Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jack and Spot had known for a long time that their families would end up being chaotic. Even as teenagers, Medda’s two sons had been two things: troublemakers, always causing a stir wherever they went, and hell-bent on raising miniature versions of themselves who would one day grow up and give them the same kinds of headaches that Medda herself had experienced when the boys were in her care. Jack would admit to both the first description of himself and the second. Spot, on the other hand, wouldn’t have been so quick to identify with the second one. He’d shrugged off having children for a long time; they weren’t for him, he wasn’t good with them, and besides, when he’d talked to Albert and Race about it (once, at a sleepover, when they were fifteen), they hadn’t wanted kids, so what was the point in thinking about it? But when he actually was around kids, his whole demeanor shifted. He loved them. It was like Spot’s personality left him, and he wasn’t thinking about himself anymore; instead, all he cared about was the child in front of him and their safety. So even if he never would have said that he wanted to have kids, it had been a part of his dreams for the future for a long time.
When he finally had his kids, and they turned out to be just as chaotic as he was as a child, no one - least of all Spot himself - could say they were surprised. It was only fitting, then, that the rest of the family, including the friends that were essentially family, were similarly exciting.

“Stella’s first birthday,” read the invitation on the refrigerator of the Conlon household.
And they were trying to get there on time. But the four of them had been living with at least two, and sometimes three or four grown men who couldn't get themselves places on time. So how they were expected to get two four year olds there was well beyond them.

"Shoes, shoes, shoes!" Elmer sang, trying to keep his tone playful despite the mounting anxiety he felt over being late to the first big family party in months. He swept Ryan up in his arms and swung him onto his lap, making sure the velcro sneakers got all the way over his feet. Spot wrangled Adam into doing the same thing, paying no attention to how the boy didn’t want to have to wear shoes; it was already unfair that they were making him wear pants.

“No, A,” Albert sighed, picking up the mostly-empty bag that they used to use for diapers, but now used for changes of clothes in case of emergencies or accidents. “You’ve gotta wear all your clothes.”

“Whyy?” Adam complained.

Race laughed and jingled the keys to the car. “Just the way it is, I guess. Are we ready?”

Elmer stood up and held out his hand for Ryan to hold onto, and Spot did the same thing for Adam.

“Take your brother’s hand, Ryan,” Albert instructed. They had put that system in place so that they could keep the kids together; it made it easier if they had two parents on the outside and two kids on the inside. There was no rule about what the other two dads were supposed to do, but they had taken to holding hands as they walked behind their husbands and sons. So Race and Albert linked hands, and the family made their way down the apartment stairs. The adults wrangled the kids into the carseats, which was always a struggle, but thankfully they cooperated enough that the car pulled out of the parking lot in less than ten minutes. It may not have sounded like much, but it was a miracle.
The music that they played in the car had certainly changed. The first time the six of them had driven somewhere together, Race’s phone had been plugged in. As soon as one of the songs said “fuck,” Spot pulled the car right over, and they had driven without music for the rest of the car ride. When they got home that night, he worked on a playlist of the best pop, rap, and movie musical songs that had both no swear words and no sexual or otherwise not-for-children themes. It was all they had been able to listen to for the past year; thankfully, there were always new songs that they could add. Unfortunately, without access to the radio or other music, they didn’t really know which songs they could add. They had gotten very good at singing along to The Greatest Showman.

They pulled into the parking lot, Ryan and Adam still singing along with Zac Efron. Albert laughed, looking back at them, unplugged the phone with the music but didn’t turn it off, and unbuckled his seatbelt to step out.

“Alright, babies, we’re gonna get you out of the carseats,” Elmer cooed, “and then we’re going to go inside and see Uncle Jack and Uncle Davey and Baba Crutchie, and Aunt Kat and Aunt Saz, and Ivy and Stella.”

As he unbuckled the carseats, another car drove into the parking lot of the trampoline gym. He turned his head to see Mush in the driver’s seat, and waved. Mush parked while Blink waved back, and Elmer pulled Adam out of the car. Albert had Ryan’s hand, and all of them waited for the Meyer’s car to turn off before walking over.

