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“Hey, dad,” Ben questions from his spot at the table in the kitchen where he’s working on homework while Severide cooks dinner. Casey and Griffin are in the living room working on his history project for school because Griffin conveniently he had it for two weeks and it’s due in the morning. “Can I ask you something?”
“Always,” Severide responds because that’s the general theme for them.
He and Casey agreed that they’d always be willing to hear the question even if the answer is we’ll tell you when you’re older. Lately, ever since the awkward conversation about sexualities that answer has come up a lot more.
“How would I draw you and dad on my family tree? Would it be like this or this?”
He has to turn to look at the drawing, the first with the tree that doesn’t actually have Andy or Heather on it (nor their family members) with the second looking like he and Casey are somehow married to Andy and Heather in a foursome situation that causes him to burst out laughing.
He can’t even – maybe, Andy, but Heather? Absurd.
Although three dicks could’ve been fun.
The mental image that appears with that causes him to laugh so hard that Casey yells over to them, “You alright, there, Sev?”
“Yeah,” he says, laughing a little less. “You just – you gotta see Ben’s family tree options.”
Clearly curious, Casey joins them in the kitchen, having left Griffin to his project alone and upon seeing the options starts laughing, too.
Ben’s frowning as Casey composes himself to say, “Kid, this looks like your dad and I married your mom and dad number one.”
“You kinda did, right? Like in a way?”
Severide snorts. “No, Bud, we definitely didn’t marry your mom and dad, we haven’t even married each other.”
Ben tilts his head, curiously, no longer frowning. “Why not?”
“Why not, what?” Casey prompts.
“Why aren’t you married?”
Casey frowns. “Well, you can’t marry more than one person, your mom is in prison and your dad number one –”
“No, dad, why aren’t you and dad married?” Griffin asks, appearing behind Casey and obviously not letting Casey avoid the question. “You’re dating now, so you could get married, couldn’t you?”
Severide glances at Casey. After being certain that he could explain his sexuality to the House (since they’re sure that they’d ask endless questions when they finally come out) and the whole thing with Herrmann getting promoted to Didrikson’s spot, they had talked about it.
Did they want to come out, did they not, what could happen if they did come out... all relatively valid questions to discuss.
It’s easy to stay a secret when they know that there’s at least one person in the House that could throw up a stink and separate them – Didrikson was barely okay with Casey as Severide’s captain when they were just friends and coparents, if he knew they’d actually gotten together… it would be an unpleasant chaos.
But they dealt with the dude spying on things (on Boden’s management) and Herrmann had taken over, Dawson was gone and there wasn’t a specific reason to keep it to themselves.
Except, well, being uncertain (not afraid) about what could happen. If the wrong person decided to butt their nose into the House, decide to make it so they couldn’t work together, even though they’ve been fine with it since they got together, it would suck.
Neither of them wanted to leave 51, and they both knew that coming out could make them have to choose which one of them would leave, but that’s not something that they want to get into with the boys.
“Technically, yes,” Casey offers, after a minute or so. “We could get married tomorrow if we wanted –”
“I think there’s a waiting period on marriage licenses,” Severide interjects, which gets him a surprised look. “What? You can’t be surprised that I’ve looked into it.”
He wants to be married to Casey. He’s thought about it a lot. Even before they kissed. Sometimes wondering if it would’ve just been easier with the raising the boys together.
Casey coughs and shakes his head. “Alright, not tomorrow, but as soon as the waiting period is over –”
“So why haven’t you? Aren’t you happy together?” Ben asks, blue eyes blinking confusedly. “Don’t people that love each other get married?”
“Yes, some do. Most do,” Severide admits when it’s clear that Casey doesn’t quite know how to explain that loving each other didn’t always mean get married. “But not everyone does.”
“Why not? Is it because you’re two men?” Griffin questions, sounding confused. “Is marriage only for –”
“No, it’s not,” Casey says, quickly. “It used to be, but that’s not the case anymore.”
They’ve both spent some time diving into queer history of late, not too deep, but it’s something that makes his heart clench to know that only in the last few years had it become legal for them to marry each other. He hadn’t even considered that when he’d been wanting to be with Casey. He had assumed that they could get married, hadn’t even realized that if it had been only a few years earlier that they couldn’t.
It made all the joking about them being married feel a little weird now.
He doesn’t want to get into all that with the boys, though, and it’s clear that neither does Casey when he says, “But that’s not the point, the point is that your dad and I can love each other, and love you, and the four of us can be a family without us being married.”
“Well, yeah, we’ve been a family since mom, but – now, you could get married, if you wanted.”
“But your dad’s point is that we don’t need to,” Severide offers, softly. “We’re a family with or without being married.”
