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Keefe wakes up with a start, already blearily reaching towards whatever alarm is shrieking to turn it off.
It takes him a moment to realize there is no alarm going off— nor is it morning, he assumes, as the bedroom he shares with Kelvin is still immersed in total darkness. Disorientation swims through him for another couple of seconds before another piercing cry through the monitor on his nightstand snaps reality into focus.
When he glances downward, though, he finds he’s the only one awakened by this; Kelvin is still knocked out cold, face buried in Keefe’s chest, arms wound tight around his belly. This is pretty much Keefe’s favorite place to be.
Still— Their baby’s crying. Someone has to go get her.
As much as it breaks Keefe’s heart to shuffle Kelvin off of him, like he’s displacing the sweetest cat napping away in his lap, there’s something deeper breaking inside of him the longer he has to listen to their daughter cry for them.
At least Kelvin is dead asleep, moving like a rag doll when Keefe reaches to unwind his arms. The only indication he even knows what’s happening, even in sleep, is when his face scrunches up a little and he tries to tighten his grip again— but Keefe slips a pillow in between his arms instead, gets him to hold that, and manages to wriggle his way out. Though he nearly somersaults onto the floor, he manages to sleepily land on his feet, crouched and balancing.
A breathless laugh escapes him. Sleepily, he glances back at Kelvin, finds him digging his face into Keefe’s pillow-replacement with the scrunched frown still evident on his face.
Pausing for only a moment, leaning in, Keefe kisses Kelvin’s temple and whispers, “Sweet dreams, sweet prince.” His reward is Kelvin’s face relaxing again; he strokes his hand through his hair once, feeling the warmth radiating off of him, before he leaves him there to sleep.
Out in the hall, gently closing the door behind himself, Eden’s crying is even clearer. The walls in this place are so thick; he misses when she was right there in the room with them, but all the books say this next bit is important, even if Keefe’s feeling sad about having her so far away now.
Yawning, he hurries his way down the hall to her nursery. It’s no small wonder that Kelvin can keep sleeping through her crying; he’d been the one up with her all last night while Keefe slept heavily to catch up on his missed sleep from the night before that, when Kelvin was trying to catch up on his sleep from the night before that, which was—
Well, the books say this particular bit may go on this way for a little while. Keefe always thinks it’s such a good thing they have each other in this; he thinks that a lot about Kelvin, actually.
He can catch up on his own sleep tomorrow night. Tonight, he’s following his daughter’s wailing until he’s pushing in her door and asking, “Hey, Edie, what’s wrong?”
Far too young to answer with words— and far too loud to even hear him right now— Eden only continues screaming. Her crib stands directly in the center of her bedroom, amidst the chaos of primary colors that is all her walls, her furniture, her toys, though currently muted by the darkness; from within the bars, he can see as he approaches, she beats against the fabric of her sleep-sack, kicking furiously, face red and wet and scrunched with her screaming.
The sound and sight of her scrapes something raw inside Keefe that he didn’t even know existed before she did.
“It’s okay, beautiful,” Keefe promises her, reaching in to scoop her up, sleep-sack and all. “Eden, baby girl, you’re alright. Nothing’s hurting you, I got you. Right here, see?”
She can’t see much of anything, eyes smashed shut to wail as she is. Keefe fumbles with the fastens on the sleep-sack, tugging the fabric off and away without releasing her, letting it fall over the edge of her crib instead as her limbs finally kick free and she remains within the hold of his arms.
“Is that better?” he asks her, just as her hand smacks against his chest in her quest to roll herself closer to him, still crying with such pitch and intensity even his ears ring, after all the damage they’ve taken in his time.
He takes a quick inventory, running through his mental checklist, second nature now. She doesn’t need to be changed, her temperature feels fine, this doesn’t sound like her hungry cry— maybe he should prepare a bottle or something just to be sure—
Pushing her face into the space over Keefe’s heart, Eden hiccups, her crying tripping.
“Aw,” he can’t help himself from exhaling. A swell of affection overcomes him, even as she starts whimpering her way back up towards crying again. “You feeling lonely, angel, that it? I know the feeling, believe me. C’mere.”
Shuffling her to the crook of his arm, he manages to wriggle out of one half of his pajama top, then the other. It takes a fair bit of maneuvering, but he’s gotten pretty good at stuff like this, lately. It’s sort of like juggling, really, to get himself bare-chested and her down to diaper so he can tuck her against him skin-to-skin, and he’s not so bad at juggling.
“Is that better?” he asks her, knees already pushing him into an automatic bounce as he turns with her, starting to pace a familiar path back and forth across the floor, various rugs bumping up under his bare feet. With her ear pressed over his heart, her crying begins to quiet once more, and he agrees, “Yeah, that’s a whole lot better, I bet. I’d like to be that small getting hugged by someone this big who loved me this much. That’d be amazing, I bet.”
Eden’s renewed wailing starts dying back down at the sound of his voice and the press of his skin and the beat of his heart. He might not know what it’s like to be held by someone so big, but— thanks to Kelvin, he knows what that feels like. To be held, and loved, and comforted.
