Buddy Daddies: Safe Space
Apr. 8th, 2023 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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prose_alchemistTitle: Safe Space
Author:jordannamorgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: G.
Characters: Kazuki, Rei, Miri.
Setting: Sometime after episode seven.
Summary: Rei is deprived of his bathtub bed for a day.
Disclaimer: They belong to P.A. Works. I’m just playing with them.
Notes: Written for the prompt words of “Flow” atfan_flashworks, and “Families” at genprompt_bingo. This is not a fandom I expected to write, but I thought the idea was cute.
As Kazuki had discovered, there were a lot of complications to living with a child—and there were even more complications to living with a child and Rei Suwa.
“Papa Kazuki!”
…Such as the morning Kazuki was awakened way too early to learn that Miri was sick to her stomach. Like, really sick. Like “throwing up more than she could have possibly eaten in one day” sick.
After a few gentle questions, the diagnosis turned out to be a delayed reaction to a horrifying combination of junk food Rei let her eat while Kazuki was out the night before. That ruled out any viruses to worry about, and assured him there was no need to go rushing off to the hospital. Nevertheless, Miri was miserable, and the consequences of her unwise food choices were… messy. So messy that he didn’t give a thought to filling the bathtub with warm water and suds, and plonking Miri straight into it with the need to cleanse her of her own barf.
…But then he heard a choked noise behind him, and turned from carefully wiping Miri down to see Rei at the open doorway, mouth agape and eyebrow twitching.
Naturally, Kazuki’s first thought was that Rei was just worried about the red-faced and sobbily sniffling Miri. She’d only recently suffered a fever Rei had to deal with on his own, after all. (Which was something Kazuki still felt guilty about, but that was another issue.) On that assumption, he hurried to reassure his roommate and reluctant co-parent.
“Don’t worry. Miri’s just got a bad stomachache, that’s all.”
It said something that Rei’s expression wavered for a moment, dark eyes focusing more directly on the child. “She okay?”
“Yeah. Hopefully she’s got it all out of her system by now. Still, I’ll call the daycare and tell them—”
His words were cut off with remarkable effectiveness when Rei lifted his hand and pointed. At first it appeared he was pointing at Miri, but that turned out not to be exactly the case.
“But. The tub.” His terse voice sounded very close to a groan.
“What?”
“The. Tub,” Rei reiterated.
Confused, Kazuki looked from Rei’s almost physically pained expression to the bathtub very full of soapy water and Miri… and he winced in realization.
Because the bathtub served double duty as Rei’s bed—and this stupidly early hour of the morning would be getting pretty close to that stupidly nocturnal freak’s bedtime.
It was never a big deal when the two lived alone. Indeed, Kazuki himself made a conscious decision to be thoughtful about it, without Rei ever having to bring it up. Sleeping in bathtubs was just the kind of not normal that came from some real crud in somebody’s past, and there were boundaries he knew better than to push. He had enough baggage of his own to sympathize, after all. (Not to mention a fairly good idea that he didn’t want to see what would happen if Rei ever really flipped out on him.) In any case, the apartment had another half-bath to serve Kazuki’s toilet needs during the day, and showers could wait until Rei got up to begin his evening of gaming oblivion.
But now Miri with all her typical childhood messes was part of the equation—and under the circumstances, it hadn’t occurred to Kazuki that a wet tub was no bed even for Rei.
“Oh—I’m sorry, Rei! I wasn’t thinking!” he exclaimed, flushing red. “I didn’t realize the time! Look, once I’ve got Miri dried off, I’ll turn on the fan and take a towel and—”
Yet again he was interrupted without a word, as Rei simply turned his back and lurched off like a zombie.
“Is Papa Rei mad at us?” Miri’s small voice murmured from just north of the waterline, where she was soaking all the way to her chin.
Kazuki sighed. “No… I don’t think so. He’s just upset that we forgot we shouldn’t use the tub before he wants to sleep.”
“Why does Papa Rei like to sleep in the tub?”
“…You should probably ask him yourself. But not until you’re a little older, okay?”
Still feeling too sick to ask any more questions, Miri only made a gloomy noise and half-closed her eyes, and Kazuki really hoped she would forget the whole line of thought.
In hindsight, maybe he should have known better. The sound of Miri’s awful retching hadn’t managed to penetrate Rei’s laser focus on his video game, but the sound of flowing water in his precious tub had. It was enough to make Kazuki angry that Rei was only thinking of himself—and that ire flared hotter after he dried Miri off and carried her from the bathroom, only to find the younger man curled up in a fetal position on the couch with his face mashed into the cushions. Normally Rei would have stayed up at least a little longer for breakfast, but apparently the very knowledge that his bed was unavailable made him stubbornly want to sleep right now. So without even giving Kazuki a chance to dry the tub out, he’d settled for an alternative just so he could wallow in pathetic self-pity. …Some days he was even more childish than Miri.
Rolling his eyes, Kazuki took Miri back to bed, where he gave her a drink of water and left her to sleep off her upset stomach. With his jerk of a roommate presumably trying to fall asleep in the living room, he grudgingly held off on starting any household chores. After calling Miri’s daycare to let them know she would be absent for the day, he retreated to the kitchen, where he quietly made coffee and sat down with some surveillance data from Kyu.