“Hi guys!” Mush grinned, stepping out of the car. He leaned down a little, so he could see the kids. “Hi Ryan,” he said to Adam.

“Wrong one,” Spot whispered. “Ryan wears the necklace. Adam doesn’t have one. Says it bothers his neck.”

“Oh shi- shoot. Hi Adam,” he said to Adam. “Hi Ryan,” he said to Ryan, and then looked back up at Spot to be sure. Spot nodded.

“We could so totally confuse everyone here,” Race laughed. “Tell some of them that Ryan is Adam and tell some of them the right names and then watch them argue.”

“Absolutely not,” Albert hit his shoulder gently. “We don’t need these two to be confused about their names, and we don’t need them involved in switching identities until they’re older.”

Elmer nodded in agreement. “He’s right,” he laughed, taking steps to get to the doorway of the trampoline gym, the other seven in tow behind him.

Chapter Text

Davey laughed over the sound of the music, some bad pop station that he'd grown strangely fond of over the past few years. He watched Ivy run around on the soft blue ground in the trampoline gym, her DJ chasing her around, and he heard both of them giggling as they ran. Well, Ivy ran. Jack walked quickly, but pretended to be out of breath as he chased her. Crutchie stood next to Davey, their arm around his waist.

"How long do you think that'll last?" they asked, grinning.

Davey breathed a chuckle. "I'm sure he'll wear her out eventually-"

"-or she'll wear him out, right?"

"Well, yeah. One or the other. Then we'll put cake into both of them, and they'll be back at it. You know how they are."

Katherine stepped up next to the two of them. "I can't wait for that kind of thing," she pointed at Jack and his three-and-a-half year old daughter. "Stella just started walking, and it's sweet, but I'm so excited to be able to actually play with her."

"Hold onto this age, though," Crutchie warned, their voice strangely nostalgic. "They don't need you as much once they're actually mobile. You can't hold them as much."

"Yeah," Davey agreed. "Plus, then you get to the terrible twos."

"Are they really as bad as everyone says?" Sarah, carrying Stella, stepped up to the other side of Crutchie, putting her one free hand on their shoulder.

"Worse," they closed their eyes and shook their head. "Tantrums every day, about nothing at all. And throwing, and running away, and you add trying to start potty training and it's just a mess. I mean, it might just be Ivy who was a little monster, but I think it's kind of a shared experience."

Davey nodded as the four of them watched Jack and Ivy, now sharing a trampoline, jump around. "And of course you love it, because she's still sweet and fun to play with, but there are moments where we've been glad to have three parents in the house, so that one or two of us can go out and have a breath for a little while."

"Well then," Katherine sighed. "I guess we'll have to figure that part out on our own. After all, we are the only ones who have kids that only have two parents."

Davey's head tilted to the side. "I hadn't even thought about that. But I guess you are."

"Who would have guessed that the two of us would be the most traditional?" Sarah laughed, asking Stella more than she was asking her brother, sibling-in-law, and wife. “I always thought it would be David.”

“No you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t. Maybe Elmer, or Les,” she laughed. “But not my revolutionary baby brother.”

“Speaking of Elmer,” Davey said, turning to look at the group of people walking in. Elmer, Spot, Race, Albert, the twins (he couldn’t tell which was which), Blink, and Mush all flooded into the big party room.

“Why are you speaking of Elmer?” Spot asked, turning to look where Davey and Crutchie were looking, and hiding a smile when he saw Jack acting so freely.

“Sarah was saying,” Crutchie pointed away to Sarah, who was greeting most of the new guests and learning which twin was which, “that she would have guessed Elmer would have wanted to raise his kids the most traditionally.”

Elmer flat out laughed at that. “Right. Okay. Because I haven’t wanted to have a family with these three since I was eighteen.”

He laughed again when one of the boys ran up to him and Spot, nearly yelling something about how they all needed to go play.

