Australian senator, Mehreen Faruqi, demands the government to immediately end all arms sales to Israel, calling out its deliberate targeting of Palestinian children.
Faruqi has repeatedly condemned Labour's party complicity, saying "words won't feed them" and demanding real sanctions, not just statements.
The team has been trying to help Simon get better at flirting.
It started off with Johnny noticing how Simon’s gaze often lingered on you, the newest truck loader.
Then he blabbered it off to the entire team. So yeah— Simon may have banged his head against the wall in his quarters and slept that night thinking about choking Johnny.
But here he was, after a long day of being convinced to talk to you.
You had just finished unloading the last truck of the day and what better time to talk to you than now?
“You gotta be confident and bold with your words, L.T.” Kyle’s words.
“No, you have t’ be funny. Make ‘em laugh.” Johnny’s words.
“If all things fail, just ask ‘em for coffee.” John’s words.
Simon took in a deep breath and smiled (the best he could. He doesn’t smile often). You didn’t even catch it either; he was wearing his damn balaclava. “You just started working, yeah?” he asks, stuffing his hands into his vest. Confident, check.
You took off your gloves and patted your sweaty forehead with your arm, “mhm! About two-ish months ago,” you tell the older man, giving him a polite smile.
A quiet hum fell from Simon’s lips as he rocks on his heels a bit, “Once saw y’ trippin’ over a box,” Simon says bluntly. Funny, check.
You stared at him, blinking twice and half expecting him to finish his sentence.
He didn’t.
Instead, the two of you had a staring contest while Simon’s face burned behind the balaclava.
“You can trip on me,” Simon suddenly adds. Funny and bold… check?
Your brows knitted a bit, “what…?” you ask with an awkward laugh.
Fuck.
This wasn’t going how he imagined it to go. He imagined him coolly leaning against a wall or something while complimenting you.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Do you have coffee?” Simon changes the topic, his entire face blowing up with steam.
Off to the side, John stared at his teammate with a heavy sigh and rubbed his temple. “Bloody idiot asked for coffee,” he mumbles.
Kyle shrugs a bit, “T’ be fair, you did say to ask for coffee,” he says, defending his lieutenant.
“Implying to ask for a coffee date,” John replies bluntly. “Fuckin’ disaster of a man.”
Pro-Palestine activists protest outside Lockheed Martin office, for the company's complicity in Israeli genocide by supplying the Israeli military with F-35 fighter jets.
Lockheed Martin is one of the world's largest aerospace and defense contractors, headquartered in the United States, and a primary manufacturer of advanced military aircraft including the F-35 that Israeli uses in killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
FOR THOSE WHO CARE, THE TENTS AND CHILDREN ARE BEING HEAVILY BOMBED. THERE ARE AROUND 10 MARTYRS TODAY. WE ARE BEING EXTERMINATED, BUT IN EERIE SILENCE.
Israel systematically targets the health of pregnant mothers and infants in Gaza. This is a reality every parent in Gaza knows. It has also been confirmed repeatedly by others. Pediatric healthcare professionals in Gaza have been bravely speaking out about how Israel is currently using restrictions of formula into Gaza to torture and kill Palestinian babies.
Maekar is the softest, most gentle when his babies were newborns he just likes to smell them, rubs his cheeks on them and loves his wife, plays with her hair and gives soft touched. HOLD ME BACKKKKK everything is just so soft and gentle and loving. Literally when his quietly speaking to dunk in ep 6 that’s just him. He is still related to Baelor and Dearon, he gets his gentleness from them.
Soft
Pure mush!!!! So cute!
“Can I have my baby back?” You ask smiling at your husband and newborn son. The man ‘offering’ to look after him while you spent some time with the boys before bed.
“He’s my son.” Maekar says rubbing looking down at the cooing babe in his arms, the little boy holding his father’s finger in his little hand.
“He’s mine too.” You laugh, not minding that he’s stolen your baby from you. Happy he loves his children so much, him not always able to show it.
“You got to carry him for nine moons, let me hold him now.” Maekar say turning away from you as if you were going to steal the babe of him. You just wanting to kiss him.