An hour later, he was startled from his research by a sharp moan of distress from the direction of the couch.
Instinctively concerned, he hurried to check on Rei. Although clearly asleep, the younger man was now thrashing and clawing at the decorative pillow he clutched. From deep within his throat came garbled grunts and groans, littered here and there with mumbles of Please and No and something that might have been a name, but Kazuki wasn’t sure.
It was the first time he’d ever seen Rei have a nightmare. He never got like this when he slept in the tub; he was always dead quiet there. Whatever the sensation of cold porcelain beneath his body did for him, it apparently grounded him in the present, keeping his unconscious mind from slipping into past torments his partner knew both too much and too little about.
Filled with the impulse to end that suffering, Kazuki reached out to shake him awake… but at that very moment, Rei relaxed with a sigh and grew still again.
Kazuki stood over him for a minute longer, brimming with anxious and remorseful thoughts.
He couldn’t let this happen again. Rei’s relationship with the bathtub might have been weird, but it was important to him for a reason. That was obvious now—and Kazuki resolved to make sure nothing came between Rei and the hard chilly nest where he felt safe. If Miri had any more early-morning messes, a warm washcloth at the sink would have to suffice in cleaning her up. She would understand that too when he explained it to her.
Intending to wipe the tub dry and then wake Rei to send him to it, Kazuki headed towards the bathroom; but as he passed the open door of Miri’s room and saw her sleeping, an image from recent memory came back to him. Miri lying there in much the same way, but with a damp washcloth on her forehead to soothe a fever, while Rei sprawled out of a chair and halfway across the bed with her little hand clutched in his own—fast asleep himself.
A different impulse came over Kazuki. Stepping into the room, he gently gathered Miri, who did not wake and barely even stirred. He carried her back to the living room and silently bent over Rei, to deposit the child in the crook of his half-outstretched arm.
Just as Kazuki was easing Miri down onto the couch cushions, one wild dark eye opened and stared at him… and for a terrifying moment, he wasn’t sure if his nightmare-hazed fellow assassin even recognized him.
Then Rei’s other arm slowly slid upward, wrapping around Miri in a protective embrace, and his eye squeezed shut again.
Kazuki never did get any chores done that day. His partner and his kid both slept peacefully on the couch until it was almost time for dinner—and he couldn’t have been happier about that.
In the end, maybe he really did know a little more about safe spaces than he gave himself credit for.
…After all, the two of them were his safe space too.
© 2023 Jordanna Morgan
Author:
jordannamorganArchive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: G.
Characters: Kazuki, Rei, Miri.
Setting: Sometime after episode seven.
Summary: Rei is deprived of his bathtub bed for a day.
Disclaimer: They belong to P.A. Works. I’m just playing with them.
Notes: Written for the prompt words of “Flow” at
fan_flashworks, and “Families” at genprompt_bingo. This is not a fandom I expected to write, but I thought the idea was cute.As Kazuki had discovered, there were a lot of complications to living with a child—and there were even more complications to living with a child and Rei Suwa.
“Papa Kazuki!”
…Such as the morning Kazuki was awakened way too early to learn that Miri was sick to her stomach. Like, really sick. Like “throwing up more than she could have possibly eaten in one day” sick.
After a few gentle questions, the diagnosis turned out to be a delayed reaction to a horrifying combination of junk food Rei let her eat while Kazuki was out the night before. That ruled out any viruses to worry about, and assured him there was no need to go rushing off to the hospital. Nevertheless, Miri was miserable, and the consequences of her unwise food choices were… messy. So messy that he didn’t give a thought to filling the bathtub with warm water and suds, and plonking Miri straight into it with the need to cleanse her of her own barf.
…But then he heard a choked noise behind him, and turned from carefully wiping Miri down to see Rei at the open doorway, mouth agape and eyebrow twitching.
Naturally, Kazuki’s first thought was that Rei was just worried about the red-faced and sobbily sniffling Miri. She’d only recently suffered a fever Rei had to deal with on his own, after all. (Which was something Kazuki still felt guilty about, but that was another issue.) On that assumption, he hurried to reassure his roommate and reluctant co-parent.
“Don’t worry. Miri’s just got a bad stomachache, that’s all.”
It said something that Rei’s expression wavered for a moment, dark eyes focusing more directly on the child. “She okay?”
“Yeah. Hopefully she’s got it all out of her system by now. Still, I’ll call the daycare and tell them—”
His words were cut off with remarkable effectiveness when Rei lifted his hand and pointed. At first it appeared he was pointing at Miri, but that turned out not to be exactly the case.
“But. The tub.” His terse voice sounded very close to a groan.
“What?”
“The. Tub,” Rei reiterated.
Confused, Kazuki looked from Rei’s almost physically pained expression to the bathtub very full of soapy water and Miri… and he winced in realization.
Because the bathtub served double duty as Rei’s bed—and this stupidly early hour of the morning would be getting pretty close to that stupidly nocturnal freak’s bedtime.
