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The sound of crying wakes Erik.
A glance at the clock next to the bed says it’s only a few minutes after midnight and he sighs, pushing himself up out of bed, careful not to wake Charles.
He walks through the room, opening the door that connects their room to the nursery. With the wave of a hand, the door closes behind him, trying to muffle the sound to let Charles sleep on. There’s no reason for them to both be up all night, after all.
“Shh, shh, Bienchen, Davey” He whispers softly, picking the little boy up. He holds him against his shoulder, gently swaying back and forth while rubbing his back.
When the boy doesn’t even begin to calm down, he checks his diaper. When that comes back clean and dry he starts counting out how long it’s been since he was last fed. Only around three hours, but Charles was commenting that he was fussy and didn’t drink all his bottle. Worth a try.
He goes to the door leading to the hall and uses his powers to open and close it. He had thought that the walk, the slow movements, would help to calm him down some as well, but that didn’t work.
As he warms the bottle, he keeps whispering to the little boy.
The thought occurs to him as the bottle is about ready and he presses his hand to David’s little forehead and frowns. Just to make sure, a kiss is placed on his head next and the result is the same. He’s certainly a little warm.
Grabbing the bottle, Erik checks it before placing it in David’s mouth. “We’ll check your temperature soon and see what we can do about it,” He says softly. In the dim light, he looks at the little boy’s face as he spits the bottle out to start crying again.
Erik sighs and carries David back up to the nursery, bottle in his free hand. He does what he can to keep the sound down, not wanting to wake up the whole school with the sounds of a baby crying.
Though, it seems like David has other plans. And maybe Charles’s lung capacity as well.
He walks into the nursery, closes the door, and sits down in the rocking chair carefully with David against his bare chest. Once again, he tries the bottle only for the boy to take a couple of drinks before it’s out of his mouth and he’s back to screaming.
Rummaging through the little chest they keep between the rocking chair and crib, Erik finds what he calls the sick baby kit. He manages to get the kit open with his powers and gets the thermometer out.
With the bottle placed safely on the chest, Erik checks his temperature. Slightly high but nothing to be too concerned about.
If only it was as easy to not worry as it was to say he shouldn’t be worried.
He places it to the side and searches for the kit for the medicine they keep in there and the medicine dropper. It’s a careful balancing act, between the medicine, the dropper, and, of course, David, wiggling around and screaming but, eventually, he manages to get the dropper into his mouth and carefully give him the medicine.
The supplies are put to the side. He can put them up later, he decides.
For a while, he just rocks, hoping the little boy would settle and the medicine would start to work.
It starts off slowly. The screaming turns into just crying, the wiggling around to the occasional kick or wave of his hand. Then the hand settles, fingers in his mouth as the crying slowly ends.
Erik relaxes in relief, but doesn’t dare move for fear of waking him up. He decides he’ll just give it a few minutes to ensure he’s asleep before trying to move.
Charles wakes up, the bed is empty and he lays silent for a moment, listening. Silence.
He slides himself from the bed into his chair before rolling towards the nursery. He pushes the door open and can’t help but smile at what he sees.
His husband is asleep in the rocking chair, hair messed up, clearly exhausted, with their son laying on his chest. Erik hadn’t even bothered to put his shirt on, Charles can’t say he blames him, really, cuddling like that is one of his favorite ways to bond with the little boy right now.
And their son, hand in his mouth, drooling on his papa’s chest. His cheeks are a little red and that makes Charles frown as he moves closer. His hand lays on Erik’s arm, rubbing gently.
“Darling, wake up,” He whispers softly, his other hand going to run through Erik’s hair, half trying to fix it, half messing it up more. “Erik, love.”
A groan leaves Erik as he slowly moves and Charles doesn’t miss the wince as he moves his neck which had been bent at a weird angle.
“Time is it?” Erik mumbles as his eyes slowly open.
“Around four. You looked a little uncomfortable,” Charles admits, “Why don’t you go to bed? Is Davey okay?”
“He was crying, couldn’t get him back to sleep. He had a slight temperature earlier. I gave him medicine around twelve thirty,” Erik explains as he slowly stands, keeping hold of the bundle in his arms, not wanting to jostle him.
“Give him here, I’ll check again and get him back to bed. You could use some proper sleep,” Charles whispers, arms going out and Erik lowers the boy into them.
“Night, Liebling,” Erik whispers, kissing Charles on the cheek.
“Night, love,” Charles whispers back with a smile.
As soon as Erik leaves the nursery, Charles sets out to check his temperature again. Still a little high but he wouldn’t think it was high enough to give him more medicine.
Instead of asking and interrupting Erik, Charles reaches out with his powers, checking and is happy to see the number is lower than it was. A good sign, he decides as he rolls over to the crib and lowers the side to get Davey settled in for the rest of the night.
He places a kiss on the soft brown hair covering his head, “Sleep well, darling,” He whispers to him, getting him wrapped up and raising the side of the crib back into place.
Looking around, he can admit the room needs a bit of cleaning, from the bottle left out for a few hours to the baby kit, but that can wait a few more hours. He’ll clean it when he wakes up at a more reasonable time.
For now, he heads back into the bedroom for, hopefully, another three hours of sleep at least. But, if David wakes again, it’ll be his turn and he’ll happily get up for his little boy at any time of night with only the issue of wanting him to feel better.