Chapter Text
Arthur Parrish is born on a Friday afternoon. He’s born at exactly 2pm, exactly on the day he was due. Adam feels proud already.
It’s raining, but still warm for the first day of October. Josie’s sister holds her hand the whole time, but that doesn’t stop her shouting expletives at Adam. He starts off holding her other hand, but when the midwife asks if he’d like to see, he moves, with Josie’s permission, to watch his son enter the world.
He cries. A lot. His hair is dark, despite his fair parents, and matted to his head. The midwife rubs him with a towel and Adam takes him. He’s red, and tiny and he screams, like he knows exactly what kind of world Adam’s dropped him into.
Adam cries too. He turns his face away from Josie, so she can’t see. The nurse hands him a tissue, and he wipes his face while they take Arthur to check him over and wrap him up.
He’s perfect, ten fingers and ten toes, and there’s a moment, just before Josie gets taken to recovery, where they’re both looking at each other and grinning, marvelling over the little life they’ve created together, when Adam can’t remember why they’d broken up in the first place.
But they had, and Josie goes with her sister to the recovery room, and Adam’s left alone with his new baby. Just his. Just the two of them now, the only way it was meant to be.
It started with a phone call.
Actually, it started with a senior year mixer. With a ‘ Adam, this is my friend Josie.’ With a girl with an electric smile and a laugh that made Adam feel warm inside, and no hesitation about calling out his bullshit. With a girl that made him feel the way only one other person had ever managed before. A girl who was made of a magnetic brand of impossible stuff.
It started with a three year relationship. It started, because after three years, 'You never make an effort to spend time with me.’ ‘Well it’s hard to get between you and your career.’ Because they never saw each other. Because maybe they were too similar.
It started because, 'One more night? For old times’ sake?’
It started with an ending.
Two months later came the phone call.
“I’m not ready to be a mother, Adam. I’m on track to make associate. I never wanted a baby, and we broke up. If we were still together, it would be different.”
“Still. I’m glad you called,” Adam had said.
“I thought you should know. It’s…” Josie paused. “Your baby too.”
Adam had stuck on that. Words going around and around in his, the voice of someone that it turns out that maybe, maybe, he’ll never be free of.
“I know it’s a huge thing to ask. A massive thing. But if I was ready. Ready to be a parent. If I wanted to be... Would you. Would you consider keeping it?”
“I’m not interested in being a Mom, Adam.”
“I’m not asking you to be. I’ll raise them myself. You would only have to be as involved as you’d want to be.”
Josie snorted. “I think I’d have to be pretty damn involved. It’s not like we’re seahorses.”
Adam laughed. “If we were seahorses, it’d be me making this phone call.”
“If we were seahorses, we wouldn’t have phones.” Josie sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
Adam had got off the call, and opened up his online bank account. He’d bought a house last year; three bedrooms, suburbs, back yard. He’d still been with Josie at the time, and it had made sense. When they broke up, he’d bought her half. It had made sense, he didn’t want the cost of moving again.
Adam had been saving for a new car. Or at least that’s what he’d been saying. He had more than enough for a new car, but really he’d just been saving for the sake of it.
I can pay for all the medical bills, he texted Josie.
I should hope so, she replied. And then, If we were seahorses we wouldn’t have medical bills.
Adam hasn’t told anyone.
He brings Arthur home, tucked up in his car seat. Adam had spent hours researching them; it’s the safest, the most comfortable he could find. It’s brightly patterned too; giraffes and elephants and lions dance through a rainbow jungle.
Arthur sleeps in the car, soothed by the rumbling of the road. He wakes when Adam carries him inside, but he doesn’t cry, just looks around with big, blue eyes. His onesie has ducks marching across it, and he’s tucked into his seat with a little brown bear.
Adam makes him a bottle inside the house and he sits with him on the couch, looking around the room as Arthur drinks. He’s got everything he needs, all set up. He’s fully stocked with diapers and baby formula.
Adam’s not a fool, he knows that raising a child alone isn’t going to be easy, but he’s as prepared as he possibly can be. He’s read every book he can get his hands on, every internet article, every waiting room magazine article.
