#dadwig

i also see him splurging on different materials in the sense that its like "dad can we do clay" "yeah" and then you have $200 worth of polymer clay at the house two days later ?? (they turn out great for what its worth, and your kid(s) are very excited to give their vast amount of aunts and uncles homemade ornaments)

your insistence on a real tree whenever possible from christmas #1 together as a family turns into going every year the same weekend and making a day out of it:

breakfast has to be sweet - your favorite was the year you made pancakes with the help of your daughter who wanted colored pancakes and refused to do any red or green on purpose (and got upset when the blue one wouldnt be "blue enough")

going to a random christmas tree farm (different every year) taking way too long to decide on one (your son is insistent that it has to be the right height for maximum ornament placement options), buying it (and some other families who are in line with you, "some good christmas will" lud says with a shrug) and taking it home to decorate.

letting the tree fluff out before decorating it and when the kids are little, the time is just used for trying to get them to eat or be clean or just behave for a few minutes (please we can put the shiny circles on the tree in a few minutes it still has to fluff out), but when they're at least preteens having friends over helps because they don't want to decorate with you but they will absolutely decorate with uncle aiden. (which is fine, the more the merrier for tree-day)

lud being the dad who at first is, no they can wait until christmas day to open gifts 🙄 but caves immediately because he wants to open christmas gifts early and as soon as he's like "okay but i can open a gift right" your kid hears and just gives the biggest 🥺 face they can muster and it's always one (or two, depending on how excited lud is to have them open specific gifts) on christmas eve and then the rest the next morning.

“Mr. Ahgren, we’re calling because your daughter has been suspended and we need you to come to the school to meet with the dean regarding her behavior.”

He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Shit.

“I’ll be right there,” he says before asking for any details. Unfortunately, he doesn’t need them.

During the drive over, he ponders what the fuck Lucy could have done to get suspended. She’s always been pretty spirited and combined with ADHD that they’re struggling to get formally diagnosed due to this stupid notion that girls don’t get it as much, the school hasn't let them forget how much of a distraction she is in the classroom, with afternoon and Saturday detentions for shit as simple as repeated tardies and cracking jokes that aren’t quite appropriate for school. He blames himself for the latter, honestly, because it’s something he would do.

Still, he has no fucking clue what she would do to warrant getting suspended. You have to do some serious shit to get suspended, and nothing Lucy has done has ever warranted even a warning about that.

Except, when he meets QT at the school and they find Ryan’s best friend, Marie, sitting outside the office with her parents with an ice pack on her face and tissues shoved up her nose, they seem to realize in unison that this is not what either of them fucking expected at all.

“They should have told us the specifics,” QT hisses as she knocks on the door to the office, a look of panic in her eyes. “I’m not fucking prepared for this shit!”

The door opens, revealing the dean standing there with a grim look on his face and Ryan sitting in one of the chairs behind him, arms crossed over her chest and gaze firmly fixed toward the window.

“Thank you for coming so quickly.”

He shakes each of their hands and they do introductions before sitting down with Ryan between them. Since Ludwig is sitting closer to the window, he can see now that her eyes are rimmed in red. He knocks their knees together and gives her a half-hearted smile in an attempt to cheer her up, earning a glare from QT. Right. She punched another girl in the face.

The story they’re told is very one-sided. Apparently, Ryan came up to Marie during the passing period and decked her so hard that she broke her nose. Lucky for Marie, the nurse was able to realign it and she probably won’t need surgery. Lucky for Ryan, Marie and her parents aren’t pressing charges.

The dean doesn’t explain any reason for why the fight might have happened, which makes sense because Ryan hasn’t opened her mouth once since she got here. He has a feeling that she wasn’t feeling particularly talkative before and if Marie did do something to warrant getting punched, it’s not like she’d going to speak up and tell people she deserved it.

The dean tells them that she’s lucky she didn’t get expelled and that if it weren’t for her impeccable record, there would be more than a two-week suspension on the table. He also reminds them that while UC Berkeley probably won’t rescind her admission, another offense like this one may make them reconsider. At that last part, Ryan does bristle a bit.

The dean offers to reduce her suspension to a week if she apologizes to Marie but she tilts her chin defiantly and keeps her mouth shut. Ludwig wishes that she would at least have it in her to lie for her own good.

When they leave the office, QT is fucking fuming. Rightfully so, honestly. She tells her that she she needs to control her temper and try to maintain some level of peace, and reminds her that neither of them can help her if she doesn’t tell them anything. She reaches out for her car keys and says that she and Slime will pick it up tonight and that she’ll be going home with Ludwig today since she has meetings this afternoon. Then she kisses the top of her head and tells her that she loves her for good measure.

They walk toward the car in silence and he ponders what approach to take with this. He’s been a parent for more than 18 years now and he still has no fucking clue what he’s doing. His instinct is always to be nice but it’s definitely not fair to make QT the bad guy when this is a serious fucking situation that probably necessitates a firm hand.

“You’re lucky they didn’t press charges,” he finally says as he pulls his car out of the school parking lot. “You’re an adult, Ryan. You could go to jail.”

Just like that, the levee breaks and she starts sobbing, face falling into her hands as she tries to turn away from him.

He winces a little as he glances over at her, reaching out to pat her arm lightly. He can’t be firm about this if she’s crying. To be fair, he thinks that QT would probably soften up if she was here too.