“But-.”
“I’m sure the older boys would love some time with their mother.” He tells you, him having been working all day and unable to be with your sons.
“Would they now?” You ask raising an eyebrow at your husband. Daeron and Aerion both sleeping as it’s late. You having just read Daeron back to sleep. You giving your husband a look. “Stop sniffing him.”
“I’ve missed having a newborn.” Maekar muses swaying slightly with the boy, while kissing his forehead. “You’re already more well behaved than your brothers.”
“Maekar.” You say sternly giving him a look. “It’s time for bed.”
“Wife.” He teases a smirk apart in his face, him at his happiest with you and the children, a newborn babe in his arms.
“You get so mushy when we have a baby.” You say rolling your eyes while you get ready for bed. Letting him cuddle Aemon for a while longer, the babe needing to actually sleep in his crib for a change.
“I love you.” Maekar whispers to you later while you cuddle in bed, your head resting on his chest while he holds you close to him. All the children sleeping in their beds.
“I love you too.” You say kissing his chest softly. Tired but also wanting to spent time with just Maekar.
“Can we have more?” He asks quietly as if saying it any louder would scare the idea away.
“Isn’t three enough?” You ask, happy with any amount of children you have.
“Just a few more?” He whispers kissing the top of your head, already picturing a future with more children.
“We’ll see.”
“Thank you.” He says softly, loving you and the children more than anything in the world.
“What for?” You ask in genuine confusion, not knowing what you’ve done to warrant being thanked.
Never sure how to bring this up to my mainly international audience as a mainly fandom art account, but the situation in my country has been very dire and bringing it up directly might help, so I will talk about it:
Students across Indonesia are taking it directly to the streets to protest a massive budget cut by our Ministry of Finance that has laid off tens of thousands of educators and may later on cancel student scholarships and tuition grants, rendering many students in fear of no longer being able to access higher education.
Under this government led by a perpetrator of human rights violations, state media has been constantly censored and unreliable, and we need your help to bring this into international attention, as the Indonesian government only ever listen to criticism when their constant fuck-ups are put on blast on social media.
a more in-depth explanation of events (English), courtesy of Tilehopper
Our president is a fucking right wing populist who was the son in law of our dictator. Then the population is still largely conservative and not politically literate. Clown ass country
dex is so obviously a cat person. they’re clean, don’t need high maintenance and are usually quiet!
i can imagine when you first got a cat dex was obviously disapproving. finding it— or as you claim, your baby— sat on his pile of clothes, paper and even his side of the bed! he could’ve sworn it was out for him!!! "get— get off." he grumbled, nudging at your cat as he stubbornly sat on dex’s bullseye suit that was lying on the arm of the couch. "..shoo." a glare on his face as the cat (muffin.) didn’t budge, waving his hand at it. "jeez. you’re just like your owner..and your name’s stupid." before hesitantly and awkwardly picking muffin up and dropping him on the floor — earning a complaining meow from it.
muffin would also have a staring problem with dex. you found it adorable! claiming how he found dex interesting :) "he likes you!" you cooed, giggling as muffin sat on the table, directly infront of him with an almost judgmental stare. "it’s staring at me." "hey— it, is a he! and be nice, hes my baby." gently petting him,
and like all cats, they have a tendency to knock things over! constantly annoying dex! one of dex’s small pocket knives sat peacefully on the coffee table.. until he heard a small noise. turning around to see muffin tapping at it before knocking it off, staring right at dex. "asshole." grumbling before going to fix up the cat’s mess..
eventually, he’d learn to warm up to muffin :) giving him treats and pats, getting used to the stares and behaviour ^_^ you found him lying in bed one day, sleeping still with muffing lying on his lap, purring softly. <3
Seventy-eight years. Hardly anything when compared to how long you’ve lived, but you still feel the passage of time regardless. It’s been seventy-eight years since the dance of the dragons. Seventy-eight years since you’d left your place in the Targaryen courts, since you’d left their muddled and crazed home.
