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Hugo gnaws his fingernails, tearing into the sensitive underbed without really noticing. It’s a mindless habit he picked up when he was six and has carried all the way into his twenties, only really prominently coming out when he was particularly nervous.
And right now in this emergency medic center, he’s pretty fucking nervous.
The receptionist has been clack-clack-clacking away at the keyboard for so long that he’s certain she’s typed a novel by now. He wants to storm over there and chuck that keyboard through the window, but getting arrested at Disneyworld is not on his bucket list.
Happiest place on earth, and he’s about to shit a brick.
There’s suddenly a hand on his shoulder and another on his wrist, pulling it away from his mouth. Varian frowns, but in that concerned, compassionate way that Hugo sort of hates.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Get me a bandaid then,” Hugo snaps back. “Bet this place is full of ‘em.”
Varian shoots him a level look, one that says You Will Be Apologizing To Me Later For Using That Tone, but gets up and asks the receptionist for a first aid kit. Hugo feels bad about the snippiness in his voice. He knows his boyfriend knows him well enough not to take it seriously, to recognize when he’s stressed. The added guilt on top of everything else is almost too much. He feels like he's going to explode.
The smaller boy comes back holding a few bandaids. Of course they’re Disney themed. The mouse has to stay on brand. “You get Donald in punishment.”
Hugo snorts as Varian sits back into the crappy metal chair next to him, taking his hand and wrapping up his bloodied fingertips. “Jokes on you, Donald’s my favorite.”
“Cinderella is your favorite.”
Hugo feigns offence. “I told you that in confidence! How dare you.” Varian snickers quietly as he crushes up the peel-away wrappers and shoves it in the pocket of his jeans. He was probably going to forget to take it out and it would gunk up their washing machine. Ugh.
Hugo’s gaze automatically drifts to the door where the doctor is, and his stomach starts to twist all over again.
Varian touches his knee, a grounding presence that pulls his attention away from the door. “She’s probably fine, Hugo. You don’t need to panic.”
“I’m not panicking.”
“You are,” Varian insists. A small smile creeps on his lips, smug enough that Hugo wants to slap it off. Preferably with his own mouth, but he doesn't think that clacky receptionist would approve of them aggressively making out in public. “I don’t think I’ve seen you this worked up in a really long time. Not since Yong made fun of your roots growing out.”
Hugo whines, hands flying up to his scalp. “Don’t bring that up!”
Varian’s laugh gets cut off when the door to the back clinic opens. A female doctor steps out, hand in hand with a small brunette toddler. The child’s chubby face is flushed red and she rubs at one bleary green eye.
Both of them are on their feet before the doctor even finishes calling Fitzherbert. Varian stoops low, sweeping the five-year-old up into his arms with a practiced grace that Hugo could never hope to achieve. Dawn lets out a miserable little whine, pressing her face into Varian’s neck.
The doctor meets Hugo’s eyes. “She’s dehydrated and has a 102.5 fever, but should be fine after some fever reducers and sleep. Take her straight back to the hotel and try and get her cooled down. If it doesn’t break by tomorrow, I’d consider taking her to the nearest hospital.”
Hugo feels the knot inside his chest loosen a little. “So ice cream for dinner?” He cringes, realizing a second too late that cracking a joke about his almost-niece collapsing in the middle of Magic Kingdom probably wasn’t the best bedside manner.
The doctor takes this in stride. “First time?”
“What, in Disney? No, I’ve been before.”
“I meant your child getting sick.”
The laugh that bursts out of Hugo is hysterical and wheezing. “What? Oh god. No. Fuck no, Dawn isn’t our kid.”
The nurse looks startled for a moment before Varian cuts in, “She’s my niece. And we should probably get her back to the room, shouldn’t we, Hugo?”