“Do you wanna tell me what happened?”

“No.”

He sighs. “Ryan, your mom is right. There’s nothing we can do for you if you don’t tell us what happened.”

She wipes at her face with her arm but still doesn’t meet his eyes. “There’s nothing you can do for me anyway.”

Even though she’s probably right, he could at least provide some comfort. “Let me try?”

Ryan lets out a bitter laugh. “If you can go back in time and stop Marie from kissing Damian behind my back then sure, I guess you can help.”

He frowns. Damian is Ryan’s boyfriend of three months whom every single adult in her life has been pretending not to hate the entire time. He’s rude, ditches her constantly, and in Slime’s words is “a serious fucking rat but not in a based way.” Even Aiden can’t stand him, and he’s Aiden. So him cheating isn’t exactly surprising. It being with Ryan’s best friend since kindergarten is.

“Did she kiss him or did he kiss her?”

The glare she gives him is enough to tell him that the distinction isn’t something that matters.

He nods. “Well, that’s a shitty thing to do but the reaction isn’t appropriate. You two have been tight since you were five. You should have tried to talk it out, even if she fucking sucks for doing that to you. I hope you dumped Damian, by the way.”

“Obviously, I fucking dumped him,” she crosses her arms and turns toward the window. “I don’t regret punching her, though. She’s a fucking bitch.”

Considering that she knowingly kissed his daughter’s boyfriend, he isn’t totally inclined to disagree even though she’s previously been a pretty nice girl.

“That doesn’t mean you resort to violence.” This he firmly believes. Sue him, he’s always been a lover and a forgiver, even if that makes him naïve.

“I knew you wouldn’t get it, considering you used to fuck around on Mom.”

He’s so taken aback that he nearly slams on the brakes in the middle of the highway. That’s out of fucking nowhere and not strictly true, though not strictly false either. Shit was complicated in his twenties, and he never slept with anyone but her then.

“Did she tell you that?” Her saying that about him would be completely out of character. Weirdly enough, he feels like he has a better relationship with QT now than he did when they were dating.

Ryan scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Your life is public record, Dad. Everyone knows that you were kissing your current husband when you were still with Mom because you said it.”

“That was different,” he tells her even though he knows that isn’t the complete truth. He knew he liked kissing Aiden and he knew QT didn’t like it, he was just convincing himself it was fine because it didn’t really mean anything even though it clearly did, based on the gold band wrapped around his finger.

“I’m sure.”

He pauses for a moment, taking in her line of logic. “Do you think it would have helped anything if your mom punched Aiden in the face for kissing me instead of having a conversation with me about it?”

She shrugs. “Maybe it would have saved her a few years.”

“You and your sister literally would not be alive,” he reminds her, knowing that she can’t argue otherwise. “And considering that your mom seems to love you guys a lot, I doubt she thinks of our time together as a total waste.”

Ryan slumps down in her seat and doesn’t reply.

“Look, kid, I’m not exactly proud of how that went down. Your mom and I had a massive fight over it and I was inadvertently leading Aiden on when I wasn’t ready to be with him yet. I fucked up. But all three of us get along pretty damn well today, and I guarantee you that a violent altercation would probably mean that our lives look very different now for a lot of reasons. You’re right when you say your mom would probably be easier to talk about this shit because I know she keyed some girl’s car for the same reason but I also know she regrets it. Using your words is always the best option to sort out this kind of thing and if that’s not working, you get the fuck out of there.”

She inhales sharply. “I just don’t get why she’d fucking kiss him.”

“I don’t either. But maybe you should ask her. Fuck, if she doesn’t regret it already, she will. You guys are best fucking friends. Don’t let some fucking loser boy ruin that for you.”

“But what if I love him?”

Ludwig grips the steering wheel a bit tighter. “Well, you could try talking things out with him too.” He can’t keep his tone from becoming stilted despite being pretty damn practiced at controlling his reactions in front of an audience.

Ryan smiles slightly. “I’m messing with you, Dad. I was gonna dump him after prom anyway. He only ever talks about himself. Guess I’ll just have to find a new date now. Honestly, I was more pissed at Marie for the principle of it than caring about Damian himself. Is that dumb?”

“That’s not dumb. She betrayed your trust.” He meets her eyes through the mirror. “But that doesn’t mean that you punch her in the face.”

She snorts. “Got it, Dad.”

“You’ll talk to her?”

“I’ll talk to her,” she promises. “But I’m not fucking apologizing until she does.”

He laughs. “That sounds fair enough.”

"well hey there," he reached down and picked her up and she immediately went to grab his face, dropping the duck plush between the two of them.

"i wanna play," she started, squishing his cheeks the way he would see her mother squish them, only momma needed one hand and she needed two, "can we play? pwleeeeeeease?" he made kissy noises at her before covering her cheeks in kisses, holding her tightly to him. "NOOOOOOOO!" she squealed, trying to wriggle out of his grasp.

"ow duck, your quackin is gonna blow my ears out." she giggled and covered her mouth.

"so can we play?" but ludwig frowned and she frowned in return, lip already quivering. he leaned his face against hers, nuzzling his slightly scruffy cheek against hers causing her to protest but at least stop frowning.

"i'm sorry baby, i can't play right now, i have to finish recording for work."