You now found yourself living in the woods. Far from court and from the expectations of royalty. You simply wandered the lands for years, collecting spells and then returning home. You’d only just returned home and had gone out to replenish your supply of herbs when you’d been approached by a group of knights clad in white armor.
You lift your head up with a bored look on your face, not at all eager for humans to come onto your land.
The knight in front sits tall on his horse as you look back down at the herbs, rifling through them to pick the best.
He steps down and approaches you carefully, left arm resting on the hilt of his sword.
“If you’ve come for the witch of the woods, I’m afraid you’ve arrived ten years too late.”
You crouch down in front of your patch of oregano and start to pluck the ones you need, picking off brown leaves here and there.
The knight stands tall, clearing his throat.
"You are the elf, (Y/n) the Slayer, correct?"
You chance a look at him, "I haven’t been called that in many years. I wasn’t aware that there were still humans alive that knew of me. Plus, it seems rather rude to ask ones name before introducing yourself, no?"
The knight stares down at you before sighing.
"My apologies, I am Ser Roland Crakehall of the Kingsguard."
"I figured you were with the Kingsguard, the armor gives it away. I may have been gone from court for half a century, but I still remember the knights."
You glance up at Ser Roland with a flat face. Your ears twitch lightly, betraying your blank expression.
“King Daeron the Good has requested your presence.”
You hum.
“And if I refuse?”
“He politely asks for your presence.”
He tightens his grip on the hilt of his blade.
You glance at his blade before flicking your eyes to the other knights behind him.
"I see."
You bring forth your staff, in a flurry of magic causing the knight to clench his hand and start to pull out his blade.
"I have no desire to fight you, I'm sure we both know how that would fair," you stand, brushing the dirt from your dress as you turn to your home.
“I’ve lived a long life, Ser Roland, seen many kings live and die.”
In a burst of light, your home goes from lived in and well kept to a decrepit state. Wood rotting, foliage and overgrowth over the doors and beams that were once upright now fallen over. You wave away your staff as you crouch back down.
You pick the herbs you need, flicking dirt off them as you place them in your basket.
“I’ve no interest in the way you humans live in court, it doesn’t matter to me if the Targaryens call me back. I haven’t been interested in the last seventy eight years, not after Rhaenyra.”
You inspect another herb you’ve picked, bringing it close to your eye. You stand, bringing your basket close to your hip as you level the knights with a stare.
"Why has Prince Daeron requested me back?"
Ser Roland arches a brow as the knights behind him, still on their horses, shift lightly at your words.
"King Daeron, and he wishes to see you for reasons he has not disclosed to us. He simply requested we bring you back."
You look to the sky and watch the birds fly away, before bringing a hand to your hair and push it back.
"When I last saw him, he was still Prince Daeron. Though I doubt he remembers me, he was still a baby."
You walk to your now decrepit home and enter, placing the herbs inside a luggage you bring on your travels and exiting your home, locking the door behind you. You approach Ser Roland with a still blank look on your face.
"I suppose if he requests it I cannot refuse."
He nods his head as mounts his horse and extends a hand to you.
Some girl dad!baelor headcanons!! For my targaryen reader au.
NO INCEST (sometimes a girl needs paternal love😔), really sweet, i made this as background for a fic i have in works.
TW: wholesome dad-daughter relationship, actually beating myself on the ground while writing this, sickly sweet honestly, GRRM should've give baelor a daughter tbh
Posting this on father's day hell yah
Girl dad!Baelor who was contented with his sons, at the end of the day he had done his duty having an heir and a spare. So when, Jena got with child again he didn't felt indifference –not at all, he would always love his children– but he felt no need of going down the path his brother was going, already having a fourth child on the way.
Girl dad!Baelor who was convinced this child was going to be a boy too, as it seemed it was the only thing he sired. But then the maester walked out of his wife's room, immediately after the noises inside where over, and announced the birth of a girl.
Girl dad!Baelor who tried to act indifferent to the news (a girl or a boy. It was all the same, right?) but he couldn't pretend that his heart didn't made a funny move or that his posture didn't straightened immediately.
A girl? Not a boy like he expected.
