Chapter Text
Vesemir needed to trust his parental instincts.
The problem was, after being a foster parent to Lambert, a rambunctious four year old, for the last few months he had trouble thinking of himself as a parent at all, let alone enough to trust his instincts.
He’d never intended to foster a child so young. He’d gotten into fostering because he had raised hell as a teenager, and had continued to cause trouble, mostly for himself, all the way through his twenties.
Most of his thirties had been spent cleaning up, getting sober, going to school, saving money, and getting his life together and now, in his forties, he finally felt like a stable and responsible member of society.
He had no desire to settle down, find a partner, and have kids of his own. What really appealed to him was fostering older boys to keep them off the path he’d traveled, and save them from the long, difficult journey of getting himself out of that place and to where he was now.
Then he’d taken the classes, read the books, talked to other foster parents, prepared his house, and waited for them to send some teenagers his way.
So of course the first call he got was for a four year old.
It was Christmas Day. Vesemir had been at home by himself—no family to speak of and no desire to go seek out company—when the social worker called, frantic. Vesemir didn’t get the details, but he’d gathered that a foster home housing quite a few kids had an emergency which required rehousing all of the kids immediately. They’d found a place for everyone but the youngest, Lambert.
“I’m not sure I’m equipped for a preschooler,” he admitted.
“You want teens, I know,” the social worker said, exasperated. “But trust me, this kid is a troubled teen waiting to happen. You’re just getting to him ten years early.”
“I don’t have any of the things he’ll need.”
“He doesn’t need anything,” he insisted. “He just needs someone to look after him. Mr. Bellegarde, please. It’s Christmas and we can’t get ahold of anybody else. If you could even just keep him until the new year.”
“Right, yeah, okay.”
He needed to get his head on straight. He’d gotten into this to help people. He had no business getting picky now just because he was nervous about his amorphous plans suddenly becoming a reality.
“Until new years at least,” he clarified. He could do that much.
“Thank you.” The relief was audible in his voice. “Someone will be at your house to drop him off in a few hours. I’m not sure when exactly,” the social worker told him. “Before midnight.”
Before midnight. It didn’t feel real. Sometime in the next six hours, a child was going to arrive and that child was going to be Vesemir’s responsibility.
Just until new years, he told himself. He could do this for a week.
He’d cleaned the whole house top to bottom, and just as promised, at eleven thirty, someone rang the doorbell.
Vesemir had expected Lambert to be sleepy but the fiery little boy was wide awake.
“I’m Lambert and this is Bumblebee. He’s for Christmas!” He shouted and waved around a yellow transformer’s toy.
It was his only possession, given to him by a charity that provided Christmas presents for kids in foster care. Other than Bumblebee, all Lambert had was the clothes on his back, a filthy, holey long sleeved crew neck and a tattered pair of jeans.
After several hours of coaxing and calming down, he’d fallen asleep absolutely swimming in one of Vesemir’s t-shirts. The next day Ves spent the entirety of his stipend for taking Lambert in and then some, going to multiple stores to get him everything he needed.
Clothes, a winter jacket, new shoes, a backpack and lunchbox for school, all his favorite foods, and about a million other things.
That outing had shown Vesemir exactly what the social worker meant when he said Lambert was trouble.
The first week was one of the hardest things Ves ever did. Lambert would scream and cry most nights; Vesemir assumed nightmares, but the little boy wouldn’t let him into the room to comfort him. He sat on his bed clutching his Bumblebee and screaming at Ves when he tried to come in. So he would sit outside the bedroom door until Lambert quieted, and go to bed, heartbroken, once he could open the door and verify he was sleeping—sometimes well after midnight.
During the daytime Lambert was unbelievably energetic for a child who slept so poorly. He was loud, and stubborn, and fast. He tried to run away often when they were in public, and he screamed with no concern for who might hear. Ves had never been more exhausted in his life, and at the end of the week, when new years came along, Vesemir told the social worker he’d like to keep him for a little while longer.
Which led them here, three months later, with Lambert as much of a handful as ever, and Vesemir not trusting his ability to be a parent.
Well, this morning the problem was that Lambert wasn’t being a handful. All of his cereal was in his bowl, none flung across the table. He hadn’t fought Vesemir when he tried to get him dressed for preschool. He wasn’t loudly making demands about what Ves should put in his lunch box.
He whined and cried a little when they got to the preschool, but that wasn’t terribly unusual. Vesemir should’ve put the pieces together, but instead he’d wiped Lambert’s tears, told him he’d be back to pick him up in the afternoon, and then gone to work.
The school called in the afternoon to tell him Lamb wasn’t feeling well, and Ves dropped everything to go get him. The front office was waiting for him.
“He fell asleep on the carpet during story time,” the receptionist told him. “He’s saying that his stomach hurts.”
She showed him back to the nurse’s office where Lambert was laying on a cot. Vesemir knelt down beside him.
“Hey kiddo.”
Lambert sat up, rubbing his eyes.
“Not feeling too good?”
He shook his head.
“Where are you not feeling good?” He asked.
“My tummy.” He pouted.
“Can you show me where your tummy hurts?”
Lambert pointed to his stomach, his throat, and then his head.
“I’m sorry, bud.” Vesemir’s brow furrowed. “Let’s get you home.”