Spot’s whole face lit up looking at his husband and son, his eyes crinkling at the edges. Davey tried to remember the last time he’d seen Spot look like that. The only time he could think of, Spot had been really, really drunk. His heart warmed at the idea that Spot was the happiest he had ever been; he deserved it.
Albert had taken his shoes off and was running after his also shoeless sons, with Race following quickly behind. Jack and Ivy called to them, and Albert and Adam (probably Adam, at least) found a trampoline of their own, while Race and Ryan (probably) got on the trampoline next to Jack and Ivy.
Blink and Mush actually followed the six people who were already out on the floor, and Davey had to laugh at them. He doubted that those two would ever grow up, and he was glad of it. They were good, fun, uncles for the kids. Kinda just the two uncles who weren’t really related to the family at all, but could be trusted to bring candy by the house at random times. He and his spouses had been considering adopting another child, and while he wasn’t sure if now was the right time for it, he was comforted in the knowledge that all of his children would be safe in the hands of the loving, adventurous, exciting family that he and his spouses had built. Katherine and Sarah were Ivy’s godmothers, and Davey considered if Blink and Mush could be the godfathers of their next child, if they had one. That was an idea for another day, though. For now, he should focus on the birthday party of his own goddaughter, and the people who were showing up.

Just as Davey turned around with the intent to get back to the party, he saw his little brother walk in. ‘Walk’ was maybe an understatement. Les, dressed in a bright orange t-shirt, barreled into the room and into Davey.

“Hi Les!” Davey choked out, strangled by the arms around his waist. “How are you?”

Les straightened up and grinned. “I’m good, now that I’m here. I feel like I haven’t seen you or Sarah or Kath in forever.”

“No, I know,” Davey looked down at his brother - Les was still shorter than him, much to the younger brother’s chagrin - and held onto his forearm. “With you being out of state and Stella being born. Have you even met her yet?”

“No!” Les bounced a little. “Is she with Sarah?”

Davey pointed. “Over there.” He barely finished the sentence before Les was charging off to go find his niece.

Chapter Text

Sarah was hit with the full force of her twenty-two year old little brother enveloping her in a hug. Her first thought was: "I'm glad I'm not holding Stella."

What she said was: "Les! I'm so glad you came!" She put her hand on top of his head, which rested on her shoulder for a minute.

He squeezed her waist and didn't let go, which surprised her, since when the two of them lived in the same house, he refused to hug her at all. "Hi, Sarah," he finally breathed when he stepped back. "I'm happy I'm here too. It's been too long. Where's Stella?"

She laughed, and looked up to get her wife's attention. Katherine carried herself and the baby over, singing along to the music as she did. Something Jason Mraz, Sarah thought, but focused on watching as Katherine handed Stella to Les.
He was so excited, until he actually held the baby in his arms, and panic spread over his face.

"How do I hold her?" he whispered.

Katherine laughed. "You're doing fine. Just uh, move your arm lower on her back. Like that, yeah. Good job."

"Okay. Okay," he breathed, and then looked at Stella. "Your mama-”

“Actually, I’m mommy. Sarah’s mama,” Katherine corrected.

“Sorry,” he told her. “Your mommy says I’m doing good. What do you think?”

Stella smiled at him, and Sarah nudged Katherine as Les visibly melted. He had been gone for far too long. The last time most people saw him was at Spot, Albert, Elmer, and Race’s wedding. He had been attending college in Arizona, and had graduated that same year. Sarah and Katherine had gone down to see him graduate, along with both of their parents, but Davey had stayed home with his spouses to take care of Ivy instead. Sarah, who was five months pregnant at that time, remembered Les telling her that it didn’t matter, that he understood, but she knew that he wished Davey had come. All three of them were close siblings, but Sarah knew that Les had idolized Davey when they were young, and wanted to be like him. Graduating college must have felt like living up to Davey’s expectations, and it hurt that Davey wasn’t there to see him achieve that goal. But what had happened had happened, and now Les was back in New York after traveling in Europe for a year. At least she knew that he hadn’t been hurting too much; touring Europe was nothing less than a treat, and only Les had ever done that. Still, the way he looked at Stella and talked to her, with so much regret in his eyes and voice over missing her entire first year of life made her heart hurt.

“So how is everyone doing?” he asked his niece. “Spot and them have some boys now, don’t they? Because they needed more.”

“Ba,” was her answer, and he laughed.

“So you do talk a little bit!”

“Ma,” she babbled, and reached for Sarah.