“We don’t need to share a last name to be a family,” Casey offers, despite the fact that he’s wearing Severide’s name across his shoulders. “We became a family with or without your dad and I being together or married, and we don’t need to get married to a be family.”
Griffin scrunches his nose a bit like he doesn’t quite get it, but figures that he’s not getting a better answer right now, so he shrugs.
Ben shrugs, too. “So, how would I draw my family tree?”
Severide moves away from the stove for a second to take a piece of paper and draws a somewhat messy tree that looks like he and Casey as one set of parents and Heather and Andy as the other producing their boys – Ben and Griffin.
“I think this looks more accurate than what you had before,” Severide offers, and he glances at Casey, who nods.
“Looks good to me.”
“Good.”
***
Severide’s grinning and laughing as he chats with Cindy Herrmann as they wait for the kids. He’s always amazed by her ability to manage her and Herrmann’s band of rugrats, who are admittedly getting to be less of rugrats now that the older ones can manage themselves a little bit. Not enough to not get picked up, except Lee Henry, who is now in high school.
“The four of you could’ve made a cute couple,” Cindy’s teasing after he tells her about the family tree thing.
After everything with the confusion about misunderstanding Herrmann’s non-reaction, Herrmann had made a point to invite them over to dinner (at Cindy’s behest, he’s sure) and she had confessed that she thought they were together since the chicken pox thing and spotting one bed, which had Herrmann sputtering you two were sharing a bed and still thought you were straight?
It had definitely caused them all to laugh. Some things were just so damn obvious, but as Casey had explained – they weren’t really ready for it. And with the boys involved, neither of them could risk it.
They needed to come together when they were truly ready for it.
Herrmann had grumbled that his jokes should’ve helped, but he has since conceded that maybe they were part of the problem. Even though his jokes had led to the prank that got them together.
“I think you’re misusing the word couple,” he jokes. “But even when Heather didn’t somehow blame me for Andy, she wasn’t my biggest fan and to be honest, I wasn’t really hers.”
Cindy laughs a little at first. “Still struggling there?”
“Casey’s the go-between. We’ll always be connected, but we’re better off not seeing each other.”
Before any more could be said, the kids come running out and he can instantly see that something is off. Ben is usually the happiest kid in the world, often running happily to him and Casey after school chattering all about how great of a day that he had.
Today, though, he looks upset. He’s not running and the kids – the boys, Herrmann’s kids, and even the Davidsons and Donaldsons (they’re on shift, Lisa’s picking them up, but she was running late – he would stay with them until she gets here) – are all together with none of them looking happy. It’s a big group, especially with the Herrmanns.
“Something happen?” Severide questions, but instead of getting a verbal answer, Griffin takes something out of Ben’s backpack and hands it to him.
It’s the family tree that they’d made the other day. The half with Casey and Severide were crossed out with a note that only biological relations were meant to be included. The implication being, of course, that despite being adopted and raised by Casey and Severide that they’re not part of Griffin and Ben’s family tree.
He can see Cindy frowning out of the corner of his eye, even as Lisa arrives and joins them. He knows that Casey wouldn’t really want him going off on the teacher (at least, not without him) and there was a parent-teacher conference this week anyway) so he says, “Your dad and I will talk to your teacher, alright?” as he hugs Ben.
“Okay,” he mutters, still clearly upset, but thankfully, instead of forcing the issue or discussing it with Lisa or Cindy, the women work on getting the kids into the cars to go home. It gives him the space to talk to Casey about this first.
He knows that they both have something that they want to say about it, but it’s clearly something that he and Casey have to deal with, and he definitely doesn’t want to discuss it out here on the sidewalk.
For now, he’ll just assure Ben (and Griffin) that regardless of whatever the new teacher thinks, they’re still a family and deserve to be on the family tree.
***
“It’s bullshit, Case,” Severide says, angrily as they get ready for bed. “We had to spend all afternoon convincing Ben that just because some asshole teacher thinks biology is everything that doesn’t mean that we aren’t a family.”
“I agree with you, Sev,” Casey assures him. “I’m just saying that we’re not going to resolve the issue by storming into the classroom and demanding that she change her mind.”
“Then, how do we deal with it? Do we ask to move to the other class with the other teacher?”
“He likes being with his friends, and we would be moving him to a class without them. I don’t know if it’s something he’d want and I don’t want to make him unhappy over this,” Casey states, far too logically for Severide’s liking. He wants to yell at someone about this. “I think we just have a calm discussion with her about why it’s important that we, as his parents, aren’t excluded from his family tree, and if she doesn’t get it then maybe we should have a discussion with the principal about how that sort of attitude is hurtful to kids.”
Severide huffs a bit. He wants to yell, maybe punch something, but he knows that Casey’s right. Starting a fight isn’t going to help and he can be logical about this. As long as it doesn’t hurt his kid any more than it already has.
