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“Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?”
Jared takes a deep breath and forces a smile to his face before turning around to face his son, leaving the check book still unbalanced. Jensen is going to kill him if it isn’t done by the time that he gets home, but he figures that he has a good excuse.
Not that Jensen will see it that way. He is bound to point out that if Jared had entered all of his checks and debit card transactions in when he’d done them, it wouldn’t be such a large chore now.
“What is it Dustin?” Jared asks the toddler with an over sweet voice.
His toddler son gives him the exact same look that Jensen gives him when he tries that particular voice out on his mate. There is a good chance that Jared should maybe retire that tone if his young child isn’t even buying it.
“Daddy no love Mommy?” he asks, green eyes wide and sad.
Jared just about feels his stomach drop out at those words. “Dusty, of course Daddy loves your mommy,” he assures his son, ignoring for a moment the fact that Jensen prefers to be called a more masculine name.
Dustin has been adamant about calling Jensen ‘Mommy’ ever since he started to realize that most of his packmates called the parent that carried them that. While Jensen wants to break him of the habit in case they ever visit human society for any extended period of time, Jared doesn’t think that now is a good time to be trying to get his son to give up on the beloved moniker.
“Daddy no make cod,” Dustin disagrees.
Jared has a vision of baking fish dance through his mind before picking his son up and placing him on his lap. “I’m not getting you, Little Man.”
Dustin looks quite put out with Jared’s admission like he half thinks that he has the stupidest daddy in the whole world.
“Auntie make Uncie cod,” Dustin argues stubbornly.
“Okay,” Jared agrees amiably.
“Auntie loves Uncie. Makes cod,” Dustin tells Jared with just a touch of reproach to his voice.
“Dusty, Mommy isn’t all that fond of fish,” Jared tells him. He doesn’t add on that Jeff isn’t either, and most likely his wife is feeding him fish because he hasn’t been eating right. Just because his brother is a doctor doesn’t mean that he has the best diet habits in the world.
“NO! CAWD!” Dustin insists, eyes wide and on the verge of tears, “wiff sparklies!”
Jared has a half a mind to reprimand his youngster for yelling, when he realizes what his little one is actually trying to tell him. Then he spends a moment wishing that he hadn’t asked his sister-in-law to babysit the other day, because she’s very crafty. Of course she sat around making Jeff a handmade Valentine’s Day card. The woman scrapbooks for fun, fun!
It isn’t like Jared hasn’t already purchased something for his mate, although the red silk boxers are really a gift to both of them, but he can’t exactly tell that to his son – ever.
“Okay, champ, so you think Daddy should make Mommy a card?”
“Wiff sparklies!” Dustin says with an emphatic little boy nod.
Jared sighs and looks at the checkbook before deciding that one more charge at the craft store won’t be that much more work to add to his task. The fact that Jensen might just be touched and let him off easy for not finishing the balancing barely even crosses his mind at all.
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“So, you still fail at arts and crafts,” is what Jared’s beloved mate says to him when they’re alone and Dustin has properly displayed the card that, “I helped Daddy makes!”
“Hey,” Jared protests, but his heart isn’t in it. Speaking of hearts? His card barely resembles one, and the glitter is mostly stuck on one side and barely at all on the other.
“This is just like the time that you gave me that secret admirer card when I was in fifth grade,” Jensen muses as he has the balls to hang Jared’s card on their refrigerator door.
“You told me you didn’t know who it was,” Jared protests.
“Because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Jensen tells him, “but really, Jared, you weren’t exactly subtle about it.”
“So you lied to me to spare my feelings?” Jared tries to pout.
“Exactly,” Jensen tells him as he leans up to give Jared a peck on his cheek before sauntering off to the living room to watch the evening news.
Jared turns to stare at his misshapen and glittery fiasco displayed so prominently in their kitchen, and calls after his husband, “Hey, where’s my card?”