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“So what’s she… do?”
“Who?”
Lucius looks up in bewilderment. He gestures wildly across the room, where Baby is sitting on the floor between the two beds. “What’d you mean wh- the baby!”
“Oh,” Frenchie replies as he goes back to scribbling in his notebook with a quill. He shrugs. “Just kind of coos and stuff.”
Lucius makes a confused noise where he’s sat on the edge of Jim’s bed with his knees to his chest. He had crawled out of his hiding spot in the walls and directly into Jim’s bed, but they had smacked him and cursed until he’d taken his shoes off and agreed to sit on top of the blankets. They’re gingerly cohabiting now, Jim man spreading at the top of the bed with their journal and a scary, brooding look on their face that Frenchie is primarily ignoring. Neither of them are incredibly large, so Jim’s manspreading seems to have no impact on Lucius’s curled up position on the edge of the bed. The brooding, however, has him leaning away.
Frenchie is laying on his stomach in what is now his bed, doodling casually on a notebook he’d stolen from the pile of books he’d been ordered to toss out. Baby’s bassinet had been brought over and placed at the end of it, along with a trunk of her clothes and a few incidental items that Frenchie really hasn’t looked too closely at. She hasn’t asked for them, so he figures it’s fine.
The man (baby) in question is sitting in the middle of the room on a rug and playing with a cannonball which she’s sort of slapping at it attempting to roll, and a chunk of bread, which she’s been gnawing at like a feral puppy all night.
She coos softly and Frenchie gestures to her with his quill, shooting Lucius a pointed look.
“Okay, but doesn’t she do… I don’t know, baby stuff?” Lucius asks.
“Baby stuff?” Frenchie repeats.
Lucius makes a vague hand gesture towards the baby. “Like… I don’t know, I’ve never met a baby.”
“She just kind of crawls around and makes noise,” Frenchie admits. “Yesterday she bit Jim.”
“Pendajo,” Jim mutters towards the baby.
Baby takes the insult in stride by shoving the bread into her mouth to attack it with her sharp puppy teeth. It seems to take a significant amount of effort, because she grunts and screws up her face in concentration.
“Maybe you should get her something softer,” Lucius suggests.
“Like what?” Frenchie asks.
Lucius stares at Baby in barely contained disgust as she attempts to bite a piece of the bread off. His nose scrunches up while he thinks. “Soup?”
“Soup?” Jim deadpans. “Soup was all you could come up with?”
“Well, I don’t know!” Lucius snaps. “I’m not a baby expert! Soup’s easy to eat!”
“You want the baby to eat soup,” Jim clarifies.
“It’s easy!” Lucius reiterates.
Jim snaps their journal shut and sits up sharply, digging into the many folds and creases of their jacket as they go. They eventually produce a knife, short and clean, and sit on the edge of the bed with their elbows on their knees. They lean forward and make a psps noise to get Baby’s attention, at which point they hand out the knife.
Delighted with the offering, Baby crawls towards them with the ambition of a particularly committed soldier until she reaches Jim. Jim is offering the knife out handle first, so Baby can grab it easily and twist to sit down again. She waves the knife about in a manner that would be described as both vicious and extremely excited, making bizarre little panting noises while swinging the knife around.
Lucius watches in absolute horror. Jim, on the other hand. Turns to fix him with a smug look.
“Imagine that’s a spoon. With soup.”
“I’m not imagining anything, because you gave a knife to a literal baby,” Lucius replies sharply.
Jim looks back down at her and shrugs. “She likes it.”
“Look at her, she’s having fun,” Frenchie agrees.
“You two are fucking insane,” Lucius tells them in utter disbelief.
Jim scoffs. “You’re the one who wanted to give her soup!”
“She can’t eat the fucking bread!”
Lucius gestures to the bread that has, in fact, been abandoned on the floor.
“We’re on a pirate ship, there’s not much else we can give her,” Frenchie reminds him. His choices when entering the kitchen behind the new cook’s back had been bread or hardtack and he didn’t have very long to make his decision.