“That’s me,” Sarah laughed. “I’ll be mama later, but for now I’m ‘ma’.” She took her baby and sat down on one of the blue plastic chairs by the table. Les joined her on the chair next to her. “So you really want to know about how everyone’s up to, or were you just making small talk with Stella?”

“I really do want to know.”

She leaned on him, and felt Katherine’s hand on her shoulder before Katherine went to talk to Spot and Elmer, who were munching on a few of the snacks that they had set out.

“Okay,” she agreed, “but only if you agree to tell us all about Europe when I’m done.”

“Deal.”

“And come over for dinner a few times, now that you’re close again.”

His shoulders and face sank, and she had seen that look before.

“You’re going to go away again, aren’t you?” Sarah sat up straight, looking her brother in the eyes and rearranging Stella on her lap.

“Yeah. Um, I met this girl,” Les grinned, and she thought she might have seen a blush. “I met this girl in France.”

“Oh my god,” Sarah whispered. “You met a girl in France? That’s like, straight out of a 3 AM movie.”

“I know, I know,” he shook his head, and yeah, there was a blush. “It’s crazy, but her name’s Elise, and we spend a lot of time together, and-”

“How much time?” Sarah asked, suddenly fascinated.

He took a sharp breath in. “A lot of time. Like, eight months time.”

She did the quick month in her head. “Wait. You spent eight months with her? Did she come with you to the other countries?”

“I mean, one or two. We went to Germany, but uh, that was about it.”

“So you spent eight months with her but you didn’t go to other countries with her. Did you go to the other countries on your list, like, at all?”

Les looked around the trampoline gym, as if looking for someone to save him. And then he shook his head.

“Did you stay in France to stay with her?”

He nodded.

“Oh my god. That’s the dumbest, most adorable thing I’ve ever heard,” Sarah breathed. “And you’re going back to spend more time with her?”

He nodded again.

She sighed, and shook her head. “Only you, Les. I think that only you could honestly do that kind of thing. When do you leave?”

He smiled, like he’d already known what she was going to say. “I’m leaving in two weeks, and I’ll be there for two more months. And before you ask, she is okay with me staying with her. Elise asked me to, actually.”

Sarah hummed. “You like her a lot?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m happy for you. Pissed that you’re going to leave again, but-”

“I know, I know. I wish I didn’t have to, but it’s probably going to be good, even if it’s two months away from all of you guys,” he said, and it sounded like he was telling himself as well as his sister.

Stella looked up at his face, and reached out to grab his arm. “Ba.”

“Yeah, I know,” he smiled at her. “I’m gonna miss you a lot, even though I just met you.” He moved his arm so that Stella was holding his finger.

Sarah smiled at him and his sad face, and felt tears threaten to prick her eyes. “So,” she took a deep breath. “Let me tell you about everything that happened while you’ve been gone.”

He listened patiently to her spiel, and she was glad of it. So much had happened recently, and she needed to tell someone all about it. And she got the feeling that he needed to hear it.

Chapter Text

Medda watched the party unfold from a chair at the table, a cup that was always full of lemonade in her hands. That was her privilege as the grandma; she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to, and right now she didn’t want to jump on a trampoline or gossip. She was very happy to just watch and ponder.

Jack was certainly a subject on which she had pondered before, and undoubtedly would do so again. He had been a hard kid to raise, always looking for attention that hadn’t been given to him before, and always coming up with the most creative and troublesome ways to get attention. She had been lucky to meet him when she did, just when he was fit to burst under the pressure of not knowing if he could be enough - or anything at all, and she had been craving a way to get out of her own head and her own world. His need for attention never quite went away, but he channeled it into art and helping other people, with her help, and she learned how to take care of someone who wasn’t herself. His heart overflowed with love, so much so that it could have been seen from outer space, and certainly was seen by the two young people to whom he proposed and with whom he adopted a baby. As she craned her neck to see him, she found him on the edge of a foam pit, holding his daughter over it like in The Lion King. He pretended to throw her in, causing her to scream with glee. Then, he threw himself into the pit, yelling as he went, pulling Ivy to his chest and landing on his back so he was sure not to crush her. She smiled, and moved her eyes.

