Work Text:
He almost doesn’t hear her the first time she says it. He’s sitting at the desk, his laptop open to the month end accounts for the club, the desk covered in stacks of bills and receipts as he attempts to reconcile the stupid bank account that won’t bloody reconcile for him. Ari’s been sitting on her mat in the middle of the floor for the last half an hour stacking her building blocks in all kinds of lopsided ways. She gives out a little giggle every time one of her constructions falls over and it makes Sonny smile every time he hears it.
“Oh for God’s sake,” he throws his pen at the screen of his laptop in frustration when he sees the $8,236.72 difference in his reconciliation. Again. He’d thought he’d gotten it this time. His head in his hands, he closes his eyes in frustration and lets out a long breath. It’s a measure of how exasperated he is that when he hears the quiet but insistent “Dada”, it takes him a whole 5 seconds before he realises that it came from Ari. He swears he feels his heart stop for a second and he holds his breath, wondering if he’s imagined it or not. It takes him a further five seconds to realise that Ari is sitting at his feet tugging on the leg of his jeans. He stares at her blankly, her ability to remove all rational thought from his brain confounding him once again. Then she gives one more insistent tug to his jeans and looks up at him. “Dada,” she says again and Sonny bursts into tears.
Ari looks up at him, her little nose wrinkling in confusion and all Sonny can do is look at her. She grins after a minute, holding up a blue block to him and he automatically reaches out to take it. He can still feel the tears running down his face and he has no clue why the hell he is crying but he doesn’t move a hand to brush them away; he just stares numbly at Ari who grins back at him and hands him a green block with a gummy smile as if she hits on the right colour Sonny might stop crying.
There have been a couple of times over the past nine months when Sonny has been blindsided with a sudden rush of overwhelming love for Will’s daughter. The first time Ari had smiled at him as he held her he had to sit down suddenly, the little voice in his head telling him that she was too small to actually be smiling completely swept away by the wave of love that had gripped him in that second. The night she screamed for three hours straight because of her teething and he’d paced the living room with her in his arms, her face bright red from crying, her little fists curled up against her mouth. He’d never felt so helpless in all his life and he knew that he would have done pretty much anything if it would have helped Ari. He’d never felt so fiercely protective of anything and it floored him for a second, even drowning out Ari’s cries for a thankful minute.
Then two months ago he and Will had been sitting on the couch watching Ari playing on her mat in front of them. She was banging her toy dog on the floor and it had skidded a few feet away from her. Will was just reaching out his leg to nudge it back towards her when she’d suddenly turned herself over onto her belly, lifted herself up and crawled towards it. Will’s had gripped Sonny’s hand so hard that he seriously thought for a minute that he was going to break a bone. Ari grabbed the dog and turned to them with a triumphant smile and Sonny and Will had both just sat there for a minute with the biggest grins on their faces. Will finally shook himself, disentangled from Sonny and picked Ari up, swinging her around and cooing over how brilliant she was. Ari, delighted to be the centre of anyone’s attention, giggled out loud, her little legs kicking about and Will’s smile almost took over the whole room. And as he watched them, feeling the smile on his face almost stretch to bursting, Sonny knew that he was looking at a moment that would follow him to Heaven.
But none of those have come close to the paralyzing rush of emotion sprinting through him right now. His heart feels like it might burst, awash in nothing but complete unadulterated love for the little girl sitting at his feet. He’s stunned and although the rational part of his brain that he can never quite turn off recalls facts from the parenting book about babies using Dada and Mama as indiscriminate mumbles for the first few months, nothing can take this feeling away from him.
After what feels like hours later but is really only a couple of minutes, he hears the sound of the key in the lock and turns his head without thinking. Will pushes the door closed behind him, throwing his backpack into the corner as he looks at Sonny. Will’s eyes flit from his to Ari’s empty mat in the middle of the floor and then back to Sonny’s face but it’s only when Sonny sees Will’s glad to be home after a long crap day at college smile die and begin to be replaced with a look of panic that Sonny realises he still hasn’t spoken, he has tears streaking down his face and more importantly Will can’t see Ari from where she’s sitting behind Sonny’s leg. He opens his mouth to speak and Ari chooses that moment to try to get his attention again. He feels the pulling on his jeans leg a split second before she speaks into the silence. “Dada, Dada” she gurgles and Sonny can’t help the hitch in his breath when he hears it.