Baby flaps the knife about and makes a soft bubble blowing sound to herself. She’s drooling, but puppies drool all the time, so Frenchie thinks it’s probably fine.
“Oh my god,” Lucius lifts his hand to his eyes, but peers through his fingers at her in horror. “She’s definitely going to stab herself. I can’t watch this.”
Frenchie sighs heavily, cursed with motherhood now that he’s obtained a baby, and drops his quill so he can snap his fingers towards her. She looks up at him with her massive green eyeballs as if she’s suddenly remembered he’s in the room.
“Hey,” he tells her. “Don’t stab yourself, you’re going to freak out Lucius.”
He points to Lucius, which draws Baby’s unnervingly large eyes to him, and then she makes an absolutely thrilled shrieking noise at the sight of him. Lucius responds with a stressed whale call of sorts. She drops the knife to the rug as she begins crawling towards him with truly impressively large hand-steps and Lucius tucks his knees closer to his chest as he leans away from the edge of the bed, eyeing her warily.
Once she gets close enough, she slaps her tiny hands to the bed frame, then grabs the edge of the blanket and hauls herself up to her feet, where she wobbles unsteadily, keeping the blanket fisted in her tight grip. With her free hand, she teaches up and pats around the bed, but can’t quite reach Lucius where he’s crunched up tightly like a dead spider on the end of the bed.
“Oh god,” Lucius says, as if he’s watching a shark on a rampage in blood infested waters. “What do I do? What’s it want from me?”
Frenchie shrugs. “Just give her something. She likes to hold hands.”
Lucius continues sitting stiffly on the bed, barely even breathing, as if he hopes she’ll lose interest if he stays still enough. She does not. Her little hand continues patting around towards him as she stretches up onto her toes and grunts in her attempt to reach him. When she fails, she falls back into her heels and peers up at him with a displeased whine, adjacent to a cry.
Lucius visibly does not like that sound as he flinches and makes a disgusted face. “Why is it making that noise?”
“She just wants to hang out, man,” Frenchie explains.
“Ugh,” Lucius replies, affronted that the baby has chosen to harass him out of the room's three occupants. “Stop looking at me, go hang out with your mom.”
He points to Frenchie, but this only serves to show his hand to Baby, who reaches towards it and flexes her fingers grabily. He seems to realize his mistake as he rips his arm back to wrap it around his legs again, but the mistake has already been made. Baby whines again and bounces in displeasure.
“Oh, flor pequeña,” Jim coos mockingly. They lean over and grab Baby by the back of the shirt and haul her up onto the bed, putting in very little effort to ensure she’s prepared for the vertical journey so she winds up faceplanted into the mattress with a gurgle of surprise next to Lucius, who shoots Jim a murderous glare.
Baby takes the change in altitude in stride as she lifts her head to take stock of her new surroundings. She seems entirely uninterested in Jim, who is smirking at her mischievously, and extremely invested in continuing on her journey to get to Lucius. In an impressive show of strength, she props herself up onto her chunky little baby hands and knees and sort of flails out towards him. Lucius yelps like she’s still got the knife and is headed for his throat, but Baby merely giggles at him.
It’s a sweet sound, there’s no denying that, which is probably why Lucius decides to go stiff as a board instead of shoving her away or launching himself out of the bed. Baby approaches him with the veracity and excitement of a Fox kit. She grabs the leg of his dirt pants between her fingers and hauls herself back onto her feet so she can pay at Lucius’s knee with her free hand and grin at him, her nose scrunched up and all six of her teeth on display.
Lucius stares back at her in a combination of uncomfortable abhorrence and trepidation.
“She’s not going to kill you,” Jim points out.
“I know,” Lucius mutters. “But she’s… icky.”
Frenchie will not deny that she is a bit icky. She’s drooling and bitey and kind of repugnant when she wants to be. He’d had quite the time attempting to change her diaper, but Jim had instructed him on exactly what to do from across the room with their hand over their nose. Apparently growing up in a nunnery had provided more useful skills than stabbing and maiming, though they seemed hesitant to provide further assistance. Likely attempting to avoid getting dragged into taking care of the baby.
