“Jimmy,” he holds the baby awkwardly, gripping it under the arms. The blanket unravels a little, trailing below but not quite touching the floor. He’s never held a baby. He should never be trusted to hold a baby, and yet, somehow, here he is. “Why have you got a baby.”
“fWhip gave it to me,” Jimmy continues to look and sound the most distressed Tango has ever seen him, and Tango was there for the Train Incident. They still don’t have an explanation for how it appeared overnight, but Jimmy is too scared to remove it. Like the train tracks might summon another train if he does. “And then he just left.”
-
Or: Jimmy "doesn't know" how to take care of babies, and Tango doesn't know how to take care of babies.
(ao3 link)
(masterpost)
(2,185 words)
“But what am I meant to do with it?” He tries not to sound too distressed, but even he can hear how terribly he fails at that, voice coming out higher pitched and squeakier than he intends. He’s never beating the toy allegations. The baby he’s hold at arm's length looks rather content, only wriggling slightly as Jimmy continues to stare at it.
He doesn’t think it’s blinked once.
“I dunno,” fWhip is already walking away, shrugging and not even looking back at Jimmy. “Your problem now, don’t kill it, yeah? Alright, bye!”
“Oh my god,” he looks back at the baby he’s holding. He doesn’t even know how to hold a baby. He’s pretty sure there’s a specific way you’re meant to do it though. He’s not suited for this; he can keep the cats content, easy, they’re cats. If they’re not happy they go a kill something to keep themselves happy. Or they run to Tango so they can use him as a heating pad. Cats are simple, in that they practically take care of themselves. All he needs to remember to do is feed them and shower them in love and affection.
He's never even seen a child this small before. Are children meant to be this small? Do they normally emerge from rocks, is that how it works? It doesn’t seem like the way it should work, but he also doesn’t know enough on the topic to dispute it. He never thought to ask before, but maybe he should have. He really, really should have.
He thinks. Doing his best, at least, as the baby continues to stare at him. Unblinking.
It’s like having a mini-fWhip at arm’s length, judging his every move. Which…actually isn’t far off what the normal fWhip does. Enjoys doing, whichever. But he does normally blink a little more than this. Did fWhip have a staring problem as a baby? He can’t picture fWhip as a baby; he’d always assumed the goblin just sprung from the earth fully formed, or something. He rests a hand over the baby’s eyes, shifting his grip on it so it’s cradled in the crook of his elbow.
God, he knows nothing about children. This is such a horrific idea. Whose idea was it in the first place? Right, yeah, adoption program. It just sounds like a way of foisting childcare onto the other empires because fWhip can’t be bothered to deal with it.
He can think a little clearer now that the baby isn’t staring at him, judging his every move. He keeps his hand firmly pressed over their eyes, but not hard enough to do any damage. He thinks. He doesn’t even know how to hold a baby! He’s doing his best.
Never mind, just…think.
Think. Who would be able to help with this? The other empires have their own goblin children to deal with, and he doesn’t even want to know what some of them are doing to these unfortunate children that have, somehow, managed to end up in their care.
What smart people does he know that have good, well-rounded, and applicable life skills? He knows a lot of people. Not many of them are well-adjusted to normal life, meaning he can easily disregard over half of the people he knows.
He spins on the spot as epiphany strikes him, hooves clattering loudly over the stone as he realises he already has an answer, a remedy to all of his problems: Tango.
=== === ===
Tango hummed quietly to himself as he moved back and forth, tail flicking behind him as he rearranged a few more of the files. It’s not one of his favourite tasks, mainly because Jimmy seems unable to agree on a standard filing system, making everything they have impossible to find in a hurry because it’s in some arbitrary place that made sense at the time.
It’s been a slow process of gradually rearranging everything into a proper system without Jimmy noticing. And also repositioning the documents he puts in the now incorrect places. He had thought by organising it he’d find the system behind Jimmy’s madness. But there is nothing. There is no system. Jimmy loses his files regularly, and then they have to hunt around for them because he managed to remember a tiny detail that means they’ll be able to take one of the local bandits to a proper court and go through proper legal proceedings.
The door crashes open behind him, swinging back into the wall (he’s been meaning to put a doorstop in so that can stop happening. He’s had to repair that wall three times in the past two weeks. It’s getting tiring). He winces at the resounding crash, flinching back from where his hands are in their filing cabinet, still holding one of their thinner files.