"but i wanna plaaaaaayyyyyyy!" ludwig snuggled her tighter, kissing her cheek and forehead mumbling that he knew and he was sorry and he was the WORST dad in the world, which only caused her to yell NOOOOO at the top of her tiny lungs.

"okay okay okay, shh shh shh, how about this? i get through one more video and then we can do whatever you want, we can even ask mommy if she wants to play with us too, huh?" she sniffled, playing up that she was indeed very upset at this development, but after a moment she relented, with a very quiet okay. "if you sit real quiet next to me while i record, you can sit right next to me." she nodded again and ludwig put her on the loveseat a few feet away (just out of camera view) and nestled her in with a blanket and her duck plush.

recording the second video took a few tries which bothered him but he could see her out of the corner of his eye, smiling at him and just enjoying spending time with them. it couldn't have been more than 30 minutes, but when he clicked stop recording and looked over, she was asleep. instantly guilt ran through his body, taking his headphones out and trying to sigh as quietly as he could. scooping her up in his arms with little protest from the sleepy toddler, he left the stream room and headed towards where you were, curled up in the corner of your couch with a book.

"well there you- oh look at her."

"i think i put her to sleep talking about a recent chess tournament." you laughed, of course, he was always good at putting her to sleep. he sat down gently, leaning most of himself into you. "we were going to play but..."

"you know if you wake her up, she'll be ready to go." he looked at you, incredulously.

"and wake up the princess? never. we can play when we get up."

"we?"

"yeah, scooch, i'm napping with her." you rolled your eyes but stretched out so he could nestle easier. "g'night."

The summer after she and Ludwig split up, QT decides to take the girls on a trip to Austin. The nature of being the parent the kids live with for most of the week is that she doesn’t get to be the fun one. When they stay with Ludwig it’s all ice cream and movie nights and when they stay with her it’s driving them to school and trying to get them to eat their vegetables for once.

It’s not like it’s Ludwig’s fault, really. They’ve been stumbling their way through the whole co-parenting without living together thing and she’s the one who’s lucky enough to have her daughters in her house almost every night. With the limited time he has from the nature of the arrangement they’re currently working with, she doesn’t blame him for wanting to make all his weekends special.

It’s just like, fuck. QT wants to be a fun parent too. She gets to have all the little things with the girls but she wants to make those fantastic unique memories too. It’s hard to measure up to the guy who’s been taking them to France alone pretty much every year since they were born.

So, she decides to take them on a trip to Texas to see their Aunt Maya. It’s a little more special than the trips they take up to Washington and kids fucking love animals. Their vacation is going to be fucking fun and something different that the girls remember forever.

In hindsight, taking a six-year-old and a four-year-old on a twenty-hour road trip without a second driver might have been slightly ambitious. Even though they stop for the night in some New Mexico town that QT forgets the name of the second they leave, the trip is not without its fair share of tears, emergency bathroom stops, and calls to Slime when she needs to hear the voice of another adult for an hour or so just to stay awake.

They do get there in one piece, though, long after the sun has already set. Maya welcomes them to the bigger house that she had built on Alveus property after she got married and all of them sink into their beds without much time for chatting. As much as she wants to catch up with Maya, if QT doesn’t get some fucking sleep tonight she’s going to spend the entire week as a miserable husk of a human being.

The next morning is buttermilk pancakes and farm-fresh eggs. Both of the girls are super talkative— it’s been almost two years since the last time Maya was able to come to Los Angeles and they want to tell her about pretty much everything that’s happened in their lives since then.

They spend the day walking around the property and introducing the girls to all the animals. Lucy takes a particular liking to Stompy, who she awkwardly hugs about six different times despite being way too short for it to work and Ryan happily talks to Maya about bugs pretty much the entire day. She seriously has no fucking clue how her older daughter managed to pick up Maya’s bug obsession despite living several states away. Considering that she’s typically quiet, QT is just happy to see her so animated about something.

“Mom, can we get a donkey?” Lucy asks as she holds out a carrot to Serrano in her open palm, just like Maya showed her.

“Where would the donkey live?” she asks, an amused smile on her face.

“The backyard.”

Ryan frowns. “Aunt Maya says that donkeys need a lot of land to graze in. Our backyard is small.”

“We have a donkey at the sanctuary in California. Maybe I’ll meet you guys for a visit sometime,” Maya offers, crouching to ruffle Lucy’s hair. For someone who claims to not be huge on kids, she’s fucking great with the girls.

They have dinner outside, sitting on the deck and enjoying the gentle summer breeze. Sometimes QT forgets how nice it is to be in a place like this, surrounded by people you care about and the beauty of the Earth. She wishes that she had driven out here sooner.

The girls don’t last long after dinner and luckily, they both go down to bed pretty easily.

QT returns to the deck afterward to watch the sunset.

When she hears the sliding door behind her, she turns to see Maya walking toward her with two wine glasses, a bottle of some sort of red, and a corkscrew.

“Caleb picked it out special for us,” she explains as she sets down the glasses on the small table between their chairs. “Don’t tell him this, but I still can’t taste the difference between this and the cheap shit.” She holds out the corkscrew to her. “You’re on opening duty.”

QT snorts. “You know I still don’t like wine,” she tells her as she pops the cork off the bottle and passes it back to Maya. “The taste never really grew on me.”

“God, me neither. It’s fucking gross,” Maya replies. “But it’s like old times, right? I’m going to do the pour.”