Tentatively, Lucius unwraps his arms from around his legs, keeping his eyes carefully focused on Baby and her drumming abilities as she slaps his knee. She watches him right back like a shark circling a startled raccoon, as he slowly reaches out towards her with one single finger outstretched. Luckily, it’s his flesh and blood finger. Frenchie is hesitant to consider what she’d do with the wooden one.
Unluckily, Baby accepts the offering. She squeals and reaches up until she can wrap her entire hand around Lucius’s finger.
Lucius scrunches up his nose in disdain. “Why is it… sticky?”
They both stay silent, so Lucius lifts his head to dart his eyes first to Jim, who offers nothing, then to Frenchie, who shoots him a placating smile.
“Guys?” Lucius asks, more panicked this time. “Why- why is the fucking baby sticky?”
“I think they just are sometimes,” Frenchie admits. He looks at Jim, who nods at Lucius very seriously. When Lucius looks down at the baby again, they turn back to give Frenchie an incredulous fuck if I know sort of shrug, which he returns. It’s his first baby, he has no idea why it’s sticky.
Baby shakes Lucius’s finger about, much like she had with the knife, while he watches her like she is, in fact, about to kill him. From his position on the other bed across the room, Frenchie has the displeasure of watching Baby’s mouth open as her vice grip locks around Lucius’s finger.
“Oh! Don’t let her-“ he manages to get out. He’s too late. She shoves his finger into her mouth and bites down.
“Ow! What the fuck!” Lucius manages to rip his hand away from her to clutch it against his chest, shooting the baby a disbelieving, deeply offended glare, before he peers down at his one good pointer finger, thoroughly dismayed.
“She’s a bit feral,” Frenchie admits.
“She fucking bit me!” Lucius holds his finger out to show off the wound which, while red, isn’t even bleeding. Frenchie thinks he’s being dramatic, but he just scrunches up his nose apologetically. Lucius huffs and looks down at the baby, who has gone back to wobbling unsteadily while smacking the shit out of his knee. “Right, you’re done. We’re not doing this anymore.”
He reaches out with both his hands quickly and grabs her by the waist, but seems unsure what to do with her after that. Uncomfortably, he picks her up and holds her off the bed a few inches, awkwardly shifting her around while she shoves her own hand into her mouth and waits patiently for him to decide what to do. He visibly cringes, but decides she’s better off on the floor, and leans forward to deposit her back on the rug next to the bed.
She manages to keep herself upright for a second after he lets go of her and rips his hands back, but eventually falls onto her butt with a little oof! on impact.
The change in scenery has little to no effect on her life.
“Go… go bug your mother,” Lucius waves her off. “Frenchie, get your weird feral baby away from me.”
Frenchie takes pity on him finally and closes his notebook as he sits up. He snaps his fingers to get her attention, then grins at her when she looks.
“Hiya!” He says cheerfully. She coos at him and tilts her head. “Quit bugging uncle Lucius.”
“Uncle?” Lucius echoes, more horrified than he had been when she’d bitten him. He touches his face gently. “Am I of an uncle age? Oh god.”
Frenchie ignores him, but Jim reaches over and grabs his shoulder solemnly. “Hombrecito… you’re of a grandfatherly age.”
“Oh god,” Lucius commiserates for a second time.
Baby seems to remember that her favorite person is in the room, because she lets out an excited huff and immediately starts crawling towards him with immense determination. He leans down so he can scoop her up when she gets close enough, setting her on his hip and letting her grab onto his free hand to her heart’s content. He’s smart enough to keep his fingers away from her mouth now.
Admittedly, she is suspiciously sticky.
He’s a bit better at holding her now, thanks to some exasperated gesturing from Jim, so he can prop her up with one arm and still keep her mostly stable. Assuming she doesn’t thrash much. Still, it’s better than holding her upside down by the ankles. She’s grown accustomed to being held by him too and seems to enjoy the texture his beard, which he doesn’t mind too much.