“Tango!”
“Jimmy,” he turns around with a smile, relaxing a little as his voice registers to Tango’s ears. “You scared me for a moment there, I thought there was a problem.”
“There is a problem!” Jimmy’s across the room in a moment, looking unusually distressed and cradling something in his arms. “Look!”
And the bundle is thrust unceremoniously into his arms, leaving him fumbling to balance the file and the surprisingly heavy object he’s been given. “Um,” he says, intelligently.
“What am I meant to do with it?”
Tango isn’t even sure what it is yet, so he ignores the question in favour of peeling the blanket back and looking at the thing underneath. A pair of eyes stare back at him, bright blue and unblinking. Right. Alright. That’s a thing.
“Jimmy,” he holds the baby awkwardly, gripping it under the arms. The blanket unravels a little, trailing below but not quite touching the floor. He’s never held a baby. He should never be trusted to hold a baby, and yet, somehow, here he is. “Why have you got a baby.”
“fWhip gave it to me,” Jimmy continues to look and sound the most distressed Tango has ever seen him, and Tango was there for the Train Incident. They still don’t have an explanation for how it appeared overnight, but Jimmy is too scared to remove it. Like the train tracks might summon another train if he does. “And then he just left.”
Right. Goblin King…gave Jimmy a baby goblin. He’s pretty sure goblins just naturally emerge from the stone of their caves, but that doesn’t explain why Jimmy has now come to be in possession of a baby. Even less so why fWhip specifically took the time out of his day to give the baby to Jimmy.
He grimaces at the small creature, more than a little unnerved by the fact that it hasn’t blinked yet.
“And you gave it to me, why?” He holds the baby a little further away from himself, attempting to give it back to Jimmy. Jimmy steps backwards, tripping over his own hooves, and fumbling to catch himself on the edge of the desk. He succeeds in catching himself on Tango’s desk, simultaneously succeeding in disturbing the piles of paper he had spent the morning organising. “I don’t like children.”
“You're smart, you know what to do with a child, right?”
“I might have been a bandit but I never kidnapped a child.” The baby reaches a hand towards his face, grabbing hold of some of his hair and yanking. Tango grimaces at the feeling, pulling his head back to try and avoid the small fists. “I had standards. And a limit on where my patience ends.”
“I wasn’t saying you would, Red,” Jimmy frowns at him. Tango huffs a laugh from his nose, and he watches as Jimmy’s frown deepens. “You were being mean, alright. Nevermind, I don’t think you have any standards. Your standards are terrible.”
“And what does that say about you?”
“That you're lucky to have me.”
The baby makes a small sound, reaching for his hair again. He should have cut it ages ago, should have ignored Jimmy when he said that he liked it. Sure, being able to braid his hair is an added bonus that he gets to enjoy on a morning when Jimmy does it for him, but it’s not worth this. He’s going to have to wash his hair later.
“Did you date fWhip at some point,” he asks.
Jimmy stares at him. “What?” He sounds like he’s either about to start laughing or crying.
“Just,” he gestures helplessly, movements slightly hindered by the baby in his arms. “Babies normally come from a relationship. Or maybe he just really hates you.” The baby makes another grab for his face, aiming for his ear this time. “Just- take the baby, it’s not mine.”
Jimmy almost drops the baby, but manages to catch it quickly enough that it is as though nothing happened. He then cradles the baby in one arm, balancing it perfectly and easily. He looks at the baby, then back at Jimmy, then at the baby again. The baby looks perfectly content, like it might fall asleep.
“It’s not mine either!” Jimmy’s protest is loud enough that Tango worries they might be interrupted by some concerned citizen. He’s not sure how either of them would explain the baby that is very clearly a goblin.
“Alright,” he leans back against the cabinet behind him. “Let’s take this from the top. How did you go from having a meeting with the emperors to acquiring a child.”
“It was part of the meeting.”
“It was part of the meeting,” he repeats. “Alright. Why was it part of the meeting?”
“Because…fWhip got the crown, meaning he got to make a rule. And he wanted…all of us to take care of a goblin child. Like an adoption program.”
“And you just agreed?”