Girl dad!Baelor who walked into the room, the smell of incense and the grusomeness of birth gretting him, and as he crossed the few steps to the bed where his wife laid he couldn't stop thinking –a girl, a princess. A little girl of his–. He kissed his wife tenderly, for Jena had done a third time something he thought fascinating, and he tried so hard not to stare at the bundle in her arms. To not seem so eager, so fascinated. It worked until Jena raised her arms up.
Girl dad!Baelor who felt like he was seeing a baby for the first time. He knew it was irrational, he had children already, he had had his fill of babies –both his own and his brothers'– but this felt different; this wasn't a boy he could train in swordfighting or put the pressure of the Realm on, this was a girl –a princess of the Realm– he was supposed to see being taught needlework and table manners.
He did not know what to make of it.
Girl dad!Baelor who delighted himself with every single thing his infant daughter did.
"Oh, look at her eyes, Jena, they're so big."
"Look how she stares at you, Maekar. She's really perceptive."
"Let her have your book, Valarr, don't you see she's already investing herself in the intellectual world."
Girl dad!Baelor who allowed his toddler daughter to stay by his side as much as she wanted. Jena scolded him, saying it wasn't proper for a princess –such a little one, nonetheless– to wander around the Council chamber or the Throne room while important matters were discussed.
"How else is she suppose to learn?" He had said, as his eyes trailed behind his daughter toddling around his solar with something in her hand– his brooch it seemed.
"Wouldn't Valarr be a more resonable choice?" Jena retorted. And she was right.
Baelor did not answer.
Girl dad!Baelor who was always busy with his duties but still found time to spent with his daughter. A small habit he started cultivating: five more minutes during breakfast just to speak with her (even if a toddler's conversation subjects didn't go beyond ponies and endless why's), walking her back to her rooms because she had lessons with her septa, letting her nap in the cushions of the couch in his solar, or simply allowing her to play near his feet as he worked.
Girl dad!Baelor who spoiled his daugher rotten, as much as Jena's despair. She liked a ribbon in one of the Court's lady's hair? She had a box of them the next day to put on. She laughed too loud at some jester's jokes one night? That jester had a secure spot every gathering. She wanted to take her father's Hand of the King's brooch? She could have it.
"Don't you think she has enough dolls, husband?"
"One more can't hurt."
Girl dad!Baelor who kissed scrapped knees and palms after she feel while playing with her cousins. They were far too rough, as they were not only older but boys.
"Let's get you a treat for being so brave, yes, firefly?"
Girl dad!Baelor who woke up one night because something –someone– was trying to climb the bed by using him as a rung. He opened his eyes and sighed when he saw his daughter trying to pull herself up the bed, little hands pulling at the blanket, unintentionally digging into his leg. A futile attempt.
"Want to get in, firefly?" He asked softly. He couldn't refuse her, not even then.
Her face turned to him and he saw clearly the reason why she was there: her tiny face was scrunched, nose sore from scrubbing and she still had stray tears in her lashes.
"What happened, firefly?" He sat down, back against the headboard and picked her up. As he pulled her into his lap, she curled herself against him, wiping her face against his shirt.
"Bad dream."
"A bad dream? Well, do not worry about that now." He leaned down and kissed her soft hair. "You're safe now, firefly."
Girl dad!Baelor who took the work of teaching her not only how to read and write but also to teach her high valyrian. Yes, dragons were long gone and so were the golden years of their House, but she was a princess, his little girl who was still not spared of the worlds expectations.
Girl dad!Baelor who saw her grown up into herself. Toddling legs and puffy cheeks changing into long limbs and the sharper face that came with age. To say he was heartbroken would be an understatement, he was proud –of couse he was, his little girl growing everyday– but years passed by and left tiny drops of melancholy behind.
Girl dad!Baelor who, with the years, had made more time for his daughter. She was growing up, getting older and her attention was starting to get divided with her own duties as a princess, and yet they both found time to sat down every evening together. Sometimes it was tea, sometimes a quiet moment in Baelor's solar, but the time was there. And Baelor couldn't be happier.