She remembered the day she first met Sean. He was an angry kid, angry at the lot he’d been given in life, angry at everyone he’d met who hadn’t been able to solve his problems, angry at the way that some people suffered while others thrived. He didn’t smile at her or Jack the first month he was there; he barely spoke for the first two weeks, except to tell them to call him Spot. Later, he would tell them that it was because he liked them too much. He thought they were too nice to him, and he couldn’t bear the idea of them wasting their time on someone like him. He came around eventually, and joined in on family dinners and movie nights and trips to the grocery store. And then came Albert and Race, the “best friends” who invited him over every month for so long that she felt guilty and had to have them over once every third month. She knew that what happened on those nights wasn’t quite friendly, but of course she didn’t care. This boy had been so averse to the idea of friends or more when he first came to live with her that she was simply happy that he was happy. His going off to college was bittersweet, but she couldn’t have been more proud of him. Or at least she thought that she couldn’t have been. This moment rivaled his high school and college graduations for all they had. Even his wedding didn’t compare much to seeing him playing with two four-year-olds, and hearing him say the words ‘our sons’. The boy who once had been so scared to love his foster mother because she might love him back became the man who loved his children so much that he wasn’t sure he could contain the emotion and couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

She also remembered the first time she met the birthday girl. Two months old, dressed in green (“Because it’s a gender neutral color, Davey!” “Kath, colors don’t have genders at all.” “We are raising our child without any ideas of what pink or blue might mean in society, you - jerk.”), with her blonde hair sticking straight up in tufts. Sarah’s eyes were big and puffy, like it had been too long since she had slept. Medda had never had a baby of her own, but she was almost certain it had been too long. Nevertheless, both Sarah and Katherine were glowing as they handed Medda her - what was it, great-niece.
“Hi,” Medda had crooned, and Stella had given the faintest sign of a smile.
“She’s adorable,” she gave the moms back their baby. Even though she didn’t know what it was like to have a newborn, she most certainly did know what it was like to not like seeing your child with another parent. She didn’t know Sarah and Katherine that well, but they had become Jack’s best friends as well as his in-laws, so she supposed that she liked them well enough. They made him smile almost as much as his spouses did. And they were sweet, ambitious girls. They would be incredible mothers; they were made for this role, unlike herself. She had been a good mother, she supposed, but she had never felt as though she was meant to be a mother, or that she was the perfect mother. But if she could end up with two boys like Spot and Jack, then surely Katherine and Sarah could end up with a beautiful child.

She smiled at the thought as Katherine walked up with slices of birthday cake. They hadn’t bothered keeping the cake in once piece, since they weren’t really going to give candles to a one-year-old. Everyone dug into the pieces that she passed around, and even though it was clearly store-bought, everyone commented on just how delicious it was and how thankful they were that Katherine and Sarah brought it for them. And then Medda smiled some more.

Chapter Text

Blink and Mush certainly enjoyed being with their family. True, they were the only ones at the party that year who weren’t actually a part of the family through marriage, adoption, or genetics, but they were treated like cousins and uncles all the same. And they loved it. It gave them the big family that Mush had always wanted, since he had been an only child all his life, while giving Blink some amount of detachment from the responsibility of siblings.

There was just one problem with that: family, as both of them had heard but never truly experienced, loved to interrogate other family about their future.

“Mush,” Katherine smiled, pulling at his arm. He stepped towards her, complying with what she wanted. He’d learned long ago that doing so made every interaction with her easier. “Do you and Blink ever want kids?”

He coughed in surprise. “Um, I don’t think so.”

“Well have you two talked about it?” she poked his arm. Somehow, her mannerisms reminded him of when the whole group of them used to go drinking together and she would get drunk, nosy, and insistent. But he assumed that she wasn’t drunk now, at her one year old daughter’s birthday party. Or maybe being a parent was just a different kind of drunkenness.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, we have.”

She reeled backwards. “Oh. And you decided not to have kids?”

“That’s basically what happened, yep,” he smiled at her. “We aren’t even married, and neither of us really feel a need for kids. Yours are cute enough for us.”

Katherine seemed to find that funny. “Ah, yeah, Stella’s pretty perfect, huh?”