She nuzzles close when he picks her up and rubs the top of her head against his chin. He thinks she likes the feeling of his beard against her skin where her hair is still sparse and growing in. She relaxes against him and plays with his fingers while babbling quietly to herself, not quite words but definitely close.
Frenchie leans back against the wall behind him and lifts his eyes to find Jim is shifting back to their designated half of the bed, trying and failing to hide a fond smile behind their hair, while Lucius is watching the baby snuggling into Frenchie with a soft look on his face. Too peeved to smile, but definitely captivated by her as almost everyone aboard the ship is.
“She’s kind of cute, I guess,” he admits begrudgingly. He meets Frenchie’s eyes. “When she’s, you know, over there.”
“Uh huh,” Frenchie agrees.
She’s only been aboard for just shy of two weeks, but she’s overall a good natured baby. Even Izzy had admitted as much. Despite being her biggest obstacle, Izzy had watched her entertain the crew in the mess hall during dinner one evening by consuming stew with her bare hands and muttered, “it’s… not entirely useless, I guess.” when Frenchie had caught him looking. Which is the highest compliment Frenchie’s ever heard him give to anything, so he thinks Izzy’s probably coming around to having her on the ship.
Besides, she didn’t cry much. When she did, Frenchie was pretty good at guessing what she wanted and providing it quickly, so her sobbing sessions didn’t last too long. When he didn’t know what she wanted, Fang had pointed to her gums, explained that growing teeth probably hurt, and told Frenchie to rub some rum on her mouth. That seemed to placate her. Plus, Frenchie got free rum out of it, so he figured stealing a baby had its perks.
It’s late now, and she seems tired after harassing Lucius, as she wraps her hand around his thumb and rests her head on his chest.
“You’re not going to keep calling her Baby, are you?” Lucius asks suddenly.
Frenchie shrugs a bit. “That’s her name.”
“You cannot name a baby Baby,” Lucius scoffs.
“I didn’t, her name is Baby McBabyFace,” Frenchie explains. The name, as it always does, draws an aggressive sigh out of Jim, but no additional commentary.
Lucius, tragically, hasn’t been through the naming discourse, yet. He looks at Frenchie in disbelief. “That’s a horrible name.”
“She likes it,” Frenchie shrugs.
“She’s a baby,” Lucius points out. “She doesn’t know words!”
“She responds to it.”
“I respond to “boy” when Izzy shouts it at me, that doesn’t mean I’m not a grandfatherly age!” Lucius reminds him.
Jim snorts at the argument and Frenchie rolls his eyes, gesturing pointedly to the baby on his chest. “She’s a baby. Her name is Baby. If you wanna name a baby, you should steal your own.”
“But-“
Jim cuts Lucius off with a flat hand gesture. “Don’t bother. We’ve all tried.”
Lucius sighs in exasperation, but accepts the advice. He sticks around for a while and chats about the nuances of hiding in the walls of a pirate ship, along with the politics of the general vibe within the current crew, and then he mysteriously mentions that he has a date and fucks off back into the passages behind the walls.
Jim shoots Frenchie a look that says I’ll kill you if that thing makes a noise before placing their hat over their face and seemingly falling asleep. Frenchie allows himself a few quiet moments of snuggling with his stolen baby in the low lantern light before he sighs and gets up. She’s sleeping peacefully, so he’s very careful as he transfers her to her bassinet.
Naturally, she waits until he gets snuggled up under the blankets of his own bed before squawking in displeasure. Frenchie lays very still and pretends he hadn’t heard her.
Jim rips the hat off of their face across the room. “No,” they snap.
Frenchie is a very mature adult, so he pretends to be asleep.
The room goes quiet for approximately three and a half seconds before Baby makes a fussy sound from the end of his bed. Jim swears out an unpleasant threat in Spanish.
“Just give her a second-“ Frenchie tries.