Girl dad!Baelor who asked the servants to always have a plate of pastries just for her in his solar.
Girl dad!Baelor who was his daughter's biggest supporter. She wanted to learn falconry? Of course. She wanted to learn to paint? Everything she needed was already there.
There was no limits.
Girl dad!Baelor who loved all his children, but his heart had a soft spot for his only daugther.
Okkk, so this was shorter than I wanted but I had to post something gor father's day and baelor was the man, so here it is
i need to see dex's reaction to leo throwing a tantrum 😭 how will he handle it? does leo even throw tantrums? or is he always just the sweetest boy ever?
Dex Deals With His Son’s Tantrums
TW: crying child, food if you squint. Mostly fluff, really! You and Dex have a son called Leo, Husband! Dex x Wife! Reader (lmk if you I missed anything)
WC 1.9k
Could be read as a one-shot, but you can read more stories in this universe here!
Leo is sweet, yes. Leo is gentle. Leo says please and thank you and kisses Dex on the cheek before bed. Leo waves at bugs instead of stepping on them. Leo once cried because a cartoon cloud looked lonely.
But Leo is also four, which means sometimes he becomes unreasonable and throws tantrums.
And Dex, unfortunately, has no natural defense against that.
This particular disaster starts because Leo wants to wear his dinosaur hoodie.
Not the blue jumper. Not the red jumper. Not the expensive tactical-adjacent little jacket Dex bought him because it looked “practical.” The dinosaur hoodie. The green one with the little felt spikes down the back and one sleeve that has a jam stain that never fully came out.
The dinosaur hoodie is in the washing machine.
Leo takes this news horribly.
“No,” he says.
You are packing his lunchbox at the counter, already hearing the tremble in his voice. Dex doesn’t. Dex hears an unreasonable no about a piece of clothing and assumes this is a negotiation.
“It’s dirty,” Dex says.
Leo’s lower lip wobbles.
Dex, a man who can read a twitch in someone’s trigger finger from across a room, doesn’t read the wobble.
“You can wear the blue one.”
Leo stares at him.
Dex stares back.
Leo inhales.
Dex’s eyes flick very slightly to you, because even he feels it now. Some primitive fatherly instinct tells him a storm is brewing, but it doesn’t tell him what to do with the storm. His face stays blank and unreadable to anyone but you.
To you, his face was saying:
What is happening.
Why did his face do that.
Help me, sweetheart.
Then Leo bursts into tears.
And it’s not a small little cry either. It’s a full, body-folding sob, like Dex has outlawed joy. Leo drops to the kitchen floor in his socks and dinosaur pyjama bottoms, folds himself over his knees, and cry-screams into his hands.
Dex does nothing.
He stands there holding the blue jumper, flat-faced, watching his son cry on the tiles like he has discovered a new method of emotional warfare.
This is a man who can walk into a room and know exactly who is lying, who is afraid, who will fold first. He understands how to push and push and push until his enemy cracks. There are parts of Dex that are cold in a way you don’t romanticise. He can be cruel. He can be detached. He looks at people outside of this household and sees only problems or targets.
But Leo is none of those things.
Leo is on the kitchen floor crying because his hoodie is still wet.
And Dex has no idea what the rules are.
His eyes go to you again.
What is my son doing.
Do I stop him.
Do I pick him up.
Is he hurt.
Did I hurt him.
Tell me what to do.
You press your lips together so you don’t smile too much. “He’s upset.”
Dex looks down at Leo, then back at you. That much, his face says, is very obvious.
Leo cries harder, his tiny shoulders shaking.
Dex lowers himself onto the floor across from him.
And he just… sits there stiffly in his black shirt and dark trousers, knees bent, forearms resting on them, holding the rejected blue jumper. And then he waits.
That is what Dex does when he doesn’t know what else to do. He watches. He lets the thing happen until it reveals a pattern. With anyone else, this process is frightening. With Leo, it’s just a father sitting on a kitchen floor, baffled and loyal, waiting for his son to finish being upset.
Leo peeks through his fingers.