“She’s stinking adorable. Do you really think she’s perfect though?”

“Absolutely,” Katherine blushed as she turned her head to look at mama and the baby. “Even when she screams and wakes us up and won’t sleep and has diaper rash and drives us crazy. Perfect.”

So parenting was definitely much too similar to drinking. Good to know, Mush thought, since most of his friend were parents now.
Later, he was sitting with his boyfriend at a table in the corner, when Ivy ran up to the both of them.

“Un Bink!” she grabbed her ‘Uncle Blink’s’ hand, pulling him towards a trampoline. It seemed that even after a few hours of jumping with her DJ and DD, she wasn’t tired. Mush just assumed she had worn her own parents out and was moving on to other, under-utilized resources. He grinned to himself as he watched Blink and Ivy run away from him, reveling in how cute both of them were.

“He’s good with the kids, you know,” he heard Jack’s voice and felt Jack’s hand on his shoulder. “He’d be a good dad, if you want that kind of thing.”

Mush turned around, rolling his eyes. “You know you’re the second person to tell me that today already?”

“Yeah,” Jack laughed. “I heard your conversation with Kath. She’s pretty funny, that girl. Crutchie and I think she just wants all of us to have more kids so she can start a softball team with all of them.”

“Well, she’s almost there. Four is getting up there, but maybe they could just start a band instead.”

Jack smiled, his shoulders shaking in quiet laughter. Mush was struck by just how much he looked like a dad as Jack sat down across the table from him, a pink plastic cup in his hand and a dark blue t-shirt making his eyes - and the bags underneath them - stand out. “That’d be a good idea, huh?”

“God, but none of them would have musical talent at all.” Mush shook his head. “It’s not like any of us can sing.”

Jack shrugged. “Davey plays piano, but you’re mostly right. Maybe the different genetics will give us something on that front.”

“Good point,” Mush laughed, and he could feel his eyes wrinkle at the sides. He probably was beginning to look like a dad too, but that might have just been him getting old.

“You really don’t want to have any kids?” Jack asked, leaning forward. “I think you guys would be great at it.”

“I dunno that we want to put that time into a kid,” Mush sighed. “I think we’ve got some plans of our own that just don’t involve children.”

“That’s fair enough,” Jack agreed.

“Plus, even if we wanted kids,” he shook his head. “I don’t think we could apply for adoption, since we’re not married.”

Jack pressed his lips together and leaned forward. “Okay. So I totally get it if marriage and kids isn’t what you guys want to do. Like, you’re in a loving, committed relationship and it’s beautiful and you two inspire me in my marriage, and if you don’t need that seal of government or social approval, that’s fine. But like, if you actually do want kids, then the last thing you should do is let something like a marriage certificate hold you back. ‘Cause my spouses and I aren’t legally married, and neither is Spot’s family. And they’ve got kids just like we do. If that’s the dream, you should go get it. And you can actually get a legal marriage certificate, you and Blink. So if you want that, then you should go for it. Go to the courthouse and get it done.”

Mush smiled at him. He really was a good dad, complete with fatherly advice.

“I’m not tellin’ you what to do. But just know that you can’t let anything get in your way. Make sure that if you’re not having kids and getting married, it’s because that’s what you want, alright?”

Mush smiled at him and patted his arm. “Thanks, Jack. I’ll remember that if we talk about it again.”

With that, they brought the cake out, so the conversation dissipated.

-

The two of them sat in the car after the party.

“Did you keep getting questions about having kids?” Blink asked him, turning the engine over.

“Yep. You too, huh? Jack and Katherine both asked me about it, and said that if I do want kids and marriage, then I shouldn’t let anything hold me back from it.”

Blink ran a hand through his hair as he pulled out of the parking space. “I guess this is our life now. They didn’t change your mind on the whole thing, did they?”

“Not really, no,” Mush shook his head. “Although the idea of a bunch of our family’s kids forming a baseball team together is pretty cute.”

Blink hummed in agreement. “I don’t think they need our help with that though. Crutchie let it slip that they’re back in contact with an adoption agency.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Mush rolled his eyes, and looked in the rearview mirror at the trampoline gym and the small - but growing - families who were still in its parking lot.