“Yeah, hey, there we go,” Keefe continues, not letting the rhythm of his words break for too long. She likes rhythm; she likes all sorts of things like that, sounds and beats and music. Singing, too. Just like Kelvin. Actually, usually, Kelvin’ll be the one that sings to her; she just loves it, each and every time.
Keefe’s voice isn’t anything like his, but—
Still— It’s only Eden here, and she needs comforting, and she will let him know if she doesn’t like it. Plus, her memory’s so small, she won’t remember it even if she hates it, so—
Keefe hesitantly starts humming, more of a vibration in his chest and throat than anything, and is almost surprised that Eden quiets further. Emboldened, he lets himself hum louder, one of the slow, old songs Kelvin always likes singing to her that she seems to enjoy. When he hits the part where words pick up, he tentatively lets himself start to sing, and is rewarded with the actual, slow stopping of Eden’s crying.
Excited, he almost breaks off to tell her how good she’s being, but he doesn’t want her to start crying again, so he just keeps going, bouncing and singing, soft and low and slow.
He goes through another song like that, and another, another, another. There are so many he has memorized just from listening to Kelvin, but he’s just letting himself fall from one to the next without thinking too much, trying not to break in between them, flowing between songs natural as he can.
When he finds himself humming something more upbeat— not a hymn or a folk tune or a church song, he realizes belatedly, but something more recent from his own playlists— he realizes Eden has shifted to actually look up at him. Her face has become all her big, dark eyes, still wet and now staring.
And when he has to raise his voice a little in speed and pitch to match the song, she laughs.
“Hey, you like that,” he says, delighted, before an, “Oh—” of realization, and then he’s diving back into the song for her.
Eden babbles at him, a fragmented stream of— well, he supposes it must be her thoughts, only she’s not so good at making words yet. Sounds, yes, she is great at making sounds, and she makes a whole bunch, a wide range she’s showing off now, nonsense syllables strung together, broken by the occasional curious murmur or gurgling giggle.
Once, she laughs so hard at him dipping her as he sings that she hiccups, this tiny burst that almost sounds like a sneeze. The sound makes him laugh, too, heart swelling so much he feels like his chest might just burst open all over her.
He also realizes, belatedly, that getting her to laugh was not exactly the goal— it’s still dark out, and he’s meant to be getting her to sleep.
“Oh, whoopsies,” he whispers to her. “I’m supposed to be making you sleepy, aren’t I? That’s my bad, I’m sorry, baby girl. I’m meant to be the responsible one here.”
That only makes her giggle again, which gets him smiling, which is not helpful. He shushes her, and she babbles back up at him, another long thread of happy, bubbling sounds like an upturned box of jigsaw-puzzle pieces: the words are all there, somewhere, just broken-up and difficult to decipher in their current state.
“C’mon, Edie,” Keefe says, lowering his voice even more. Sidling his way to the wall, he crouches and plugs in her starburst nightlight; a low, deep-red light fills the room, just like the baby books said to do to help her sleep. The first time he’d seen it, Kelvin had remarked that it seemed hellish, but he’d also fallen asleep in her rocker about half an hour after that, so they’ve since decided hellish isn’t all that bad— at least, not in this regard.
The low, red lights and his soft, quiet voice and their skin-to-skin contact is everything the books said he’s supposed to do, but Eden’s just looking at him now, her expression still halfway-smiling, waiting for him to do something else to make her laugh.
“It’s bedtime, angel, c’mon,” Keefe whispers to her. She grunts up at him, kicks her legs, a frown starting to crease her face. “No, no—”
A tiny whine escapes her as she scrunches her arms up, close to her chest, little fists clenched. This is even more opposite of what he wanted; he tries to keep his bouncing even, his pace slow, his pulse steady, even as his heart absolutely sinks at the backwards progress.
“Hey, hey, look, I’ll sing again, just like Daddy does, right?” Keefe asks. A passable job of keeping the mild panic out of his voice, he thinks.
After a pause, he starts singing softly again, hoping it’ll start lulling her back towards the quiet, sleepy state she’d been in for a total of twelve seconds earlier. Unselfconscious, more focused on getting her to sleep than the fact that he’s singing again, he turns her in another circle, feeling a little bit of exhausted desperation bubbling up inside. Still, she keeps fussing, none of it working, and Keefe only gets more frustrated with himself for making a mess of this when he’d almost done so well—
“Oh,” he says, stopping short, singing and bouncing both coming to an abrupt halt as he catches sight of Kelvin leaning in the doorway. He seems mostly-asleep, rubbing at one eye with the sleeve of his pajama top, a twin to Keefe’s; at the sound of Keefe’s voice, he blinks at him again. “How long you been standing there, sweetheart? You look so tired.”
A tired smile comes onto Kelvin’s face, something automatic and small and soft that he doesn’t even seem to think about, that only Keefe ever gets. He loves that kind of smile on Kelvin; he loves every kind of smile on him, really. But this one is a favorite.
“Not too long,” he mumbles in answer. “Just heard you and wanted to come see.”
“I’m so sorry if I woke you, I’m messing it up bad in here,” Keefe apologizes, keeping his voice as low as he can. “You should go back to bed, baby, it’s not even your night.”