Arthur drinks all the milk Adam gives him, and by the time the bottle’s empty, his eyelids are drooping and he falls asleep in Adam’s arms.
Arthur is three days old when he sends the email. He’s been delaying sending it for the same reason he hadn’t told anyone before.
He lays Arthur down in the middle of a white knitted blanket, and stands above him.
“Alright. Smile, Arthur.”
Arthur dribbles, as Adam snaps pictures of him.
He attaches them to the email, sends them out to his friends, to the people he considers his family.
Arthur James Parrish, he writes in the subject line.
Hi everyone,
I’d like you to meet my son, Arthur.
Adam
He sends the email, then picks Arthur up again and carries him around, tucked against his chest as he collects up dirty laundry.
It’s not even been five minutes, before his phone starts ringing.
Blue flashes across the screen.
He sets Arthur in his bassinette, and switches on the little airplane mobile above it.
Then he answers Blue.
“What the—” She starts shouting. “Wait, is the baby asleep?”
Adam glances at where Arthur is sucking on his fist. He might be watching the mobile, but it might just be a coincidence.
“No, but he’s right here, so don’t swear.”
“Don’t swear! Don’t swear! What were you thinking Adam? Why didn’t you tell us? Where did he come from?”
“I hope I don’t have to explain that to you.”
Blue makes an enormous, angry growl down the phone. “Who’s his mother? Tell me you didn’t knock someone up, Adam.”
“Well obviously. That’s how this works. I thought Maura didn’t like lying to you?”
“Who’s his mother?” Blue repeats.
“Josie,” Adam says, at last, even though it’s none of her business.
“Are you back together with her?”
“No.”
“So are you… co-parenting with her?”
“No. She didn’t want to be a parent,” Adam sighs. He sits on the floor next to Arthur, and reaches in to stroke his tiny hand.
“And you did?” Blue asks. She knows the answer. She knows what the answer was a year ago. Less than a year ago.
“I…” Adam watches the planes spin above his and Arthur’s heads. “When I was a kid. I overheard my father say something. Something that I’ve never, ever forgotten. I regret the minute I squirted him into you.”
He hears Blue’s bitten off gasp on the phone.
“I didn’t want to be him, Blue. I didn’t want it just to be a mistake, an accident that I regretted.”
“Oh, Adam,” Blue says. “Can we come and meet him?”
“Of course. I want you to, that’s why I told you.”
Arthur starts to cry, little sobs that Adam already recognises, already knows are going to build to something bigger before long.
“Have you got to go?”
“Yeah, he needs his diaper changed.”
“When’s good to come over?” Blue asks.
“Anytime. We’re here all the time.” He tucks the phone between his jaw and his shoulder, and scoops Arthur up.
“Is tomorrow okay? Saturday afternoon?”
“Either’s fine,” Adam says, laying Arthur down on the changing table.
“Tomorrow is Saturday, Adam. I’ll see you then.”
Adam does his best to make the house tidy before Blue, Henry and Gansey arrive. Arthur sleeps most of the morning, and Adam thinks bitterly how the books tell him that he should sleep whenever the baby’s asleep. There’s too much mess for that; dirty clothes and dirty dishes all over the house. Adam’s been up since five and he hasn’t eaten yet.
There’s something about having a new born, something about sleeping when the baby’s sleeping, something about relying on your partner to help out. Well Adam doesn’t have a partner, and his baby never seems to want to sleep. He doesn’t cry much either, just spends hours looking around with wide-eyed curiosity.
The problem is, is that Adam can’t stop watching him. Arthur stretches in his sleep and Adam watches and feels like his heart is going to grow so big that it’ll come out of his mouth. Arthur wraps his tiny, tiny baby hand around one of Adam’s fingers, and Adam’s so full of love for his son that he almost cries.
So he doesn’t usually spend much time tidying the house.
On the doorstep, Gansey holds out the pale blue gift bag. “You can’t be mad because it’s customary to buy a gift for a new baby. It’s not for you, it’s for him.”
“I understand the concept of a gift, Gansey,” Adam says, narrowing his eyes.
“Congratulations, Parrish,” Henry says. “I have to inform you I will not be holding your offspring. These jeans coat six hundred dollars.”