Maya does what is frankly the least satisfying pour she’s done, which just makes QT laugh and take the bottle to show her how it’s done with the other wine glass. This might just be for them but she still wants it to be right.

When Maya takes a sip of her wine, she wrinkles her nose. “Still gross.” She takes another sip anyway.

QT sips from her own glass. She still isn’t really a fan of wine whatsoever, but this is definitely one of the better ones that she’s had.

“Any goss?” QT asks, turning to her as she sets her glass back down on the table next to her.

“We’re opening a third sanctuary in Colorado, if that counts as goss.”

Where QT has two actual children, Maya has plenty of her own in the form of all the animals in her care. All the shit she’s done to promote conservation is fucking insane and QT is proud of her for it every day. Three animal sanctuaries and countless people more invested in conservation from all the educational content that she’s put out. It’s fucking impressive.

“We’ve grown up, haven’t we?” QT smiles a little as she says it. She isn’t sure the version of her that started a podcast in a shed with her best friend could even imagine where they are now.

Because they’ve both been through so much fucking shit throughout their lives and even though they have gray streaks in their hair, they have wrinkles from smiling instead of frown lines. They’ve both achieved and continue to achieve the things that they want out of life. Maya has all of this— the sanctuaries and the educational directive— and QT has two daughters, a few big regular events she still streams, and is working on her first cookbook.

“A little bit maybe.” Maya holds her glass in front of her pensively. “I know that we’ve changed a lot but I like that this still feels the same.”

It does. Staying connected is harder than ever with both of them being so fucking busy without the excuse of a podcast or streams to drive them together but their relationship manages to stay the same anyway. There’s a reason that she’s Aunt Maya, even if she lives several states away.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy,” QT admits. “I mean, I still feel fucking inadequate sometimes but I think that this is the life I’ve always wanted. I’ve got my daughters, my career, and I’m sitting on a deck pretending to enjoy fancy fucking wine with my best friend.”

Maya holds up her glass. “Cheers to that. I’m so fucking happy you’re here. It’s been so long since we’ve had time for us, and you know I love to see the girls too. Plus, I don’t have to deal with Ludwig anymore.”

She says his name like it’s a bad world.

QT rolls her eyes. “He’s a good guy and a great dad. We’re still friends even if things are weird right now.”

“I know.” Maya smiles. “I just like giving him shit. I’m glad you guys are on good terms even if it didn’t work out.”

“It did work out. This is how it was supposed to happen,” QT tells her, even though it probably sounds insane. “We’re both happier this way, and that means we can be better parents for our daughters.”

“You’ve always been an awesome fucking mom but I see your point.”

QT drinks her wine and takes in the scenery again. “I think maybe we’ll make this a yearly thing, if you’ll have us. The girls won’t be kids together, and I want them to have time with you and experience places like this one. The drive is a fucking bitch but it’s worth it.”

“I’d have you here every fucking day if I could, QT.”

The two of them sit quietly, drinking their wine and watching the sun fall below the horizon. Something comfortable and unnameable passes between them. This is how they love, sitting together with a drink and just enjoying being in the same space, physical or virtual.

Really, the reason that Ludwig took on the role of troop leader was because nobody else wanted to do it. The old leader moved to Vegas, along with her daughter, leaving the troop in a state of uncertainty. If nobody stepped in, the troop would have to disband and Ryan would either have to find a new troop or brave it solo as a Juliette according to what QT said when she dropped off the girls at his place a few days before the school year started. Apparently, she meticulously researched both of these options but she wasn’t sure that Ryan would even want to be in Girl Scouts if she wasn’t doing it with her friends from school.

So he decides to step in. There’s nothing in the rules that says a dad can’t be a Girl Scout leader and if it means his daughter gets to continue to do this thing she loves with her friends, he’s not going to let her lose that. He’s not all that busy these days anyway— what’s the point of free time if he can’t spend it with his kids?

So that’s how he finds himself a few months later, in charge of more than a dozen eight-year-old girls on a camping trip. They’re in a cabin, at least. As much as he intends to give these girls an actual scouting experience— something he feels like the previous leader failed to do— he needs two more years and a few more chaperones before he’s ready to teach them how to pitch tents and start their own fires.

They get to the cabin in the evening and he gives the girls some time to put their stuff down and set up their sleeping bags for later before taking them out on a hike. It’s a short hike in theory— just a two-mile loop— but when you’re hiking with easily distracted kids, it always ends up a lot longer. He has to stop the same girl from eating berries off random plants like five fucking times.

The first time he squats down to her level and carefully explains, “We don’t eat things when we don’t know what they are. It could make us very sick.”

By the end of the hike, he’s just absently snatching the berries out of her hands before she can shove them in her mouth. He gave them all granola bars and as much as he understands the raw human urge to forage for your own food where you can, he doesn’t think getting poisoned on your first overnight camping trip would be a great scouting experience.

There’s a creek that runs through the canyon they’re hiking in, and he gives the girls fifteen minutes or so to splash around in the shallow water, expressions of pure glee on their faces as they look for frogs and skip stones together.

“Dad!” Ryan runs over to him and very seriously hands him a rock, light gray with a small curvy brown line running through the center of it and smooth from the rush of the water. “I don’t want to lose it.”

As much as he would love to just hold the rock for her, they all had a conversation about this before they left and he’s not prepared for the domino effect of all the girls shoving everything they find out here into their pockets.