His words are polite, but the underlying tone of shut up idiot makes Hugo do exactly that. He dutfilly follows Varian out of the medical center, back into the Florida heat. It’s sweltering today, not unlike yesterday, and probably like how tomorrow will be if they decide to stay. It’s honestly a miracle Dawn made it halfway through the day before she collapsed with a fever so high.
“I know, I know,” Varian murmurs softly, rubbing at her back as they walk. Dawn must have been mumbling in his ear. “We can go on the teacups when you’re feeling better, okay? Right now we gotta get you back to bed.”
Once they’re back in the hotel, Varian tells him to go get some ice for her to chew on. He does, and when he gets back to the room with a full bucket, Dawn is in her Little Mermaid pajamas in the center of the king bed, knocked out. Varian is perched on the edge of the mattress, chewing on his bottom lip as he looked at his phone.
“They probably won’t get my messages until they port again,” he mutters. He’s referring to Eugene and Rapunzel, who are on a cruise in the Bahamas celebrating their eighth wedding anniversary. Impeccable timing. Baby blue eyes dart up to meet his. “Think we can handle a sick kid for a few more days?”
Hugo scoffs despite the way his stomach tightens with nerves. “’Course we can. We were valedictorians, we can handle a sick little kid.”
“I was valedictorian,” Varian points out in a prissy tone. “You were salutatorian.”
“By just a fraction of a few points in my GPA.”
“Those few points kept you under me.”
Hugo swoops down, pressing a few kisses against Varian’s exposed neck. “I can think of other ways to keep me under you.”
He grins when a shiver runs down his boyfriend’s spine. Mission accomplished. Then, Varian kicks him. “My niece is literally right there.”
“So? I’ll stuff a sock in your mouth to keep you quiet.”
“Ew,” Varian snickers, shoving him away. “Your sweaty socks are not sexy.” He moves to the other side of the bed, crawling up so that he’s laying on his side. He presses the back of his hand to Dawn’s forehead and frowns. “I just feel bad, y’know? This was her first time here. It was supposed to be such a magical trip for her and it’s ruined.”
Hugo slides up the other side of the bed, mimicking his boyfriend’s pose by laying on his side. Dawn is inbetween them, clutching at the tiny Stitch plushie she bought within the first fifteen minutes of them arriving here.
Hugo mindlessly rubs one of Stitch’s soft ears between his bandaged fingers. “It’s not your fault.” His voice is low enough not to stir the kid, but honestly, she’s so worn out he doubts a scream will wake her up. “Not like you could have prevented her from catching a fever.”
“Yeah,” Varian frowns. “But I could have kept her from getting so dehydrated.”
“It’s Florida in August, Sweetcheeks. She was bound to get a little dehydrated.”
Varian still looks a little irritated. He’s probably cooking up some nasty self-loathing thoughts that Hugo will have to smother out of him later. He pulls out his phone and starts messing with it—probably trying to send a text through to his family again. The temptation to pull out his own phone is pretty strong, but Hugo finds himself staring at Dawn’s sleeping face instead.
“Do you want to have kids?”
The question is so abrupt that Hugo cringes as soon as it’s out. Varian actually drops his phone in surprise, the device slamming into his nose. It would have been funny in any other situation, but then Varian is looking at him, and Hugo feels his body tense.
“Um. What?”
Hugo licks his dry lips. “Do you want to have kids.”
Varian squints. “Like, with you? Or in general?”
“Both.”
His boyfriend shoots him a funny look, one that says he’s probably lost his mind. Maybe he has. “Um. I mean, I haven’t really thought about it that much.”
“But we’ve been dating for a little while,” he says, suddenly unable to look Varian in the eye, “don’t you think we should be talking about it?”
“Hugo, we’re not even engaged. Don’t you think there are a few crucial steps we need to figure out before we start entertaining the idea of offspring?”
Varian is right. Hugo knows that he’s right. They’d been dating for four years, and children were a serious discussion for a later date. But he can’t help replaying the way Varian scooped up Dawn like she was nothing, quietly cooed to her, made her feel safe and comfortable. The way he could make her laugh and brighten her mood with a well timed joke or tickle under her chin.