"Henry," Blue hisses. “Why would you wear six hundred dollar jeans?”
“It’s important to me to make a good first impression.”
Adam rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to worry about that right now, Arthur’s asleep.”
“I can’t believe that you kept this a secret for nine months,” Blue says, in an exaggerated whisper, crowding into Adam’s hallway.
“Technically about seven and a half,” Adam points out.
“Still! All this time! When were talking about all going on a trip down to Mexico, you knew you wouldn’t be able to come!”
“It’s not like I lied and told you I would. I never committed to anything. How was I supposed to just casually drop that in? Oh by the way, I can’t come to Cancun, I’m having a baby.”
“I’d’ve liked that for dramatic effect,” Henry says. “Not that the option you chose wasn’t dramatic. It certainly had an impact.”
In the living room, Gansey leans over the bassinette, and remarks, “Incredible!”
“You’d think he’d never seen a baby before,” Blue says, but the grin that splits across her face when she sees Arthur is just as awed.
Maura, Calla and Persephone visit the following afternoon. Persephone presents him with a crochet blanket, woven from rainbow pastel colours, and softer than a cloud.
“She’s been making that thing for the last six months and she wouldn’t tell us why,” Calla mutters.
“Promise me, that you’ll call if you need anything. Any questions, any problems. Whenever you feel like you don’t know what to do, call me,” Maura says.
“I will,” Adam promises. He means it too. The idea of something happening to Arthur and not knowing what to do terrifies him.
Ronan doesn’t come over.
He probably didn’t get the email.
Adam could call him. Maybe Adam could call.
He must have got the email. Ronan was always showing up uninvited before. And he hasn’t been over in weeks. Adam hasn’t heard from him at all. Not since Arthur.
Adam should call him.
He doesn’t.
He asks Gansey about it instead.
Gansey’s sat in Arthur’s room, on the floor next to his bassinette. He’s reading to Arthur from a collection of Anglo Saxon poetry.
“Are you reading my son Beowulf?”
Gansey shrugs. “The cadence of poetry is supposed to be very good for brain development.”
“Yeah, I read that study. It was talking about nursery rhymes.”
“I’m sure the theory still holds,” Gansey says. “He’s fallen asleep anyway.”
Adam leans over to look down at Arthur. His tiny fingers flex in his sleep. “Have you spoken to Ronan? Recently?”
Gansey frowns and shuts the book softly. “I have. I take it he hasn’t been to visit?”
“No.”
“You understand, Adam, that this was a huge shock. To all of us. You’re the last person I ever expected to have a...” Gansey trails off, his new habit when he worries he’s about to say something offensive.
“Spontaneous baby?” Adam finishes for him.
“Well yes. We all need some time to adjust. Ronan’s processing still.”
Adam worries he’s doing more than that. “I knew things were going to change,” Adam says. “I just didn’t think that that part of my life would change.”
“I think it’ll have changed less than you think,” Gansey says. He slides the book back onto Arthur’s bookshelf. “Just give him time.”
Arthur’s almost a month old by the time Ronan comes over. He shows up, like he always used to, unexpected, on Adam’s doorstep. He’s got Chinese food. It’s 3pm.
“Are you hungry?”
Adam blinks at him. Arthur looks up to the new voice and he blinks at Ronan too.
“It’s three pm,” Adam points out.
“Yeah, I just thought either you wouldn’t have eaten yet, or you can have an early dinner. Save the trouble. Whatever.”
Adam’s stomach growls at the smell. “Yeah. I’m starving.” He moves out of the doorway to let Ronan in.
Ronan dumps the takeaway on the kitchen table. He’s got another bag, a paper one from a baby store. He drops it on a chair.
Arthur wails softly against Adam’s chest. He’s due a sleep soon, but he’s been grumpy all morning and Adam’s not sure he’s going to go down.
Ronan is watching them, an uncharacteristically soft, warm look in his eyes. He looks uncertain, for possibly the first time in all the years that Adam has known him.
“Can I?” he asks, gesturing to Arthur.
Adam nods, and he untangles Arthur’s fist from his shirt, and passes him to Ronan.