“Take only memories and leave only footprints, remember?” he says, holding it back out to her.

She frowns. “I want to give it to Lucy so she’s not sad that she didn’t get to come.”

Fuck, the thought of the delight on his younger daughter’s face as her sister hands her a rock that she found special for her is enough to make him shove the rock in his pocket before anyone else can see it. “You can’t tell anyone else I let you keep this, okay?”

She smiles brightly. “Thanks, Dad!” she tells him, running off to splash around in the creek again.

Maybe he just got scammed into breaking his own damn rules but the thing about having kids is that they can scam you every time and you’ll never really mind it.

By the time they get back from the hike, it’s time for dinner. He starts the fire on his own, tactfully, with a lighter because he doesn’t fucking remember how to light a fire without one— he’ll learn when it’s time to teach them— and has the girls go find sticks to roast hot dogs with, telling them to stay near the camp.

They have their dinner and sing songs that Ryan and a few of the other girls learned at camp last summer and then move on to making s’mores. He tells them a story that he found online about how s’mores were invented by a Girl Scout and they all watch on with wide, excited eyes.

While he’s cleaning up, the girls tell scary stories around the fire. It’s nothing particularly terrifying, except for something that the tiniest girl in the troop cooks up in her dark twisted mind about evil clowns riding bears that somehow comes off as less insane when she says it— seriously, that girl is going to be a screenwriter someday— and then he teaches them how to properly put out a fire before they all head in to go to bed.

Half the girls knock out straight away— the hike must have seriously taken it out of them— and the other half drag their sleeping bags together and quietly whisper and giggle as if this were just a normal sleepover. Truth be told, he doesn’t care if they stay up talking all night since their parents are coming to get them in the morning anyway and they’re being quiet enough that he can sleep.

So he closes his eyes and tries to get some shut-eye before he’s inevitably woken up when somebody decides they need a snack or can’t find the bathroom.

It’s about thirty seconds before somebody drops a sleeping bag next to him and cuddles into his side.

He cracks an eye open to see Ryan lying there in her giraffe pajamas, curling into him a little.

“You okay, kiddo?” he asks, rubbing circles on her back.

“I’m thinking about the clowns,” she whispers with a frown.

He hugs her a bit closer. “You know that I’ll fight any clowns that try to get you.”

“They were riding bears, Dad.”

He shrugs nonchalantly. “I’ll fight the bears too.”

Ryan lets out a little giggle. “You can’t fight a bear.”

Ludwig very dramatically lifts his other arm into her field of view. “You see these guns, I could fight a bear for you any day.”

She rolls her eyes. “Only Uncle Slime can fight bears.”

How the fuck did she come to that conclusion?

“There are no clowns on bears coming here. I promise,” he tells her, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “I wouldn’t take you girls somewhere where you’d be at risk of a clown attack, much less clowns with the ability to ride bears.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Let’s get some sleep now, okay? You can stay here with me if you want.”

She nods softly and stays cuddled up into his side. His heart soars a little— she’s in a room full of her friends and she still wants to hang out with her dad. He wonders how much longer she’ll be little enough for this.

Aiden has always seen himself as generally pretty good with kids. He grew up with much younger brothers, for starters, so in some ways, it occasionally felt like he played a hand in raising them, between acting as a role model when they were in their teens and babysitting them when they were younger. He’s also always gotten along well with his friends’ kids and dated a girl who worked with children for several years, often tagging along with her while she was with them. He’s always wanted to be a dad and these things have always assured him that he’ll be a good one someday, whenever that day might be.

That’s why he thinks it’ll be no problem when Ludwig asks him to watch Lucy while he’s on a campout with Ryan’s Girl Scout troop since QT is out of town visiting her sister. It should be easy enough— she’s a little rambunctious but she’s always liked him and besides, if he can’t watch his boyfriend’s kid for a night, he has no business dating a guy with kids.

He comes up with this big grand plan for their time together: he’s going to take her mini golfing, grab dinner with her, and then throw on the new Pixar movie while she winds down for bedtime. It’ll be the perfect fun little night for her to enjoy while her dad and sister are off roughing it in the woods.

And then Nick’s wife goes into labor.

“I just need you to watch him while we’re at the hospital,” he says frantically, pushing Mason through his front door.

Mason looks super bewildered, his mop of dark hair sticking out in every direction as he stands there with his Thomas the Tank Engine backpack. He probably has no idea what to make of the fact that he has a baby brother on the way. Or maybe he’s just three.

“It’s no problem,” he tells him because it’s not. He already told the two of him that he was down to watch Mason whenever the baby came and even if he does have Lucy tonight, it’ll probably be more fun for them to have a sleepover anyway. They’re practically cousins.

“Thank you.” Nick hugs him tightly and bolts back towards the car, quickly pulling out of the driveway and speeding off toward the hospital.

Mason peers up at him with his dad’s icy blue eyes. “I need to pee.”

Right. Okay. He’s got this. He leads Mason to the bathroom even though he’s been to his place about a hundred times by now and takes his backpack into the living room so he knows where it is when it’s time to go to bed. Two kids tonight. No problem.

It’s still early, so he makes Mason some lunch and parks him in front of the TV while he evaluates his plans for the night. Nick was in too much of a rush to give him a car seat, so he probably shouldn’t drive him around the city for mini golf and dinner. Except, maybe he can sit in Lucy’s car seat and she can just sit in the car since she’s older and a little tall for her age. That still seems like pushing it, though, so maybe they just stay in tonight. He’ll have to decide later.