Baby chooses to cut him off with an irritated screech that seems to echo off the walls of the small room. Frenchie, in return, chooses to go still again, however Jim does not even pretend to fall for the act.
“Out,” Jim snaps.
Frenchie groans in absolute misery, trying to portray the exhaustion and utter heartbreak he feels, forgetting that Jim possesses significantly less empathy than the normal person. He notices them sit up threateningly across the room and flinches.
“Alright, alright!” He whines. Baby wails at the sound of his voice and he sighs, but sits up. He gathers her up quickly, making sure to shoot Jim a few pathetic glances like a kicked dog that they’re absolutely fantastic at ignoring, before he mopes out of the room. The door slams shut behind him.
While he slouches in the hallway, Baby whines again and paws at his scarf. He looks down at her in the dimly lit hall, she peers back at him with her huge eyes, her bottom lip quivering like she might consider bursting into tears. Frenchie would prefer if Jim didn’t stab him to death in the hallway, so he skidaddles down to the mess.
The kitchen is dark, but there’s a lantern burning low on one of the three tables. The room is otherwise unoccupied, so Frenchie settles onto the bench of the table furthest back from the door. He tries to set Baby on the table, but she whines at reaches after him, leaning in until Frenchie has no choice but to tuck her against his chest with an arm around her back.
She makes a fussy noise as she attempts to hug him with her short little arms.
Frenchie sighs and sets his cheek to the top of her head. “Yeah, I know.”
He’s sure Izzy will expect him on deck by sunup, even if it’s just to send him off to do some idle work in the storeroom where he can keep an eye on Baby. Still, everyone is expected to do their part and Frenchie is no exception. He knows Izzy’s already going easy on him by assigning him light duty, so he’s not going to push it by showing up late or falling asleep on the job.
He shifts so he’s leaning back against the wall, his legs stretching out down the bench of the table with Baby in his lap, curled up against his stomach and clinging to the bottom of his shirt. She’s apparently not done talking for the day, because she begins sleepily mumbling and making strange little noises at him. Everything coming out of her mouth is entirely nonsensical, but Frenchie hums to show he’s listening. And he is listening, because she’s talking to him and she deserves someone to listen to her grievances, even if they can’t fully understand her.
Besides, her tone is gentle and soft, not abrasive the way it had been when he’d dropped her in her bassinet. She’s speaking to him, so her pitch has shifted to something kind. Happy. She’s content.
Frenchie frowns, his eyes squeezing shut suddenly. He hopes she isn’t going to have a hard time letting go of him when he has to leave her someplace safer at the next port.
Her fingers tighten around his ribs when her chatting cuts off with a yawn and a soft sigh before she picks back up in her happy babbling. Frenchie hums at her in acknowledgement.
He’s so focused on Baby’s storytelling that he doesn’t notice another presence in the room until the person shifts, their heavy boots dragging on the floorboards deliberately, as if they’re alerting him to their presence. Frenchie’s arm tightens around Baby as he opens his eyes and lifts his head. Even Baby seems surprised, as she cuts off and twists to look.
Izzy is standing near the doorway, staring at the two of them with an intentionally blank look on his face. His stance is casual, but he’s fidgeting with the handle of his rapier on his hip in a way that gives him an air of anxiety.
“Up late,” he notes gruffly.
“Kicked out,” Frenchie clarifies. He attempts a stiff smile to assure Izzy that their presence means him no harm, but he continues fiddling with his weapon. “She likes to talk.”
“Learned from you, seems,” Izzy mutters. He intends it to be brash. It does not come out brash. Instead, it sounds nearly… sweet in Izzy’s mouth. At least, as close to sweet as he can manage. He clears his throat and straightens up.
Frenchie saves him the trouble of attempting to say something worse. “What’re you doing up, anyway?”
“Second watch,” Izzy replies curtly.
Frenchie assumes he’d heard the baby’s voice and come to investigate. His suspicions are confirmed when Izzy simply nods at him shortly, uncomfortably, and shifts on his heel to head back down the hall. He pauses with his back turned.