He grizzles again when Adam hands him over, but he settles in Ronan’s arms, and stares up at him, with wide blue eyes. He looks tiny in Ronan’s hands, against his broad chest and something tugs in Adam’s gut, so hard that he forgets all about how hungry he is. Forgets about almost everything that isn’t the way Ronan carefully holds his son.
Ronan smiles at Arthur and Arthur wraps his chubby little fist around Ronan’s finger. The smile on Ronan’s face is nothing like any smile he’s seen him wear before. Adam has to look away from it.
He unpacks the food instead, dumping noodles onto plates and dividing up spring rolls.
Adam carries both plates through to the living room, and Ronan carries Arthur.
“You can put him in the bouncy chair,” Adam says. He watches as Ronan carefully lowers Arthur into it, watches him do the clips up to keep him secure. That same tugging at his gut is back. Adam doesn’t understand, he hasn’t felt this way when anyone else has picked up Arthur.
Ronan takes his plate and sits on the couch next to Adam.
“I’m sorry,” Ronan says. “That I haven’t been by sooner. I didn’t know if you’d want me to.”
“Why wouldn’t I want you to?”
Ronan raises his eyebrows and looks over at where Arthur has fallen asleep in his bouncy chair. “I didn’t know why you hadn’t told me about him. I didn’t know what that meant. Everyone freaked out, you know. Gansey called me up all ‘ did you know about this?’”
“I wanted to tell you. All of you. But, I thought you’d all try to talk me out of it. Tell me that it was a mistake. I had enough doubts on my own and if I had other people weighing in… There’s no going back now.”
“And you wanted to wait until you had an adorable baby to distract us with?”
“Yeah. You can’t argue with me in front of him.”
Ronan laughs. He shovels the rest of his noodles into his mouth in silence.
“You look knackered, Parrish.”
“Yeah, well. Newborn.” Adam shrugs.
“I’ll stay. Watch him while you get some sleep.”
“Ronan, no. I can’t put that on you.”
“Come on, it's fine. You need to get a straight five hours of sleep. I’ll watch the baby. What’s he gonna do? Suddenly learn to fight and wrestle my car keys off me? Drive out onto the interstate?”
“Funny.” Adam wants to argue. He should argue. But he’s so tired. “Wake me up if he needs his diaper changed. And he’ll need another bottle at nine, so wake me before that.”
“Go to bed.”
Adam goes.
He wakes up at four am.
“Oh fuck!” Adam flies out of his bed and down the stairs. Ronan’s asleep on the couch, head tilted back over the arm, feet hanging off the end. There’s a baby monitor resting on his shoulder.
Arthur isn’t downstairs.
“Lynch!” Adam shouts.
Ronan grunts and rolls over, almost falling off the couch. He looks groggily up at Adam.
“Where’s my son?”
“In his basket thing. I put him in that weird sleep sack. Why do you put babies in bags these days?”
“You didn’t wake me. Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Because you looked like a reanimated corpse. We were fine. I gave him a bottle at nine, I burped him, he spit up all over my back. He pooped. I realised that baby shit is the worst substance in the natural world. I put him in a clean baby grow. I put him in the weird sack and he’s been asleep since then.”
“He’s been asleep since then? What time did you put him down?”
“I don’t know, ten?”
“Ten.” Adam runs upstairs.
In his room, Arthur is sleeping, one hand wrapped around the trunk of his stuffed elephant, tufts of blonde hair against the mattress, making little snuffly snores.
“He’s never slept that long before. He normally wakes up to eat around 1am.”
“I bored him to sleep. Told him all about your job.”
Adam sighs. The rush of panic is over and the fact of 4am is creeping back in.
“You could’ve gone home. If you’d woken me up, then you could’ve gone.”
“But I didn’t. Go back to bed. I’ll take the monitor. If he wakes up, I’ll wake you.”
Adam nods. He’s halfway back to his room when he turns back to Ronan.
“How did you know how to change a diaper?” he asks.
“Intuition,” Ronan says, shrugging. “Or maybe it was that list of instructions you have stuck to the wall by the changing table.”