Dex says nothing.
Leo wails again, louder, apparently offended by the silence.
Dex’s eyes snap to you.
Wrong. Silence was wrong.
You take pity on him. “You can talk to him.”
Dex turns back to Leo like he’s approaching a bomb that has feelings.
“Leo.”
“No!”
Dex stops and looks at you.
He said no. Do I continue.
You nod.
Dex looks faintly annoyed that parenting requires this much improvisation.
“You can be upset,” he says, clearly repeating something he has heard you say before. It comes out a little flat, but it’s sincere. He’s done this enough times for it to be in his natural vocabulary now, though it was never this bad. “That’s okay.”
Leo sobs, “I want my dinosaur.”
“I know.”
“I need it.”
Dex blinks.
This is where his brain buffers. Need is a serious word to him. Need means food, shelter, safety. Need is what you are to him. Need doesn’t, in Dex’s private dictionary, usually mean a damp green hoodie with felt spikes.
But Leo says it like it is true, so Dex accepts it.
“Okay,” he says.
You can see him adjusting his entire worldview in real time. Leo needs the dinosaur hoodie. The dinosaur hoodie is wet. The washing machine is the enemy. Dex’s hand twitches once, like some insane part of him is genuinely considering opening the washer mid-cycle and presenting Leo with a dripping hoodie as tribute.
“Dex,” you warn softly.
He does not look at you. “What?”
“Don’t take it out.”
“…I wasn’t.” He says, because he just now realises how domestically catastrophic that would be.
Leo hiccups miserably. “Daddy can get it?”
Dex closes his eyes for half a second.
You almost laugh, because he wants to say yes so badly. He wants to be the kind of father who can retrieve the beloved need of his child from the belly of the machine and make the crying stop. He wants to fix this. He wants to be good enough for his son.
But he can’t.
Or rather, he shouldn’t.
So he sits there and does nothing.
It might be one of the hardest things you have ever watched him do.
“No,” Dex says quietly.
Leo cries again.
Dex looks wounded.
You set the lunchbox aside and come sit beside him. Your knee presses against his thigh, and tension leaves him immediately, like your touch gives him a script. You lean close and murmur, “He’s tired. He wanted control. The hoodie feels safe. He’s not being bad.”
Dex’s eyes stay on Leo.
“He’s just little,” you add.
Little.
That word makes sense to him.
Leo is little. The world is big. The washing machine took his dinosaur. His father offered him the wrong replacement and expected that to be enough. Dex, who has never known how to be normal about possession or comfort or anything he loves, understands that Leo’s grief isn’t only about fabric.
It is about wanting the thing that makes you feel safe and being told you can’t have it.
Dex knows what that feels like. He’s spent enough years away from you to understand.
His voice changes when he speaks again. It’s… softer.
“I didn’t know it felt important,” he says.
Leo sniffles behind his hands. Dex glances at you, checking.
You nod.
He continues, awkwardly brave. “I thought you just wanted it.”
Leo looks up at him, blotchy and wet-eyed. “I do want it.”
“I know,” Dex says. “But I know now that it feels bigger than that.”
Leo rubs his nose with his sleeve.
Dex sees the mess he made on his clothes. His eye twitches with the force of not correcting it.
He’s little. He’s allowed to be messy because I love this little man.
Leo whispers, “I’m a dinosaur.”
Dex looks at you.
Oh.
Dex realised that Leo’s not throwing a tantrum because he wants to be difficult. Leo had a whole world in his head where today he was going to be a dinosaur, and Dex accidentally told him no.
Dex swallows.
“You’re still a dinosaur,” he says.
Leo’s mouth trembles. “No spikes.”
Dex looks at the blue jumper in his hands. Tragically spikeless.
You can practically see the violence of his concentration. He is building and discarding solutions at frightening speed. Buy another dinosaur hoodie. Buy ten. Have one in every colour. Learn sewing. Never wash the hoodie again. All of these thoughts pass behind his blank face.
Then Dex does something that surprises even you.
He sets the blue jumper aside, lifts one hand, and curls his fingers stiffly beside his own head like claws.