Ludwig shows up right after lunch to hand off Lucy, her car seat, and her overnight bag.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take her to Slime’s so you only have one kid on your plate tonight?” he asks, nodding towards where Mason and Lucy are already jumping up and down on his couch, the latter still wearing her shoes.

He waves him off. “I’ve got this. It’s two kids and they’re already friends. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Ludwig snorts. “With those two? Arson, probably. Maybe highway robbery.”

Aiden rolls his eyes. “Seriously, Lud, it’s fine. We’re going to have a fun night.”

He gives him an amused smile. “Well, if you’re sure, I guess I’ll leave her here with you. I’m sure Slime would come to get her if you need help, though.”

“I won’t.”

“Sure, babe,” Ludwig kisses him on the cheek when none of the kids are looking.

Their relationship isn’t a secret, per se, they’ve just been putting off telling Ludwig’s daughters about it officially. Since neither Ludwig nor QT have dated since the breakup, it’s definitely something new that they’re going to have to have a conversation about. Though, six months of dating feels a little like they’re pushing it off.

Ludwig pulls Ryan out the door and leaves shortly after. As soon as the door clicks shut, Aiden makes his way over to where Mason and Lucy are still jumping on his couch. If they have this much energy, maybe mini golf should stay on the table.

He claps his hands together. “Okay! We’re gonna have an awesome day together. Who wants to go mini golfing?!”

Instead of the overwhelming response he expects from two young children who very much enjoyed mini golf when they all went together like two months prior, Mason just shrugs and Lucy crosses her arms over her chest.

“Uncle Slime says mini golf is for normies,” she informs him.

He cocks an eyebrow. Fucking Slime, dude. “Do you even know what that means?”

She holds her chin high. “It means that cool people don’t mini golf.”

Mason, who he’s pretty sure idolizes Lucy about as much as she idolizes Slime, nods frantically. “I wanna be cool.”

He cycles through other possible ideas for fun things they can do together. Bowling is out because the last time they went Lucy had a total meltdown and he doesn’t care for a repeat of that. They could do a hike if it weren’t for the fact that losing service is probably a terrible idea when Mason’s new brother could arrive literally whenever at this point. An arcade could be a decent option, he supposes, but Mason might still be too little to understand how the games work.

“Let's walk to the park,” he decides because there’s a pretty decent playground in his neighborhood that both of them have been to a few times.

This, at least, they both agree on. He grabs a few water bottles from the kitchen while Mason puts on his shoes and they walk over together. Or really, run, because Lucy and Mason break into a dead sprint in the direction of the park as soon as they step outside.

He speedwalks after them— one perk of being tall as fuck is that it’s easier to keep up. He’s glad that they’re so excited, at least, and at the park, they can largely entertain themselves. If they did go mini golfing, he would have had to facilitate the entire time.

Of course, he keeps an eye on them as they dart around and become best friends with kids that they’ll probably never see again after today. To be fair, that’s something that he also does well into his 30s.

Maybe he does get slightly distracted responding to messages— it’s not like he’s worried about them when they’re clearly plenty entertained by the park itself and he knows them well enough to know they won’t run off without checking in with him. He figures it’ll be fine.

And then he hears an all-too-familiar scream.

He sprints over to find Mason on the ground below the slide crying and clutching his ankle, half his leg scraped up on the woodchips. He must have gone off the side somehow, probably by standing.

Lucy is as pale as a ghost as she stares at him. “Is he gonna die?”

“What? No,” he tells her as he crouches down to look at his ankle. It looks fine but he knows that ankles are fucking weird sometimes. “Are you okay, buddy?”

Mason lets out another quivering sob. “N-no.”

“Can you walk?” he tries.

Without trying, he shakes his head.

Okay. He can handle this. It’s fine. He just hopes he doesn’t have to take him to the hospital— he can’t imagine running into Nick there and having to explain that within hours of Mason getting dropped off, there’s already been a medical emergency.

“Come here.” Aiden reaches out and lets Mason climb into his arms. Fuck, for such a tiny kid, he’s damn heavy.

He carries him home with Lucy walking at his side, blue eyes comically wide. He gets the full story: she dared him to run down the slide but didn’t know what would happen. Aiden is pretty sure that she’s learned her lesson plenty.

When he gets home, he lays him down on the couch and immediately props his leg up on a pillow. He goes to pull his shoe off and hesitates. Fuck, he hasn’t taken a first-aid class in twenty years. Are you supposed to leave it on because of the swelling or some shit?

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Lucy hovering, clearly still freaked out. It probably doesn’t help that he’s clearly fucking panicking. He takes a deep breath and turns to her. “Lucy, can you go to the bathroom upstairs and grab the first-aid kit that’s under the sink?”

She nods and runs upstairs. He honestly doesn’t know what he needs from it. He just wanted to give her a task.

He inspects Mason’s ankle a bit more closely. It still looks fine. Grabbing the base of his foot, he gently tilts it up and down. There’s no seizing up or sudden yelp of pain.

“Does that hurt?”

Mason sniffles. “Yeah.” He seems almost unsure about it.