Ronan isn’t there when Adam wakes up a few hours later. The baby monitor is on his nightstand. There’s a note beneath it, in Ronan’s scrawled handwriting.
"Gave bottle at 4:30. More baby spit up on my clothes.”
He carries it with him as he checks on Arthur. He’s awake, sucking on his fingers and staring up at his mobile. He fusses a little as Adam undoes the snaps on his sleep sack.
He changes Arthur’s diaper, and dresses him in the tiny green overalls that Blue bought for him. They’re still a bit big for Arthur, but he snaps a photo and sends it to her.
She replies immediately, three heart-eyes emojis.
In the kitchen, Adam puts Arthur in the bouncy chair, switches on the coffee machine, and makes up a bottle for Arthur. The paper bag that Ronan brought over yesterday is still sitting on the chair.
“I’m beginning to worry you’re getting spoilt,” Adam says to Arthur. Arthur doesn’t comment.
Inside the bag, a soft, stuffed toy cow looks up at him. There are cardboard books about farm animals too, and a rattle that looks like a doughnut, printed with a line of ducks walking in the rain. The ducks are wearing rain boots.
He cuts the tag off the cow carefully, and puts it next to where Arthur has started fussing in his chair. He doesn’t acknowledge the cow, just waves his tiny fists in the air and starts to cry, building up until Adam lifts him out of the chair.
Adam sits at the kitchen table and gives Arthur his bottle. His eyes drift closed as he drinks, but he wakes when he’s finished. Adam burps him, tucking Arthur over his shoulder.
Ronan did this last night. Held Arthur like this. He imagines Ronan in a baby store, picking out books and toys for him. Adam wonders if he found the ducks in rain boots funny. That ache in his chest is back. It’s becoming all too familiar, the swell of emotion he gets when Arthur and Ronan interact.
The front door opens. Adam startles, and the jolt makes Arthur cry.
“Shh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Adam murmurs to him. Arthur calms and goes back to sleep. Adam puts him back in his chair, and goes to investigate.
It’s Ronan. He’s dropped a load of grocery bags on Adam’s doorstep, and he’s going back to the BMW for more.
“What’s this?” Adam asks.
“Food, Parrish. Have you got baby brain?”
“I can see that. Why?”
“I figured you might like to eat something other than baby formula and stale Cheetos. I got some frozen meals. I also got stuff to make a stew. I’ll make a big batch and stick it in your freezer.”
“You… Don’t have to do that,” Adam says, even though it’s clearly too late. “I don’t need you to cook for me.”
“Well I’m going to cook. In your house. And if you don’t want to eat it, that’s not my problem.”
Adam opens his mouth to argue again, but Arthur starts crying from the kitchen. Adam turns on instinct and whilst he’s settling Arthur, Ronan starts filling his fridge.
“I’m going to pay you back for those groceries,” Adam says.
“Sure you are, Parrish.”
“I’m going to try tummy time with him again,” Adam says. Arthur’s just woken from a nap and he’s in a good mood.
“Tummy time?” Ronan asks.
“Yeah, it’s to build up his muscle strength, help him learn to hold his head up.” Adam pauses, and then adds, “He cried a lot last time I tried it. So I’m a bit apprehensive.”
Ronan frowns. “Did he faceplant the floor?”
“Yeah, kind of,” Adam concedes. He sits on the floor, with his back against the couch.
“Well I’d cry if I got stuck on my stomach and I was too small to roll over.”
Adam rolls his eyes and puts Arthur down gently on the play mat on his tummy. He’s quiet for a minute and he kicks his legs against the mat. Adam grins. “See, he’s fine,” he says. And then, like he was waiting for Adam to say it, Arthur starts screaming.
Ronan lays down next to him, and strokes his fingers over Arthur’s back. “Your daddy’s a bastard isn’t he? Putting you on the floor like that.”
“Don’t say that to him,” Adam says, but he laughs. “It’s important for his growth!”
Ronan grins at Adam, and then he rolls onto his back. Adam watches as he carefully picks Arthur up, and puts him back down on his chest. Arthur stops crying almost straight away, and his head wobbles a little as he turns to look at Ronan.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” Ronan says to him, in the voice Adam’s only heard him use for baby animals before.