“Uh, yeah?” He’s pretty sure the baby has just fallen asleep. He’s heard Jimmy, several times, protest that he doesn’t know how to deal with children, let alone look after them. He sleeps in the same bed as a liar, apparently. “He has the crown right now.”
“And this crown is all-powerful, is it? All, wow, look at me, I'm so powerful and great and you must listen to my rules?”
“Only one rule.”
“That’s not the point, dear.” He sighs. “Is the crown magical?”
“Maybe?” Jimmy shrugs. “I haven’t been able to get my hands on it yet, but it’s old. Pix found it in a ruin.”
“And his first instinct was to make a game with it? This old and potentially evil crown that might be able to…I don’t know- it might do something!”
“I didn’t think about it very much!” Jimmy protests, still looking at him with his sad eyes. Those eyes stopped working around the time that he figured out Jimmy practiced them in front of a mirror to manipulate him. “This is why you need to come to these meetings with me.”
“No.” He ignores Jimmy’s still sad eyes. “I went for a few, and that was it. You’ll have to tie me up and drag me through the door to get me there.”
“I'm not doing that.”
“Which is why I suggested it,” he smiles. “Now, what you're going to do is take the baby back to Gobland, and we can pretend all of this never happened.”
“But I can’t.”
“Why.” He taps a finger against the cabinet behind him. It isn’t an impatient move, just something he does when he’s thinking hard. He’s calculating, right now, how much work he’ll be able to do while Jimmy returns the baby. He might even be able to finish organising the cabinet. And then he can relax.
“Because of the rule.”
“Alright,” he sighs. “How do you make the rule stop…being in effect.”
“You steal the crown.”
“Well,” he claps his hands together. “Fantabulous, you’ve got your solution. Get him while he’s least expecting it.”
“That’s not a word.”
“Yes it is,” he lies through his teeth. He doesn’t know if it’s a word. Half the words he says aren’t words. It doesn’t matter, they convey his emotions well enough. “Take the baby back to the Goblands.”
“But what if it gets hurt?”
“Bigger chance of it getting hurt with us taking care of it.” He reasons. “I regularly catch on fire. If the cats didn’t land on their feet, you’d have dropped one of them on their head at this point.”
“Harsh.”
“But true,” he presses a kiss to Jimmy’s cheek as he walks past. “If you're quick we might be able to go for an early dinner at Chromia.”
“We’ll go there anyway,” Jimmy grumbles half-heartedly. “It’s a Tuesday. You and Scott have your weird little competition.”
“You love it really.” He calls over his shoulder, already occupying himself again. He prefers doing something to sitting around idly. “Have fun returning the child!” Jimmy doesn’t respond, but he does shut the door gently behind him. Doesn’t make up for the hole in the wall (Tango almost managed to forget about that), but the thought is appreciated.
Jimmy is fantastic, but if he comes back with another child Tango might just kill him.
There was something about the vehement denial and visceral pain in Jimmy’s voice that didn’t sit right with Tango as he heard the interaction on the other side of the building. The netherborn’s eyebrows furrowed in worry as he turned the corner to see his soulmate, his rancher, nearly in tears.
Tango immediately rushed over to Jimmy, not caring anymore about the project that he had been going to work on. His soulmate was more important. Tango quickly wrapped his arms around the Sheriff, trying to envelope the man as completely as he could with his smaller stature.
“Jimmy, c’mon buddy, look at me. I got you, honey,” the repeated reassurances seemed to get Jimmy to relax into Tango, blocking out any influence from Joel for a moment. It works so well partially because Joel has fallen silent after Tango’s intervention.
~~~
“What the hell was that?” The god questioned later, after Tango had escorted an emotionally exhausted Jimmy into his home, tucking him into bed for a short nap after making sure that his boots and hat were removed, a kiss placed on the man’s forehead.
“How do you not hear just how hurt he is by that?”
“What?”
“The ‘toy’ thing. It actually hurts him. It’s not a bit anymore, Joel,”
“He never said anything,” Joel’s response was so full of horror that it was barely an excuse. Tango could see the fear in Joel’s eyes that he would have truly hurt his friend, causing the netherborn’s anger at the god to slip away slightly.
“Come back tomorrow, Joel. You can apologize then. For now, get out of Tumble Town.”