“Fine, but you’re going to have to do all the talking because I don’t think I could be calm about this.”
Casey gives him a small smile as he kisses his cheek. “Trust me, I know.”
He rolls his eyes. “Good.”
***
Since the boys’ last name is still Darden even after the adoption, they can have their chat with Ben’s teacher pretty early during the conference, as they try to stick close to alphabetical order – try being the operative word.
Since they decided to talk to Griffin’s teacher first (knowing that they might be in a mood after talking to Ben’s teacher), they hadn’t realized that Davidson and Donaldson had spoken to Ben’s teacher, first, until they joined her at the desk and the first thing she says is, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Casey prompts, after a slight glance at Severide, uncertainly.
“I, uh, I have heard quite a lot about the situation with the family tree and your son, and I – I,” she hesitates, glancing around the room, seeing other parents waiting their turn and looking at drawings or the work their kids have been doing, “I didn’t realize that it would be … controversial to focus on a biology for a family tree.”
“You didn’t think that erasing a kid’s parents would be an issue for said kid?” Severide questions, trying to stay calm.
“Sev,” Casey warns, telling him that he’s not all that successful.
She flushes. “I haven’t really – I worked at a private school before, went to private schools that really pushed a … certain family dynamic in the south...”
“But you had to have known that just crossing out our names on his family tree would be a problem,” Casey states, plainly.
The barely concealed anger actually makes Severide feel calmer somehow, Casey is as angry about this as he is. He’s not really going to let her off the hook after all. Despite knowing Casey and how protective he is, he had worried about that.
“It’s never been a secret that we have a different family dynamic than a private school might push since the boys have been at this school for years now – even if you’re new, you have to know that there are other kids with divorced or single parents or other adopted kids –”
“And I’ve heard quite a bit from them as well,” she admits, looking rightfully ashamed. “Although I expected there to be some concern, I hadn’t exactly realized that … others that it didn’t affect would have something to say about it.”
Severide bristles. Did she really think it was okay if it only affected kids with different family dynamics? Did she really expect that no one else would say anything? Defend them?
Casey nudges him as he says, “Yes, well. It probably helps that our kids have grown up alongside kids from the firehouse and we’re all very close – it’s a brotherhood – it doesn’t change the fact that … the typical family may still be a thing, but it wasn’t appropriate to force that in any way on our son. This isn’t a private school; it’s not a religious school with certain… beliefs and it’s wrong to push your own beliefs on your students. It’s not fair to our kid or anyone else’s.”
She nods, looking quite ashamed. “I apologize and I will, of course, accept his family tree with you two and your families on it.”
“Good.”
***
The rest of the conversation had felt tense and stilted, but she had conceded, and they had the support of their friends, which helped. Severide always knew that they would support them at least privately, but it’s still nice to have that support against other people, especially when they overhear the way Herrmann goes off and it actively brings a smile to Casey’s face (since he’d spent so long thinking Herrmann wasn’t okay with them together and it turned out he was wrong).
The conversation with Griffin’s teacher went much better before that and Severide’s admittedly a whole lot happier than he’d been an hour ago as they get into the truck (since they had run into the other firefighters and talked to them a little bit about what they said to the teacher). The assurances that they support them (as coparents) feels good. Put him in a better mood.
Casey reaches over and grabs his hand. “I know that there’s a part of you that absolutely wanted to go crazy on her and get her fired because … that was some serious anti-different family bullshit, but I do appreciate you staying cool.”
Severide snorts. “Despite all the yelling and fighting we’ve done over the years, you seem to have a calming effect on me, now.” He looks him in the eyes, since they haven’t yet pulled away from the curb. “And you were right, Ben’s got a lot of friends, and it wouldn’t be fair to just switch his class. Especially because it’s clear that she got the message – which she might not have if we all went in guns blazing.”
“I think it helps to have not just us complain or the other families that are different,” Casey admits. “To have what she considers the normal family parents to complain without us even asking… It’s a good sign that not just Herrmann had something to say about it.”
Severide lifts his eyebrow at him. “Does that mean you wanna tell them?”
“Not yet, but it helps a lot that they’re so supportive. To the boys, to you and me, to our little family unit.” He coughs as he squeezes his hand. “Most of first watch was pretty… amazed about what we’ve done – the family we created – and I don’t know that it’ll still be the same if they know that we’re not just friends raising a couple of boys together, but I think the support of our family instead of jokes about it, helps a lot.”
“Someday, right?” Severide says, with a tinge of hope. He knows that they’re not ready for it, yet, but he really can’t wait to marry Casey and share a last name with him. Know that he’s his forever and ever.
“Yes, love. Someday,” Casey assures him. Then, he leans forward and gives him a simple kiss. “Now let’s go home and paint a big posterboard of our family tree with the boys like we promised.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Good.”