Adam takes his phone out and snaps a picture of the two of them. He sends it over to Gansey, captioned 'The baby whisperer.’
“He looks like you,” Ronan says.
“That is how genetics works,” Adam points out.
“Yeah, but he’s even making that face you make when you’re tired.”
Adam sits on the floor next to Ronan, and cocks his head to look at the expression on Arthur’s face. He’s frowning a little, but Adam thinks it’s more to do with not liking being on his tummy.
“Prop him up against your knees,” Adam suggests. He rolls across the floor to grab one of Arthur’s toys from the box by the couch, but then remembers the cow that Ronan bought.
Adam gets to his feet and goes to the kitchen to grab the cow. When he comes back, Arthur is propped up against Ronan’s bent knees, and Ronan has moved to sit against the front of the couch.
“Here, he’ll be able to see this,” Adam says. Arthur moves his head to the sound of Adam’s voice, and makes a happy little grunting sound. “Yeah,” he says, smiling at Arthur. “Do you like this one?”
Arthur makes his happy little grunt again and he waves his arm again, almost hitting Ronan in the face.
“So. Josie,” Ronan says. “She’s what, having him every other weekend or…?”
Adam shakes his head. “She wasn’t ready to be a Mom. She doesn’t ever want to be, I don’t think.”
Arthur’s eyelids are drooping; he’s falling asleep. Adam lifts him off Ronan’s lap and tucks him over his shoulder, letting him fall asleep against his chest.
“So you’re doing it by yourself? What about work?”
“They gave me six months off. Three full paid, and three at half pay. Then I’m taking three more months unpaid. And then, hopefully, I’m going to mostly work from home until he’s at least a year old.”
Ronan nods. “You can call me, you know. If you need a… babysitter?”
“I know. He likes you.”
“I know what you’re like, you don’t have to do this all by yourself just to prove that you can.”
Adam yawns. “I didn’t become a parent just to prove that I could.”
Ronan laughs out loud. “Sure you didn’t!”
“I didn’t!” Adam argues, laughing too. “I just—I don’t know how to explain it. Josie told me about him and I had to ask myself all these questions. Imagine if it had been you—”
Ronan laughs again. “A fucking miracle.”
“Alright. Imagine if you liked girls—”
“I’d’ve used a condom.”
“We did!”
“Sure,” Ronan says, rolling his eyes.
Adam sighs. “It was just... She was pregnant and whatever she wanted to do about it would’ve been fine, and I’d have supported her.”
“But?”
“But... She asked me what I wanted. And there was this baby. And I don’t know. If you’d asked me before she was pregnant, I’d have said I’d never be a parent. But it turns out that you can’t know what you’ll do in that situation until you’re in it.”
Ronan nods. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t tell him how typical Adam Parrish he’s being. He just sits and looks thoughtfully at where Arthur is sleeping on Adam’s shoulder.
Eventually, Adam says, “I didn’t want him to be a mistake. Something we had to undo.”
“I get it,” Ronan says. “He’s kind of perfect too.”
“Kind of? He’s completely perfect,” Adam argues. His baby is adorable and already a genius.
Ronan stays again that night. He cooks dinner in Adam’s kitchen, seemingly using every single pot and pan and knife and chopping board he owns.
Adam doesn’t mind. Since Arthur was born, he’s been eating frozen pizzas and cereal almost exclusively, he’s grateful for the opportunity to eat a vegetable.
He sleeps on the couch again, even though Adam offers him the guest room. Ronan points out he sleeps badly anyway and there’s no point making more laundry for just one night. Adam concedes, but it ends up as a pointless argument. Neither of them sleep that night.
Arthur’s crying starts up while Adam is still washing up from dinner, and he doesn’t settle all evening. He won’t take a bottle, won’t be put down, won’t be bounced. He cries when Adam passes him off to Ronan and then he cries more when Ronan tries to pass him back.
It’s the worst night he’d had since Arthur was born and Ronan being there doesn’t make it any better. Adam feels like he’s waiting the whole night for Ronan to look at him and say ‘ I told you so.’ Never mind that Ronan didn’t tell him anything.
