fire incident?” the journalist asked, sounding intrigued. Roy was violently shaking his head but Moss didn’t seem to notice. 

“Inci dents , technically,” he said. The journalist began to scribble and Roy buried his face in his hands, knowing Jen was going to kill them. “Don’t worry, they were complete accidents and a long time ago.” 

“And they let you be in charge of a kid?” the journalist asked in disbelief. Moss nodded, nonplussed. “Jesus.”

“Is that--” Moss started to say, but Roy cut him off. 

“You should go,” he said. 

“I--” the journalist started, but quickly fell silent as Roy approached him, standing over him with a furious look on his face. 

“I think you have somewhere to be, don’t you?” he hissed. The journalist, nodded, and stammered out a quick excuse before gathering his things and rushing out of the room. Moss watched him go in confusion. 

“That was nice,” he said after a moment. 

Roy let out a low chuckle, kissing his husband on the head and making a mental note never to talk to journalists again.