Last night, Leo was doing the same thing, claiming to be a T-Rex. He’s imitating his son.
Leo pauses.
Dex looks very uncomfortable.
You stare at him.
Dex, sociopathic assassin Dex, sadist-to-everyone-but-his-family Dex, is sitting on the kitchen floor making a dinosaur claw.
His expression remains completely flat and makes it ten times funnier.
Leo sniffles. “What- d-daddy doing?”
Dex’s eyes flick to you.
Is this helping.
You are biting the inside of your cheek so hard it hurts.
“Daddy’s being a dinosaur, sweetie,” you say.
Leo wipes his cheek. “Daddy’s not a dinosaur.”
“No,” Dex says solemnly. “I’m not.” Then, after a pause, he adds, “But you can teach me how to be.”
Translation: show me how to be a proper dinosaur, so you can prove to yourself that you don’t need the hoodie to be one.
Leo stares, and the crying stops in uneven little hiccups.
Dex lifts his other hand, both of them now held like claws. It is maybe the cutest thing you have ever seen.
Leo crawls forward a little. “Your claws are wrong.”
Dex nods immediately. “Show me.”
Leo gets onto his knees, face still wet, and adjusts Dex’s fingers like a tiny palaeontologist. Dex lets him.Leo bends his fingers into a better shape, tells him dinosaurs don’t sit like that, tells him he has to make his arms smaller because “T-rex arms little, Daddy.”
Dex obeys, because Dex has no natural instinct except to follow the orders of his four-year-old son because Leo has stopped crying and Dex would probably crawl through glass to keep it that way.
You lean back against the cabinet, smiling like an idiot.
“There,” Leo says, satisfied.
Dex sits with his arms tucked ridiculously close to his chest.
“Better?”
Leo nods. He isn’t as upset now, because he knows he doesn’t need them to be a dinosaur now. But he still wants them. “But still want spikes.”
Dex sighs “I know.”
Leo leans into his lap. This time, Dex doesn’t need to be told what to do. He has done it enough times that it’s second nature to him.
Dex hugs him, one arm around Leo’s back, then the other, protective by nature even when comfort doesn’t come naturally. Leo melts into him.
Dex looks down like he is the only living thing in the world he has never wanted to dissect or control. Leo makes him participate. Leo makes him stay human. Leo cries on the floor over a hoodie, and Dex, who can be monstrous to everyone else, sits there and learns how to be understanding because his son needs him to.
After a while, Leo mumbles, “Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“When it’s dry, I wear it?”
Dex nods.
“And you be dinosaur too?”
Dex’s eyes close.
“Yes,” he eventually says, because a man with no mercy for most of the world apparently had no spine whatsoever when it came to his family. “Of course.”
Leo smiles and tucks his face under Dex’s chin.
The tantrum is over as suddenly as it arrived.
You reach over and smooth your hand through Dex’s hair. “You did good.”
Dex’s brows furrow. “I did nothing.”
Nothing but copy his toddler, really.
You smile. “Exactly.”
He looks down at Leo, who’s now calm.
Dex considers that for a long time.
With anyone else, doing nothing is a tactic. It’s a way to wait someone out until they break.
With Leo, sometimes doing nothing is love.
Because he’s little. He doesn’t need fixing or forcing. Doing nothing means sitting on the kitchen floor with his ridiculous T. rex arms and waiting for the storm to pass.
(An adult-size dinosaur hoodie arrives on your door the next day, because if Dex is gonna be a dinosaur, he’s gonna do it right.)
—
Note: Ya’ll I’m addicted to writing this miniseries. I love it. I am never gonna stop. 😭🫠
At least dari awal coba kasih pemberitahuan kondisinya gimana jadi bakal ada pemadaman listrik, dsb. Seminggu ini tiap dua hari sekali mati lampu dan lama banget durasinya. Tanpa kejelasan, tanpa berita.
Kompensasilah bagi konsumen terdampak. Biaya hidup makin mahal, listrik makin mahal, ditambah kayak gini. Bener-bener agejdusnsbzhhsahaj