By morning, Arthur’s slept a total of two sporadic hours, and he’s sniffly and clingy. The little patch of eczema on the back of his legs is large and angry looking and Adam feels stupid and helpless when he looks at it. Of course he gave his son that.
“I know, buddy. I know,” Adam murmurs. He holds Arthur close to his chest and bounces him gently, trying to sooth him. “I know.”
Arthur’s face is bright red, scrunched up tight. Tears run down his face, and his nose is running horribly, the skin around it is dry and crusty. Adam strokes his hair and tucks Arthur over his shoulder, tears and snot running all over his shirt.
“Shh, I know. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
The doorbell rings. It’s not Ronan back; he wouldn’t bother ringing it.
Adam doesn’t want to put Arthur down, his cries always sound worse when Adam leaves, so he carries him with him.
Blue and Gansey’s smiles immediately drop off their faces when they hear Arthur howling.
“What’s wrong with him?” Gansey asks. Blue kicks his shin, and Adam glares.
“He’s got eczema on the backs of his knees and it’s making him irritable. He’s got a cold too. And also he’s a baby, they cry. Come in,” he adds, a little more sarcastically than he intended. It’s possible that the last thirty hours of crying have made him a bit short tempered.
“Can you give him pain medication? Do they make that for babies?” Gansey asks, following Adam into the house. In the kitchen, Blue sits at the table and holds out her hands. “And lotion, for the eczema?”
Adam transfers Arthur to her, where he continues to cry, his little hands gripping the shredded edges of her vest top. He tries not to roll his eyes at Gansey, or get pissed off at him. It’s hard though; he didn’t sleep a lot last night. Arthur’s not the only irritable one.
“Yes to the lotion. Ronan went to the store to get some. He’s not old enough for painkillers, but we had a look online for things we could do,” Adam says, flicking on the coffee machine.
“Ronan was here? This morning?”
Adam shrugs. “He stayed last night.”
Gansey twists to look at Blue. Completely unsubtly.
“It's not like that,” Adam points out. It isn’t. “I told him he could go.”
Gansey’s frowning still as he gets out mugs. Blue starts singing to Arthur, a nursery rhyme that Adam doesn’t recognise. Possibly because Blue is making up the words. It quiets Arthur for a little bit, but then he sneezes, and starts all over again.
“Tissue, Adam?” Blue asks. The box on the table is empty. Adam throws her a muslin cloth from the laundry basket instead.
“It’s Ronan’s birthday next weekend,” Gansey says. “I was thinking we could all go to the zoo? I was trying to think of something we could do that you could bring Arthur to.”
“Yeah, that would be nice. I haven’t taken him there yet. Thank you for considering him,” Adam says.
Blue snorts into her coffee.
“What?”
“Becoming a parent has changed you,” she says, but she smiles as she says it.
The front door slams behind Ronan.
“Hey,” he says, pushing into the tiny kitchen. “I got eczema lotion. And the woman at the counter in the store said that saline drops could help clear his blocked nose, so I got those too. She started talking to me about colic though, and it all sounded like bullshit. He’s not got that. They had that lavender bath oil there, so I thought—what, Dick?”
Gansey’s got his back to Adam, so he doesn’t see the look on his face, but he sees Ronan’s replying eye roll. Ronan holds his hands out to Blue and she hands Arthur to him.
His cries get louder at first when he’s moved, but he stops crying altogether when Ronan holds him at arm’s length over his head. “You didn’t want nasty herbal supplements did you? No?”
Arthur wails.
“See. He agrees with me, witchcraft doesn’t work,” Ronan laughs, as he lowers Arthur down and tucks him over his shoulder. His cries quiet down suddenly to soft little sobs and then fade altogether.
“Are you really going to fall asleep on me, bud?” Ronan asks, as Arthur’s cries eventually become snores.
“He’s tired. Screamed his head off all night. I’ll go put him down,” Adam says, as he stands to take his baby from Ronan.
“It’s fine, I don’t want to wake him. Just leave him,” Ronan says. He settles into the corner of the couch and his big hand comes up to cover Arthur’s back. Adam’s chest aches.