Kelvin doesn’t listen. Instead, he just pushes off from the door jamb, stumbling across the room towards them to lean into Keefe’s side instead, head on his shoulder, eyes fixed down on Eden— or just closed, Keefe can’t tell from this angle. He’s just happy to have Kelvin’s sleepy body close to his own, drinking up his heat the same way Eden is.
“Heard you through the monitor,” Kelvin murmurs, voice scratching. “You’ve got a real nice voice, y’know? You should sing more.”
“What?” Keefe asks. He lets Kelvin turn him, dragging steps navigating him towards the rocker in the corner. “I’m not anywhere good as you, not nearly—”
“Yeah, you are,” Kelvin protests, sitting him down in the rocking chair. “Besides, it ain’t about being good right now, anyhow. It’s about singing to her. She doesn’t care if you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, she only cares that you are her daddy and you’re singing to her.”
The words slip together a little bit, mushy from him being half-asleep, but they’re so sweet, and so genuine, and— besides, Keefe thinks he could understand Kelvin no matter what he sounded like.
“Go ahead,” Kelvin encourages him. “Start singing again.” When Keefe hesitates, he pulls over the plush armchair to sit beside him and watch him with tired eyes, hazel in twin to Eden’s looking all-dark in the nighttime and glinting in the red light, repeating, “Go ahead, sweetie, c’mon.”
For a moment, Keefe can only stare into his eyes, transfixed.
Then, he swallows, hedges, “Well— Y’know, if you’re here, you should just be the one singing.”
Against his chest, Eden whines again, a frustrated sound that scrapes at Keefe’s hindbrain. Kelvin lets his head rest against Keefe’s shoulder, jaw cracking around a yawn.
“She’s gonna start crying for real if you don’t sing,” Kelvin mumbles. “Then we’re in real trouble.”
He reaches up to run his fingertips in a circle over Eden’s face, starting at her forehead and working around, past her eyes and down her cheeks and to her chin, over and over and over again, soft and gentle touches in a calm and even rhythm. Her legs kick out, and Kelvin sighs, and Keefe gives into the darkness and encouragement and need. He lets himself start singing again, soft and low, a rumble between the three of them more than anything that draws Eden’s attention.
“See?” Kelvin asks, like his eyes aren’t mostly-closed. “She likes it.” Another yawn, and Keefe feels the hinge of his jaw pop in and out against his upper arm from the force of it. “So do I.”
Keefe doesn’t let himself stop, too pleased by the fact that he’s right, that she actually does seem to be calming down again. Even as he watches, her building-up cries diminish down to whimpers again, then to little grunts, then to nothing as she blinks up at him— and then, then, finally, after a few minutes of it, she gives this sighing little exhalation, drowsy, content, and Keefe looks excited over towards Kelvin.
Though his hand is still mostly-moving— aimless, but still, stroking her face in slow circles— it seems like Kelvin is actually already asleep. At least, nearly there, slumped forward from his chair and into Keefe’s arm, eyes closed, breathing evened out.
As Keefe watches, in the same moment, Kelvin and Eden both exhale this dreamy, comforted little breath, the exact same kind, and he almost wants to cry—
—No, actually, he does cry, and that’s beautiful, actually. Keefe loves crying about how much he loves his family— he loves how much he loves his family— he loves his family.
Kelvin’s hand finally slumps down, palm over Eden’s chest, fingers curled around her as he falls all the way back asleep. Underneath his hand— against Keefe’s chest— their daughter drifts off, too, sleepy nonsense-mumbles quieting as she drops fully away. Even sleeping and all dead weight, she weighs basically nothing to him. Still, she seems to weigh everything.
Tipping his head, Keefe kisses the top of Kelvin’s head, whispers, “Sweet dreams,” and then drops down to do the same to Eden, lips brushing her forehead and dark hairline to echo, “Sweet dreams, sweet pea. Love you guys.”
He should probably stay awake so he can wake Kelvin up after a bit and move them back to bed. They’ll both get all stiff otherwise.
But, then—
Well, what better excuse to give each other massages tomorrow, then?
And if they linger here for a while, Keefe gets to watch them both sleep. He always likes that.
It’s more a haze than a doze, half-aware and upright, and Keefe lets himself drift into it, humming to them both again, a vibration through all three. The red glow feels warm and homey, like this; Keefe sighs into it, relaxing, cheek smushed into Kelvin’s hair, watching their daughter’s soft, night-shadowed face while she dreams.
“Love you,” Keefe whispers again. He doesn’t think he can say it enough times; if he said it every time he thought it, he’d never say another thing again.
Then again, though— when he says it, he swears they both smile a little bit in their sleep, and he even thinks their smiles look the same. How can he not want to tell them as many times as possible, if they like it that much? He likes it that much, too. No point in deprivation.
“Love you, love you, love you,” Keefe mumbles around a yawn of his own, getting a mouthful of Kelvin’s hair. His heart rings; he smiles right back at them, hopelessly content. He can feel I love you shimmering right back at him from the both of them, and he wonders if— he hopes that that’s what they’re both dreaming about, too. Just like he always has.