It’s probably only five seconds at most but in those brief seconds Sonny watches what feels like every emotion he’s maybe felt ever cross Will’s face. He sees the relief as he hears Ari’s voice, replaced by a brief flash of shock as his brain processes the fact that he’s actually heard Ari speak. Pride fights its way through as he realises that his little girl has said her first word, jostling with a sharp flick of disappointment that he wasn’t here to hear it for the very first time. Sonny clearly sees the flash of hurt that Ari has said “Dada” to Sonny instead of Will and almost in the very same second sees Will shake it off him and replace it with maybe the most blinding smile he has ever seen on Will’s face.
He aims that smile at Sonny, his eyebrows raised and a look of wonder on his face. “She spoke?” he asks and Sonny can hear the excitement in his voice. Sonny finally finds the presence of mind to wipe at the tears still gathered on his face but his whispered “yeah” still comes out shaky and hoarse. Will’s smile gets impossibly brighter and Sonny can’t help but return it.
“Oh my God,” Will says and crosses the room, dropping to the floor beside Ari. She abandons Sonny’s leg when she sees him, crawling over onto Will’s lap. “Hey baby girl,” Will sing songs to her, “you said a word.” She grins up at him delightedly, responding to the smile on his face and raises her little hands to rub at his cheeks. Will laughs and looks up at Sonny who’s still wearing a dazed expression on his face.
“You okay?” Will asks him, still smiling as he looks up at him and Sonny shakes his head as if to clear it. He slides down to the floor so he’s sitting cross legged opposite Will. He only realises that he’s still holding the building blocks Ari gave him when she makes a grab for them, slithering out of Will’s lap once she gets them and crawling back to her mat.
“I…..” Sonny shakes his head again not even sure what he wants to say. He’s acutely aware that explaining to Will how astonishingly, unbelievably, amazing it was to hear Ari call him “Dada” is probably not the best thing to do here. Before he can figure out what to say Will reaches out, brushing his thumbs under Sonny’s eyes to collect the remaining traces of tears there.
“You were crying,” Will says, “I don’t think I’ve ever really seen you cry before.” His voice is teasing but Sonny hears the softness in it that Will is trying to hide. “It must have been pretty amazing to hear her say that to you.”
Sonny reaches up and covers Will’s hands with his own, pulling them down so they rest between them. He glances over at Ari, giggling away to herself again and he can’t help the smile that plasters itself across his face but Will’s wistful expression when he looks back makes him falter. “I know I’m not her Dad,” he begins looking down at their intertwined hands, “I know she’s not really mine but……”
Will squeezes his fingers and when he looks up Will is frowning at him. “Don’t do that,” he says shaking his head and Sonny raises his eyebrows in confusion. Will dips his head slightly and when he looks back up his eyes are bright and forceful and Sonny feels a thrill of want run through him. “She is yours in every way that matters Sonny,” Will says fiercely, “every single way that matters. And that fact that she called you that…..” he shakes his head in amazement and his eyes are smiling, “I’m just happy that she loves you as much as I do.”
Sonny knows that his mouth is half open and he’s staring at Will but he can’t find any words to come close to explaining what it means to him to have heard Will say that. He thinks that Will gets it though as his smile turns teasing. “Are you going to cry again?” he says and Sonny lets out a half laugh, half snort. “Maybe,” he says but he’s grinning and Will is grinning back at him and his little girl just called him Dada and life is pretty much perfect right now so if he wants to cry he goddamn will. He doesn’t though; he just shifts over slightly and grabs Will in a hug. He takes a deep breath as he feels Will’s arms go around him and hold him tightly.
“She called me Dada,” Sonny half whispers after a minute and he feels Will’s smile against his ear.
“Every single way that matters Sonny,” Will whispers back as he drops a soft kiss on Sonny’s ear. “Don’t ever forget that”.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Two days later Ari calls Will “Dada” as he’s playing with her on the couch. Will gapes at her and then turns to gape at Sonny who’s making dinner in the kitchen. And all Sonny can do is laugh as Will bursts into tears.
-------------------------------------------------------------