He stays like that all the time Gansey and Blue are there. Arthur doesn’t wake the whole time, just sleeps quietly on Ronan’s shoulder. He snores a bit, where his nose is still blocked.
It’s not until after they leave that he does wake, blue eyes blinking sleepily open and peering at Adam. Adam smiles at him.
“Hey, Arthur,” he says. “Are you hungry, buddy?”
Ronan snorts. “It must be so easy being a baby. Sleep all day, eat, then sleep some more. Scream when you want to remind everyone you’re the most important person in the world.”
Adam rolls his eyes and goes to the kitchen. He hears Ronan following him. “He is the most important person in the world. I’m gonna try giving him three ounces of milk again.”
“You’re the one who’ll get spit up on,” Ronan says. He puts Arthur down in his bouncer chair while Adam makes his bottle.
“I need to go, Parrish,” Ronan says, tucking his hands into his pockets.
Adam puts the bottle on to warm. Ronan says something else but Adam doesn’t hear it over the sound of the clicking dial on the bottle warmer, and Arthur’s increasingly demanding cries. “Yeah. I know, you’ve been here a long time.”
Ronan doesn’t move from the doorway. He watches Adam test the milk temperature. “So I’ll just… go.”
“Thank you for your help, Lynch.” Adam lifts Arthur back out of his chair and positions him on his lap so he’s almost sat upright.
“You’ll be okay? I won’t be—”
Adam laughs. “I managed four weeks before you came.”
“Right, yeah. See you later, Parrish,” he says. Adam doesn’t look up as the front door slams.
He watches Arthur, watches him blink slowly as he drinks his milk. “Just me and you again, baby.”
Arthur doesn’t respond, but Adam didn’t really expect him to.
Three hours later and Arthur is upstairs, having his post-dinner sleep. Adam goes around the house collecting dropped socks and cloths, dirty onesies and his own discarded t-shirts. How a one month old can make so much mess is beyond him.
He’s just shoving it all in the washing machine, when the front door opens.
Ronan.
“Hey,” he says. He drops a duffle bag on the floor.
Adam blinks at him through the open doorway from the laundry room. “Did I know you were coming back?”
“Yeah? I said I need to go and pick up some clean clothes. I’ve been wearing the same underwear for three days.”
“You didn’t have to come back.” Adam says it as softly as he can, trying his hardest to make it sound like the truth, that he never wanted Ronan to go.
“I know. I wanted to.”
Adam folds his arms. “I can do this on my own, you know.”
Ronan grins. “Fucking of course. Adam Parrish,” he says, like it’s an explanation. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Besides, your baby is cute and he’s a lot more intelligent than half the people I see on a regular basis.”
The baby monitor on the kitchen table lights up as upstairs, Arthur starts crying.
“See. I’m helping out. You can finish that.” Ronan waves at the pile of laundry and then disappears upstairs.
Adam can hear Ronan talking over the baby monitor, as he applies stain remover to one of his t-shirts.
“Wow, you’re a stinky baby,” Ronan says. “Maybe I should’ve got your Dad to do this, and I’d have done the laundry.”
And then, “Oh God. That is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I grew up on a farm and that is… Just– wow Arthur.”
And then, “Oh Jesus. Why would you—? Stop! Stop peeing! Man, these were clean jeans.”
Adam can hear Ronan’s laughter ringing from downstairs. He sighs and grabs a roll of kitchen towel on the way up to Arthur’s room.
“You can stick your jeans in the machine,” he says.
“I can’t believe he did that. I thought we were friends! He peed on me!” Ronan says. He’s laughing still, and it makes Adam laugh too, a smile cracking his face.
“He does it deliberately. Waits until you take his diaper off and then it’s his best impression of a water feature.”
“He’s lucky he’s so cute,” Ronan says, and then he starts taking off his jeans.
Adam feels his face heat up, and he has to look away, has to focus on wiping Arthur with a baby wipe, so he doesn’t embarrass himself.
He gets a clean onesie for Arthur out of the drawer, and hands the dirty one to Ronan, careful not to look at him leaving Arthur’s room in his briefs and t-shirt.
Careful not to look. Careful not to think about Ronan, careful not to think about the other path his life could’ve taken, the one that’s gone forever now.