Aiden isn’t a medical professional but he’s pretty sure he probably just twisted it and that it’ll probably be fine. The shoes can come off, then, for the sake of his throw pillows.

After Lucy returns with the first-aid kit, he picks out the remaining woodchips and cleans up the scrapes on his leg before bandaging him up. He’s not going to get out of explaining this one to Nick but considering that he used to skate, he’s probably seen much worse.

He makes a makeshift ice pack and wraps it in a kitchen towel before placing it on Mason’s ankle. He’s not even really crying anymore.

“You’re gonna be okay, let’s just keep the ice on it for a little,” he tells him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lucy’s shoulders visibly relax. “How about we watch a movie and order pizza?”

“C-can we get pepperoni?”

Smiling softly, Aiden ruffles his hair. “Of course, we can get pepperoni.”

He sets them up with the Pixar movie that he planned to put on anyway and orders the pizza before settling back into his seat on the other end of the couch. Both of them seem too enthralled by the movie to remember that they were super freaked out like twenty minutes ago.

His phone buzzes with a text from Slime.

you good over there bro? lud said you’ve got the dastardly fucking duo tonight

He smiles as he replies with a picture of the two of them, wide-eyed as they stare at the TV.

all good :)

When the familiar fussy cry comes crackling through the baby monitor on the nightstand, QT rolls over and screams into her pillow.

He honestly fucking gets it. It’s only about two weeks ago that Ryan started generally getting through the nights without waking and as of two days ago, they’re back where they were two months ago, with long nights spent switching off and trying to coax her back to sleep. According to her pediatrician, she’s teething which isn’t always an issue when it comes to sleeping through the night but since she already had some issues with sleeping through the night up until pretty recently. QT gave her Tylenol before bed, but they’ve still been up with her a few times tonight, the latest being when Ludwig rocked her back to sleep only twenty minutes ago.

“I’ll get her,” he offers, patting QT’s arm and climbing out of bed because he’s an awesome partner and an even better dad.

Without lifting her face from the pillow, she mumbles something incomprehensible in response. He assumes she’s thanking either him or some sort of higher power for the fact that she doesn’t have to get out of bed.

Ryan’s entire face is bright red when he picks her up, tears streaming down her cheeks and snot dribbling from her nose as she thrashes her arms and legs around violently. It breaks his fucking heart to see her struggling like this— as much as he hates getting up in the middle of the night he understands that it’s only because she’s hurting.

He picks her up and balances her at his hip, gently bouncing her as he grabs her blanket from her crib and pushes it into her pudgy hands, just so she has something to focus on. Her screams quiet to sniffles as she shoves it into her mouth and tries to gnaw at it— poor girl.

It feels almost robotic as he walks downstairs and grabs a washcloth out of the freezer, a handy tip that QT’s sister passed down to her when she mentioned Ryan had started teething the other day. They’ve done this so many times and sure, it helps, but it only soothes the pain for so long before the tears start up again.

Sitting on the couch with her, Ludwig carefully rubs the freezing washcloth against her gums, coaxing her to gently chew at it so the cold can numb her aching gums.

As she chews, quieting finally, he grabs a tissue off the coffee table and wipes her face free of boogers and tears before leaning down and pressing a soft kiss right where wispy blond hair meets her forehead.

“You’re okay,” he whispers, wrapping her in her blanket and hugging her to his chest. “I’ve got you.”

She starts to relax a little, allowing the washcloth to fall from her mouth, and he reaches up with his thumb to gently massage her gums in the way that he saw in some YouTube video he watched about this.

When he hits a bump on the bottom, he freezes and withdraws his thumb so that he can look at her mouth. Sure enough, barely visible near the middle of her mouth is a tiny pearly white tooth. Her first fucking tooth.

“Oh my fucking god!” he says, loud enough that Ders peers over to them with interest from the cat tower across the room.

He debates waking up QT for this. On one hand, it’s definitely a big first. Teeth mean chewing. She’s literally going to be chewing her whole life! But the tooth will also still be there when she wakes up tomorrow and she did seem pretty fucking exhausted.

Fuck it. He’s pretty sure that she’ll be more excited by the tooth than pissed about being woken up at four in the morning. She probably hasn’t even fallen back to sleep yet. Moments like these are meant to be shared, so he stands back up, bouncing Ryan at his side, and walks back upstairs.

“Babe?” he whispers, creeping back into her bedroom.

“What?” she mumbles into the pillow, still immobilized by being woken up in the middle of the night for what feels like the millionth time. Parenting is seriously fucking hard.

“I need to show you something,” he tells her.

She flips upright and turns on the light in an instant, a  panicked look on her face. “Is something wrong?”

He looks from Ryan, half-asleep in his arms, to her. Okay, he can see how that might have sounded slightly worrying after they literally just woke up to her sobbing.

“No, no, no. It’s a good thing,” he tells her, sitting on the bed and handing Ryan over to her.

Ryan smiles a little and reaches up to grab at her nose, making QT laugh and press a kiss into her hair, even though she seemed frustrated by being woken up just a few minutes ago.

“Look,” he tells her, reaching over and carefully pulling down her bottom lip so that QT can see the tooth.

QT’s eyes widen. “Holy shit! Is that?”

“She has a tooth now,” he confirms.

She turns to stare at him for a moment, looking absolutely stunned. “I’m going to fucking cry or something. That’s an actual fucking tooth!”

