(1111 Words, SFW, Established Relationship, Dadding, Fluff?)
A/N: It’s technically seventeen minutes since @losebetter ‘s birthday ended, but I am the Slowest Human Being and my writing brain likes to hide until the end of the day. So, here’s this. I’ve had the idea for like - a month or so now, having come from the fact that I, just like a five-year-old child, cannot draw. Not to mention Rook is The Best Dad, and Dog is The Best Weird Internet Uncle.
In short, here’s a kinda not-great, very rusty Fallout fic featuring the Wasteland’s best dad in order to celebrate one of my favorite people. Happy birthday, sweet pea! :D<3
MacCready carried the crayons around for months. They were nothing special—the paper sleeves were faded, the tips crushed in the small, plastic wrapper. A handful of old, slightly deformed lumps of wax he’d found beneath the counter of a dinner he and Rook had swung through looking for any untouched canned goods for diner one night. It hadn’t been an immediate thought—to pick them up and tuck them into the breast-pocket on his shirt. It had taken a few seconds and Rook calling his name, but they’d found their way there, a quiet, subtle hope for the future.
Now, they’re spread out on the floor of their home, well-used and stubbly, as Duncan scratches away at the latest in a series of drawings. The paper sleeves are gone, for the most part, torn away as the crayons became shorter and shorter, shrunken by Duncan’s constant desire to document his thoughts by the way of pictures that he would pass along to one of the other three people in the house.
MacCready glances from the book balanced on his ribs to his son and back, breath slow and even and calm in the dim lighting of Home Plate. His shoes are off, ankles crossed and balanced on the arm of the couch he rests on, shoulders back and relaxed. At ease. Home and safe and sound with Duncan on the floor next to him, coloring quietly. It’s moments like these that hit him square in the chest—that he realizes what a stupidly perfect, charmed life he’s living. He has his son—uh, two sons now, actually—and a place to call home and a husband—
The front door slams open and then shut again, raucous but not aggressive in the slightest, emphasized by the faint rambling of a high-pitched voice and the stomp of boots. MacCready doesn’t need to look over to know who it is, but he still dips his head back, lets his head hang over the arm of the couch just as his feet do. There, next to the door, Rook and Shaun are shucking off coats and mittens, hats covered in a thin layer of snow. MacCready returns to his book as Rook begins to hang their outerwear on the pegs nailed into the wall. There’s a quiet scuffle as Shaun runs to the stairs and climbs towards the upper level, but by that point MacCready is focused once more, intent on taking in the small printed words in front of him.
That is, until cold hands push him forward by the shoulders, an equally cold body wedging itself between his now exposed back and the arm his head had been resting against.
“Holy—” MacCready jumps, shoulders curling forward to get away from the sudden chill. “Rook, you’re—Jesus, you’re cold.”
Rook’s arms snake around his waist, pulling MacCready back to rest against his chest again, and then he pushes his nose—even colder than the rest of him—into MacCready’s neck. “‘m sorry.”
MacCready snorts, because how can he be upset Rook is rapidly regaining his natural body-heat. “Didja get everything you needed?” he asks as he gathers Rook’s hands up in his own, pulling them to his lips in an attempt to speed up the warming process.
The loud shuffling of Duncan moving around his paper barely registers with either of them.
“According to Shaun, yeah,” Rook mumbles. “Couldn’t really understand any of the words on that list he put together.”
MacCready softly kisses his knuckles. “Well, that’s why you bring him with when he asks for parts, right? Lesson learned after last time.”
Room hums in agreement and hooks his chin over MacCready’s shoulders, the slightly damp hairs around his neck curling against the bare skin at MacCready’s collar, leaving behind slightly damp fabric and mildly clammy skin. MacCready lowers Rook’s hands to press them against the fold of his sweater, right over his stomach, so he can grab his book and return the majority of his attention to that.
The next few minutes pass slowly, Rook’s breathing falling into the same slow and even pattern, lulling heat back into his skin. He gently asks MacCready what he’s reading, and Mac doesn’t hold himself back from explaining the small nuances of the story. Rook is always good about listening, about letting Mac go on tangents when he’s excited. He’s still talking animatedly when Rook makes a small, surprised noise in his ear, and leans back a bit.
MacCready cranes his neck to see where Rook has gone. He’s still in his place, wedged between Mac and the arm of the sofa, but his head is turned to the side, looking down, and when MacCready turns himself, he finds Duncan standing beside them with a piece of paper in his hand. A drawing, one that he’s holding out for Rook to see.
Rook makes a small sound as he pulls one of his hands out from the spot they’d found beneath Mac’s sweater, carefully reaching for the drawing. “For me?”
Duncan nods and lets Rook take the fragile sheet before doing as Rook had done not fifteen minutes ago, wedging himself between his fathers. MacCready goes easily, twisting so Duncan can sit in a small hole between his and Rook’s legs.
“It’s—” Duncan starts, finding a comfortable spot. “It’s you, see!”
MacCready leans over to get a better look as Duncan points one short, chubby finger at the paper, specifically at one of the four stick-figures he’d drawn in the center of the page. The figure he’s pointing out has a mess of red scribbled atop it’s head—the only one of the four.
“And this one is me! And that’s Daddy, and that’s Shaun!”
The other three figures are drawn around the red-headed one—around Rook. The second-tallest—MacCready—is to the right, Duncan’s figure to the left, and Shaun’s on Duncan’s other side. All four are connected by their stick hands. It’s simple—and Duncan’s five, so of course it is—but, when MacCready looks at him, Rook is staring at it as if it were being displayed at the local art museum, taking it all in one crayon-stroke at a time.
Duncan leans his small shoulder against Rook’s chest. “I think I made Shaun too tall.”
Rook’s quiet, soft bit of laughter covers up the sniffle that hits him at the same time. “No, nonono, buddy, it’s perfect. Thank you.”
Something in MacCready’s chest flutters when Rook leans over to kiss the top of Duncan’s head, as he returns his gaze back to the drawing—the one of their family.
Here’s @losebetter‘s sweetest Rook and his tiny little bf both of whom I love very much what sweethearts. *heart eyes* Listen Longshanks and his tiny little bf are so important. *slides under the table.* Anyway here they are.
I kind of went from starting with a chibi style and then evolving into something else so whoah inconsistent style within a single picture BUT this was such a fun little morning scribble for me. ^u^