Baby flattens her hand and pats at Frenchie’s ribs, making him flinch a bit. He grunts and she giggles quietly before smacking him again. Her laugh rings out like a bell in the otherwise silent ship.
“You’re sleeping here, then?” Izzy asks stiffly, without turning around. He does, however, peer over his shoulder.
Frenchie shrugs and shifts on the bench. “Uh, I guess. Not many other places I can go. She can’t exactly sleep in the men’s quarters, think her talking will piss them off worse than Jim.”
“Mm,” is Izzy’s thoughtful agreement.
He keeps his back turned, his head sideways, but his eyes drift around the wall anxiously. The lantern light flickers on the table closest to Izzy, nearly burned down by now and making the shadows dance across the walls. The lines in Izzy’s face look deeper with his face turned away from the light, the crease between his eyebrows thickening as they furrow.
He’s flighty, Frenchie’s learned in his time aboard Blackbeard’s ship. Anxious and stiff, run by a moral code that only he knows, but stuck in the rules he’s run by regardless. All of that is covered up with the thin sheet of casualty that he carries to keep everyone else around him calm, but Frenchie notices the strange idiosyncrasies he attempts to hide. He knows that there’s some things that Izzy will not allow himself to do or say. Not out of unkindness (though there’s plenty he does with the sole intent of unkindness), but because he simply cannot understand that the action is expected of him.
He’s strange like that. Frenchie tries not to take Izzy’s anxious, fidgety nitpicking too personally these days.
“I have second watch,” Izzy repeats, slower this time, as if Frenchie will need to listen to what he says to determine what he can’t.
Frenchie sits with the statement in something akin to disbelief, but quickly gathers himself up and shuts his mouth, which has seemingly fallen open in surprise. “So you’ll be up top all night, then. Yeah?”
“‘Til three bells,” Izzy nods curtly.
“Well,” Frenchie musters a smile. He’s hesitant to leave Baby anywhere near the man who had attempted to launch her over the side of the ship in a humane end to her life, but knowing Izzy is duty bound to roam the upper deck until daybreak soothes him. Following the rules of the ship is one of Izzy’s favorite things to do. Frenchie knows well enough that he’ll be up there for as long as his shift mandates. “Maybe we can work something out.”
Clearly attempting not to get involved in his own plan, Izzy bites out “Do what you fucking want.”
“Alrighty, then!” Frenchie lets the threatening tone roll off his back.
Izzy continues standing uncomfortably in the doorway for another breath before he jerks his head forward again and lets out a sharp huff. “If you’re still in there at three bells, I’ll…”
“Ah, don’t worry about me,” Frenchie waves him off to avoid receiving an unnerving threat. Izzy sighs aggressively in a way the implies he will worry regardless.
He hesitates for a second as if there’s more he wants to say, but clearly comes to a decision as his back straightens. He swipes a hand through his hair and then stalks down the hall, off to terrorize whoever had the displeasure of manning first watch.
Frenchie stays where he is, listening to the sound of Izzy’s boots receding down the hall. They stomp up the ladder, then he hears the hinge of the top hatch squeak. Izzy mutters something, probably about finding grease, before it squeaks again and slams shut. The ship goes silent again, save for some heavy pirate snores drifting down the hall.
Frenchie scrambles up off the bench with Baby clinging to his shirt, shifting her over to his hip as he darts down the hall. She makes a small surprised noise while he speeds towards the one door on the ship that he’s never been allowed to open. It’s all the way at the end of the hall on the rig, on the complete opposite side of the ship from the men’s quarters.
Once he gets to it, he hesitates with his hand on the handle and glances in either direction to ensure this isn’t some sort of trick. The hall remains silent. Frenchie twists the handle and shoves into the room.
Izzy’s room, the holy grail, is not quite as exciting as Frenchie had imagined it would be. He supposes he had imagined it to be some sort of weapon infested steel cage with ropes and paddles hanging from the walls or something. Maybe he’d thought it would be more of a Blackbeard shrine, possibly with prayer candles and portraits of Ed the way he looks in the books spread over every surface.