He nods. “Logically, I knew that teething meant her teeth were coming in but I don’t know why I figured she’d just sprout a full set in a month or something.”

QT snorts, reaching down to run her finger along the tooth. “Lud, that’s seriously fucking stupid.”

“I’m not a baby expert. I’m learning, okay?” But he’s barely even focused on what he’s saying, he’s just watching his little girl, sleepy and confused about why her parents are so excited right now.

“You got a little tooth now,” QT says in her baby voice. “Soon enough you’re gonna be able to eat all sorts of stuff just like your Mom and Dad. I’m gonna make so many tasty little treats just for you one day.”

She reaches down and boops her nose, earning a giggle.

How did I get this fucking lucky? he thinks as he watches his partner and his daughter. It’s the middle of the fucking night and all he can think about is how grateful he is for everything he has.

Ludwig remembers being fucking terrified on the day Ryan was born. She was so small and she came into the world with a piercing scream as she took in her very first breath. He remembers taking one look at his perfect fucking daughter and thinking Shit. I better not fuck this up.

There was a little bit less freaking out when Lucy was born. Seeing as she was three entire weeks late, there was the general vibe of fucking come on already. He was still a little scared on the day itself, though, wondering if maybe they weren’t ready for a second kid yet or what if Ryan didn’t actually want to be a big sister or what if they have this second kid and then he and QT figure out they don’t want to be together anymore and have to balance two kids in the breakup. The last one was surprisingly on the nose for everything that happened a few years down the line, so much so that he wonders if maybe putting off that conversation was a huge fucking mistake, but that doesn’t change the fact that Lucy’s birth is tied for the best thing that has ever happened to him.

But when Anthony is born, he actually feels fully ready. He’s older now, and far more familiar with what it means to be a dad, and he’s in a really secure marriage. Honestly, he and Aiden went back and forth on this a lot, discussing whether it’s a good idea to bring a new child into their home when Ryan and Lucy live there part-time, figuring out whether they wanted to go with adoption or surrogacy, and making sure the girls know that just because there’s going to be a new baby, doesn’t mean that either of them loves them any less.

In the end, they decided that they wanted to have a baby together and that they wanted it to be biologically Aiden’s, so they went through the process of finding a surrogate as well as an egg donor since they didn’t want to risk any legal or ethical dilemmas that could come up with traditional surrogacy.

Now, Ludwig paces back and forth in the waiting room alone because apparently, their kid is big enough for them to need to do an emergency c-section which means only one other person gets to be in the room. Obviously, they chose Aiden because Ludwig has gotten to witness the births of his first two children— as much as he craves this magical moment for himself, he needs Aiden to experience it too.

He’s ready for this— he really fucking is— and waiting feels like torture, especially when he’s alone. The flight he bought for his mom and Peter doesn’t leave until tonight and Slime is still in the process of picking the girls up from school for him.

Luckily, Slime arrives with the girls like twenty minutes later, and dealing with the impatience of a 3rd grader and a 5th grader excited to meet their new sibling overrides his own burning anticipation to hold his baby for the first time.

Eventually, Aiden emerges into the waiting room with teary eyes and that unique magical smile that only exists in moments like these. He holds out a hand to him. “Come meet our son.”

Now Ludwig is crying too because this is seriously a fucking emotional moment, even if it is the third time he’s gone through it. He clings to Aiden’s side as they walk back into the hospital room and when Ludwig first sees him, his heart fucking soars.

Even though he’s pretty big for a newborn, he still looks so fucking small cradled in his surrogate’s arms. With big brown eyes and a wisp of dark hair, he looks just like Aiden.

The surrogate holds him out. “Do you want to hold him?”

He’s unable to do anything but nod as he carefully takes him, holding him tight to his chest. This is his son— his baby boy— and he’s actually here. After all the paperwork and a few failed IVF attempts, he’s here.

“Hi Anthony,” he whispers, reaching down and letting him wrap a tiny hand around his finger. Fuck, he can’t believe this is real. He looks up at Aiden, who looks so fucking fond. “He’s so fucking perfect.”

Aiden lets out a teary laugh. “That’s our baby.”

“Did you hold him?” Ludwig asks as Aiden walks over and slings an arm around his waist, reaching down with his other hand to gently brush Anthony’s cheek.

“Yeah, before I grabbed you. I couldn’t wait.”

He nods. “I wouldn’t have been able to wait either.”

“Do you want to take him out to meet your family?” the nurse asks. They talked about this extensively before, but the baby will have to stay with the surrogate at least overnight to adjust, if not a bit longer, and it’s best not to crowd the surrogate’s hospital room with strangers after she was just literally cut open.

“Yeah. We’ll take him to meet his sisters now,” Aiden says, squeezing Ludwig’s hip.

The girls are fucking pumped to meet him, and each of them gets their carefully monitored turn holding him, with plenty of pictures being taken for both posterity’s sake and also for their parents.

When they tell Slime his name, something that they had kept from him along the way both because they wanted it to be a surprise and they didn’t want to get his hopes up in case the baby was a girl, tears stream down his face.

“Fuck you guys,” he tells them, but the smile on his face shows that he clearly feels honored.

“That’s a bad word,” Lucy pipes in, earning a laugh from the three adults in their group.

Eventually, Anthony lets out a wail and the nurse steps in to take him back to be fed, telling them that she’ll be back in a moment so they can file some paperwork.