Chapter Text
The soundboard thing is a cover.
Skeppy doesn't think he's ever been this nervous about recording a video with Bad. This is two huge halves of his life coming together, and for once he really has no idea how they're going to react to each other. Sam is a toddler, so while it's a possibility she might decide she doesn't like Bad, Skeppy doubts it. And Bad has a soft spot for children a mile wide, but -
Skeppy hadn't told him earlier. That's the issue.
He'd only not mentioned Sam because of a stupid, split-second decision. She'd happened so fast, had come to his life in a whirlwind and grown up even faster; when he'd finally resurfaced online after taking her in, Bad had asked him if everything was alright and he'd just said yes. Sam was still new and scary, a literal baby, and he wasn't even sure if he was going to keep her.
Skeppy looks down at her now, sat curiously in his lap. They've sat in this position plenty of times before, mostly while Skeppy plays. Sam likes Minecraft: she knows to be quiet when Skeppy tells her to, but outside of streaming and videos she likes to excitedly reel off what blocks she can see. It's only a matter of time before she knows more block names than he does, honestly.
It's pretty lucky she likes Minecraft so much, since that's what Skeppy does for a living - but he can only watch her light up at the sight of Bad's skin so many times before he gives into the urge to show her off to the real thing. Sometimes she points to him and goes, "Bad!" so happily, like Bad is her best friend as well as Skeppy's.
He wants this. He wants to stop having to watch what he tells Bad about what he's done over the week - he wants to be able to say, I took Sam to the park yesterday and she picked me a flower, to have someone to talk to about how brilliant she is.
This is the trial run for that. A dumb soundboard.
He runs a hand through his hair. He's done this plenty of times before, in theory, but none of them have involved telling Bad about his literal daughter.
He should have told Bad from the start. He shouldn't have lied that first time, or that second time, or kept doing it even though it was killing him inside - he should have eased Bad into it, maybe, or admitted who the crib was for the first fucking time Bad saw it in the background.
Sam tugs at his hoodie sleeve. Skeppy blinks down at her and she's frowning up at him, as deadly serious as a little kid can get.
"You're being silly," Sam tells him.
"What am I being silly about?"
Sam struggles for a moment. "Stuff," she settles on. "Bad stuff."
This is one of those rare moments where Skeppy wishes Bad's name was anything else. "Bad stuff as in naughty, or bad as in Mr. Badboyhalo?"
"Mister - Mr. Bad."
He runs a hand through her hair. "You're right, sweetheart," he admits. "I'm being silly about Bad. Thank you for reminding me."
"You're welcome," Sam says, carefully enunciating it in her three year-old voice. It's adorable.
His computer pings as Bad sends a flurry of impatient messages. Skeppy startles, rushing through starting OBS and recording a few panicked sound bites. He'll run out of things to say way too fast, he knows, but he thinks that might be the inevitable fallout of never recording the soundboard stuff ahead of time.
He runs Sam out and sets her up with something to do. He's trying to be both fast and thorough, making sure nothing sharp or not for toddlers around, but when he gets back to his computer Bad has left the teamspeak completely anyway.
Despite that, Bad is still gracious about the long wait when he comes back. At least, he's gracious right up until Skeppy caves and pokes at the sleeping bear: after that, the video is a familiar merry-go-round of bickering, laughing, and being completely thrashed in bedwars by kids.
Bad gets up in arms about the girlfriend part of the soundboard. Not in a jealous way, like the comments will probably take it: Skeppy knows him more than well enough to hear the surprised hurt hidden in his voice, the confusion about why Skeppy hadn't told him. Guilt churns in his stomach already, but he mutes before he can back out.
"Okay," he says to the viewers. He rolls his shoulders, pretending his fake confidence is real. "I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna click the baby button." A quick, short breath. "I'm gonna click the baby button now!"
He plays the recording of Sam crying. An apology spills from his lips automatically, even though he knows it's just audio: he rolls with it anyway, making a show of cooing in the hopes it'll be more believable.
On Bad's end, there is a very long silence. And then:
"Is that a baby there?!"
Skeppy pretends he doesn't hear. His heart is racing, focus completely on what Bad is saying. There's a soft grumble, the familiar disbelieving "Oh my goodness," but that's not much of a positive or a negative reaction.
"Skeppy," Bad says, louder in the thrill of realisation, "Do you have a kid?"
"Oh my god," he says, letting a shade of his dread filter into his voice. "My mic wasn't muted."
"Is that what the crib was about?" Bad gasps.
Skeppy almost laughs. He'll be honest. He'd known Bad had been deadly curious about the crib thing, but he hadn't expected him to remember it so easily two years later. There's a minute where Skeppy blurts apologies and Bad repeats "You have a kid," over and over, and then Bad breaks through with -
"You're a daddy!"
Skeppy has to force his voice into a screech to not laugh. "No, I'm not!" he shrills. "No, it's not like that, you don't understand -"
And Bad listens to him. He's incredulous, yes, but he listens to what Skeppy's saying, the two year ago thing that's deliberately vague, the whole it's-four-people's thing that is maybe too specific.
If Bad will listen after Skeppy has been annoying him for ten minutes straight, then he'll listen in a serious conversation.
Skeppy relaxes. The prospect of actually playing bedwars and not just standing on top of the bed defence in panic seems much more appealing: he makes his way to mid, trying to throw Bad onto another topic with the soundboard.
Bad doesn't let it go that easily. Skeppy nearly takes way too much fall damage, then tunes back into "- a child for years -"
Skeppy starts hitting someone with a sword and rolls his eyes.