It’s neither of those things. Izzy’s room is, admittedly, bland.
There’s a twin bed shoved into the back left corner, a trunk at the end of it, and a desk on the right side of the room. Everything is arranged very neatly, as if each item has its own place in the room and they rarely leave their homes, but there’s not a speck of dust to be seen. The room is lit by the bright moon bouncing off the ocean outside the porthole placed above the deck to land on the bed, which is made very neatly.
Frenchie feels his shoulders drop in disappointment.
Still, a bed’s a bed.
He lets himself into the room and shuts the door behind him before facing the bed. The blankets are crisp, tucked under the bed roll stiffly. Frenchie gingerly pulls the sheets back to set Baby down on the middle of the bed. She squawks delightedly and slaps her hands onto Izzy’s pillow.
“Mhm,” Frenchie agrees. “You can talk all you want now.”
She makes a little eeeee sound of excitement as if she understands him. From her spot on the bed, she reaches up and makes grabby hands at him, bouncing up and down impatiently.
“Just give me a second,” Frenchie reaches down and pats her on the top of the head, giggling her dark hair a bit while she blinks in surprise.
He makes quick work of toeing off his boots and shrugging the jacket off his shoulders before crawling into bed. Baby is pretty small, so she’s easy to shove over in order to make room in the twin bed. He lays on his side, his back to the desk, so he can box Baby in between his chest and the wall. Luckily, she’s still sleepy enough that she flips down next to him and rests her tiny head on the edge of the pillow next to his, reaching out to smack at his chest.
“It’s sleep time,” Frenchie informs her.
She responds with a very serious babbling noise.
“Yeah,” He agrees. “Go to sleep.”
She’s obviously tired. Frenchie thinks he would be too if he had to spend the entire day crawling around the hold of a pirate ship and failing to eat bread. She rubs her eye and sniffs at him pitifully. Frenchie frowns at her.
“What?”
Baby whines sleepily and paws at his chest again, finicky but unable to explain why. Izzy’s bed is tilted in such a way that allows the reflection of the moon in the water to bounce directly into the window and fall against the pillow, so she squints against it. Realization clicks into place in Frenchie’s head.
“I’ll show you what I do,” Frenchie tells her. He lifts his head as he pulls his scarf off to fasten it around his eyes, blocking out the light. He points to the scarf tied around his face. “See? Not so bright now.”
When he pulls the scarf up to his forehead, Baby visibly startles as if she had forgotten he was there. He smiles at her and she bursts into giggles. Curiously, Frenchie pulls the scarf back down over his eyes for a second, then lifts it to his forehead. She jumps again, then giggles at him. Frenchie grins at her in the moonlight. This time, she reaches out and grabs at the scarf around his head herself, pulling it back, not quite strong enough to get it off of him by herself.
“Here,” Frenchie offers. He pulls the scarf from his head and makes quick work of sliding it over Baby’s, fiddling with the knot in the middle so it’s snug against the back of her head.
When it’s secured around her forehead, he pulls it down to cover her eyes and then draws his hands back to his chest to watch her curiously. She fumbles with the scarf over her eyes with her chunky baby fingers, but eventually manages to pull the bottom edge back until she can see him.
“Boo!” Frenchie exclaims softly.
She bursts into giggles immediately, going as far as throwing her head back and laughing, pretty and happy as anything Frenchie’s ever heard before, while her cheeks turn red. It takes her a minute, but when she manages to compose herself, she pulls the scarf down over her eyes again. The hiding attempt lasts three seconds before she pulls the scarf from her eyes.
“Boo!” Frenchie repeats.
She squeals out a delighted laugh, thoroughly entertained by the game. It’s a sweet enough sound that Frenchie grins at her in return.
Laying in Izzy’s bed, giving her room to laugh and talk to her heart’s desire, Frenchie allows his shoulders to relax. Baby pulls the scarf down again and he smiles.
He thinks they could get used to this.