It was never a big deal when the two lived alone. Indeed, Kazuki himself made a conscious decision to be thoughtful about it, without Rei ever having to bring it up. Sleeping in bathtubs was just the kind of not normal that came from some real crud in somebody’s past, and there were boundaries he knew better than to push. He had enough baggage of his own to sympathize, after all. (Not to mention a fairly good idea that he didn’t want to see what would happen if Rei ever really flipped out on him.) In any case, the apartment had another half-bath to serve Kazuki’s toilet needs during the day, and showers could wait until Rei got up to begin his evening of gaming oblivion.
But now Miri with all her typical childhood messes was part of the equation—and under the circumstances, it hadn’t occurred to Kazuki that a wet tub was no bed even for Rei.
“Oh—I’m sorry, Rei! I wasn’t thinking!” he exclaimed, flushing red. “I didn’t realize the time! Look, once I’ve got Miri dried off, I’ll turn on the fan and take a towel and—”
Yet again he was interrupted without a word, as Rei simply turned his back and lurched off like a zombie.
“Is Papa Rei mad at us?” Miri’s small voice murmured from just north of the waterline, where she was soaking all the way to her chin.
Kazuki sighed. “No… I don’t think so. He’s just upset that we forgot we shouldn’t use the tub before he wants to sleep.”
“Why does Papa Rei like to sleep in the tub?”
“…You should probably ask him yourself. But not until you’re a little older, okay?”
Still feeling too sick to ask any more questions, Miri only made a gloomy noise and half-closed her eyes, and Kazuki really hoped she would forget the whole line of thought.
In hindsight, maybe he should have known better. The sound of Miri’s awful retching hadn’t managed to penetrate Rei’s laser focus on his video game, but the sound of flowing water in his precious tub had. It was enough to make Kazuki angry that Rei was only thinking of himself—and that ire flared hotter after he dried Miri off and carried her from the bathroom, only to find the younger man curled up in a fetal position on the couch with his face mashed into the cushions. Normally Rei would have stayed up at least a little longer for breakfast, but apparently the very knowledge that his bed was unavailable made him stubbornly want to sleep right now. So without even giving Kazuki a chance to dry the tub out, he’d settled for an alternative just so he could wallow in pathetic self-pity. …Some days he was even more childish than Miri.
Rolling his eyes, Kazuki took Miri back to bed, where he gave her a drink of water and left her to sleep off her upset stomach. With his jerk of a roommate presumably trying to fall asleep in the living room, he grudgingly held off on starting any household chores. After calling Miri’s daycare to let them know she would be absent for the day, he retreated to the kitchen, where he quietly made coffee and sat down with some surveillance data from Kyu.
An hour later, he was startled from his research by a sharp moan of distress from the direction of the couch.
Instinctively concerned, he hurried to check on Rei. Although clearly asleep, the younger man was now thrashing and clawing at the decorative pillow he clutched. From deep within his throat came garbled grunts and groans, littered here and there with mumbles of Please and No and something that might have been a name, but Kazuki wasn’t sure.
It was the first time he’d ever seen Rei have a nightmare. He never got like this when he slept in the tub; he was always dead quiet there. Whatever the sensation of cold porcelain beneath his body did for him, it apparently grounded him in the present, keeping his unconscious mind from slipping into past torments his partner knew both too much and too little about.
Filled with the impulse to end that suffering, Kazuki reached out to shake him awake… but at that very moment, Rei relaxed with a sigh and grew still again.
Kazuki stood over him for a minute longer, brimming with anxious and remorseful thoughts.
He couldn’t let this happen again. Rei’s relationship with the bathtub might have been weird, but it was important to him for a reason. That was obvious now—and Kazuki resolved to make sure nothing came between Rei and the hard chilly nest where he felt safe. If Miri had any more early-morning messes, a warm washcloth at the sink would have to suffice in cleaning her up. She would understand that too when he explained it to her.
Intending to wipe the tub dry and then wake Rei to send him to it, Kazuki headed towards the bathroom; but as he passed the open door of Miri’s room and saw her sleeping, an image from recent memory came back to him. Miri lying there in much the same way, but with a damp washcloth on her forehead to soothe a fever, while Rei sprawled out of a chair and halfway across the bed with her little hand clutched in his own—fast asleep himself.
A different impulse came over Kazuki. Stepping into the room, he gently gathered Miri, who did not wake and barely even stirred. He carried her back to the living room and silently bent over Rei, to deposit the child in the crook of his half-outstretched arm.
Just as Kazuki was easing Miri down onto the couch cushions, one wild dark eye opened and stared at him… and for a terrifying moment, he wasn’t sure if his nightmare-hazed fellow assassin even recognized him.
Then Rei’s other arm slowly slid upward, wrapping around Miri in a protective embrace, and his eye squeezed shut again.
Kazuki never did get any chores done that day. His partner and his kid both slept peacefully on the couch until it was almost time for dinner—and he couldn’t have been happier about that.
In the end, maybe he really did know a little more about safe spaces than he gave himself credit for.
…After all, the two of them were his safe space too.
© 2023 Jordanna Morgan