If he wanted to be, Varian would be a good dad. Himself? Not so much.
There’s a beat of silence where the only noise is the soft wheezing breaths of the toddler between them. Then Varian hits him with a gut punch, “Is this about your mom?”
Hugo nearly chokes. “N-no—”
“It totally is, isn’t it.”
Caught, Hugo lets out a huff and collapses back onto the fluffy pillows. He glares at the ceiling. It’s got glitter on it. How obnoxious. “Okay, so what if it is just a little. I just—don’t want to get into a situation where you really want a kid and I don’t but I say yes to make you happy, and then I’m literally the worst raising a tiny human and become really cold and cut off from my emotions and we end up falling out of love and you divorce me—”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Varian leans closer to him across the pillows, a hand brushing against his face to snap him out of it. “None of that is going to happen.”
And everything in Hugo wants to accept this, but the deeply engrained insecurities that take the form of what his therapist calls a dysfunctional upbringing prevent him from taking it at face value. “How do you know?”
Varian shrugs one shoulder. “Well for starters, you can’t hide your emotions from me. I’ve already cracked you like an egg, there’s no going back now.” Blue eyes are alight with mischief and adoration, and it makes Hugo’s heart thump a little harder.
“There’s no telling what our lives could look like in ten years,” Varian continues softly, weaving their fingers together on the pillow above Dawn's head. “Maybe I’ll want kids. Maybe I won’t. I don’t know yet, and there’s no shame in not having that figured out. But it’s not really something we need to be seriously considering right this second.”
Hugo squeezes his eyes shut and feels the hand squeeze his. “You’re just...good with her, and I don’t know if I’d be good my kid.”
Varian kisses his teeth. “Well Dawn’s not my kid, which means I can get away with a lot more. And taking care of her when she’s got a high fever is kind of freaking me out. I don’t know if I could stomach the stress of having to do this full time.”
“You mean you don’t want to be a stay at home dad?”
“Oh please, if either of us was going to be a trophy husband, it would be you.” And then, Varian’s smirk softens into something more sincere. “Regardless of if we have children or become old frumpy librarians with ten cats, all I know is I want you in my life.”
Hugo’s not blushing. He’s not. “Jeez, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were about to propose to me.” Varian’s eyebrows raise, and Hugo’s stomach flips. “No. No fucking way, you weren’t actually planning to...” He sits up, twisting to look at his boyfriend dead on. “Seriously? At Disney? Oh my god. That’s so tacky.” His grin feels wide enough to break his face.
“It’s not tacky, it’s romantic. Plus we’d get a shitton of free stuff.”
“A proposal for the free stuff? A man after my own heart. Where were you planning on doing it?”
“Splash Mountain.”
“Liar.”
“Fine, you’re right. On the It’s A Small World ride.”
“You bastard,” Hugo grins, grabbing his boyfriend by the shirt and drawing him forward. Their lips slot together in a kiss, and it makes the rest of the tension in Hugo’s shoulders drain away, leaving nothing but stupid excitement and giddy warmth behind. Varian was going to propose. Propose to him. For some, insane, weird reason. He’s never felt more deliriously happy in his life.
Varian hums softly as they break apart, turning his gaze back on Dawn. He absentmindedly shifts some of her messy brown hair off her clammy forehead. “She was in on it, too. I was gonna have her hold my phone. She’s gonna think she’s the reason why she doesn’t get an Uncle Hugo at the end of this trip. And the surprise is ruined now that you know.”
“Know what?”
“Ha, ha.”
The giddy energy makes Hugo feel like his body is vibrating on the bed. It’s hard to keep still. “Okay, okay. I promise I won’t say anything. As soon as Dawn is feeling better we can do your sneaky proposal scheme. And maybe,” Hugo lets his grin widen, “I’ll even consider saying yes.”