hybrid_prince | Open Post

It's still more than just the two of them. Tommy and Teddy have never existed together as a couple or lovers or whatever they are in a space that wasn't just for them - at least not knowingly. Tommy's not sure how to act exactly. He just doesn't care enough to actually not stay glued against Teddy.

He smiled at the woman when she left, and then looked at the kids, who were all waving hands and big smiles. They really were cute. He nodded to Teddy and walked over, hesitantly grabbing each of their hands with one of his, swinging their arms lightly. "Hey," he greeted. "Hungry?"

The little boy - Thomas, Tommy guessed. They were going to have to work out the names. He answered with a stream of babble that it took Tommy a second to realize he wasn't supposed to be able to understand, since it was mostly babytalk with a few words of Skrull mixed in.

They weren't fully conversational yet. They were only a year old after all. But Teddy stands back and watches the man he loved with their children and wow. That's... good.

"The Little Lamb is very anti-mushy peas, but Kitty cat loves them. Lamb gets the chopped carrots, and the beefy dinner. Kitty gets chicken."

Teddy moves to the kids, kissing each on the brow in turn before picking up one sectioned animal plate and carrying it to Kathryn, scooping up some peas.

"The kids eat first, and when they're done with what they'll eat, they get little bowls of small snacks they can eat. Baby cookies. I have to get them from Earth, because they don't like some traditional Skrull foods."

"Dada," Kathryn says, hands reaching out toward the plate he has.

Tommy had been wondering about that, all the earth-centric food. He laughed though, watching Teddy and then picking up the other plate for Thomas. "I guess they don't take after me. I was always a trash can - I ate everything." As far as he remembered, anyway. Then again, growing up it'd been a definite "eat what you have" kind of house, so if he didn't like it, he didn't get anything else.

Tommy watched Teddy to see how he fed Kathryn, and then mimicked him, offering Thomas a bite of his carrots, grinning when the kid just started to babble again. "Uh huh," Tommy said, nodding sagely as if he understood.

"They're too young to eat everything just yet," Teddy coos at Tommy in Skrull. Because with the charm, he knows Tommy will understand. But he loved how quickly Tommy got the right feel of it. Teddy was mostly just proud to know he'd called that reaction properly.

"I'm told language development goes better when you just talk to them lots, encourage noises too."

He smiles and gets some of the chicken gravy and potatoes onto a spoon to feed Kate. And after she takes the spoonful he leans over to kiss Tommy's temple.

Tommy nodded, watching both kids, curious and avid, taking in the little mannerisms and the way they reached for him or for Teddy, or for each other. One would say something and the other would answer. He wondered if him and Billy would have been like that, if they'd been raised together.

"Yeah. There's a little kid in Krokoa, one of the mutant couples adopted him, but he barely talks. I think it's cause he always got told to shut up when he was little, so no one would notice him." He was cute, but he had visible mutations - lizard-looking eyes and a sheen to his skin. Tommy would watch some of the kids sometimes, to give the parents a break. Or at least he did now that they weren't as worried he'd explode time or something.

He turned when Teddy kissed his temple, startled, but smiled. Christ. They were feeding their KIDS together. Like a family. Which he guessed they were, just ... a weird one.

He was startled out of thinking about it when Thomas smacked at his hand demandingly, and Tommy snickered. "Sorry, little man." He scooped up a bite of the beef and offered it to him, wiping a dribble off his chin when only half of it went in his mouth.

"You're clearly a natural. And he's got attitude, like his Papa. But Kitten is going to be the problem when she grows up. She's going to wrap us around her little finger."

Teddy smiles and offers a clean cloth from the table behind them to Tommy.

"Papa num!" Kathryn said, hands reaching for Tommy and the food he had.

"Oh dear, she's going to be fussy too.l"

"Yeah, let's hope he's not that much like me," Tommy said dryly.

Tommy took the cloth, wiping up and then laughing at Kathryn. "She just wants what she doesn't have, probably. Grass is greener, right? See, that's our fault for naming her after Kate."

Still, he gave Thomas another bite before offering one to Kitty too, reaching to carefully brush fingers through the white hair on one small head, then the other.

Kitty, of course, just had to assume whatever her Papa had was good too, but when he held out a spoonful of carrots the girl cringed away, turning her head far from Tommy.

"Princess is just a little silly. It's okay, Kitty, I only like carrots in gravy. And chef says you can't have that yet," Teddy coos.

"Sef!" Kathryn parrots back, which Thomas is soon mimicking

"They like the chef because sometimes he gives them blueberry puree," Teddy whispers. "They like the color they turn. The only thing they can do other than wings right now is a bit of color on their hands, so when they get blueberries on it, they like to be purple like the juice and stains."

Tommy grinned. "It's 'cause they're orange, right? Orange food always looks weird," he teased her, making a show of sniffing suspiciously at the spoon before offering it to Thomas instead.

"That's really cute," Tommy answers. "Maybe let them try cherries? They'd probably like the red then." He tried to think of what else the kids back home ate - but it was a lot of junk food they probably didn't have here. They were all way older than the twins were.

"Yeah, because having them running around with red juice on their fingers won't give me a heart attack," Teddy grumbles, but Kate's giggling at Tommy's little display, so clearly the kid likes it.

Teddy just focuses on getting the girl to have more peas.

"I love you, Tommy," Teddy says into the perfection of the moment, and says it in Skrull. "Thank you."

Tommy snickered. "If they're not crying, then it's probably just juice," he reasoned. "Or them changing their color."

He looked up, startled at the sudden declaration. But Tommy smiled, leaning over between bites and kissing Teddy. It was quick and a little shy in front of the kids, who obviously had never seen their dads kiss before. But it just ... still hit him hearing Teddy say it. He'd been so sure Teddy couldn't stand the thought of him, even if he didn't hate him. Loving him back ... it was almost an impossible leap of thought to make.

"Love you too. Just ... yeah. So much." Tommy replied, awkward but sincere.

It's a good experience, Teddy thinks. Every now and then when Tommy doesn't seem to quite know what to do with taking care of the kids, he just runs his fingers over his bracelet, imparting the memories Tommy would have if he wasn't an asshole. And, eventually, the little ones had mostly eaten and been vaguely cleaned up. Teddy at last put his mostly cleaned plate from Kate back on the table and put a bowl of soft pieces of skrull fruit the children liked in front of them, to let them snack. It was all cut up very fine so they could eat it and not risk choking before Teddy could get there. But it was also clear almost instantly that a lot of it was going to get smooshed.

"And now the victorious parents get to eat," Teddy sighs as he takes a towel to wipe a bit of mushed peas off of his cheek. "But it's rewarding, knowing they're okay."

Tommy faltered each time those little nudges of new memory fluttered into his head, giving a view of what might have been. It helped him know what he was doing, and he liked seeing them, smaller or cranky or just with a version of him that they cared about.

Thomas took a little longer to finish, but Tommy got the feeling it was mostly because he was courting the extra attention from him, which made him smile. He put the plate aside when the little boy was done though, helping clean them up a bit - even if the fruit smooshing was probably just gonna mean they'd need it again - and then gave Thomas his fruit too.

As they ate and cleaned up, both kids just talked. Tommy could pick up words or general meanings sometimes, but for the most part it was just happy noise - fussy now and then when they didn't want more, or wanted something he wasn't giving them. It was sweet and kind of oddly soothing. It probably wouldn't be the first time they threw a fit over something, but for the moment, it was just nice.

He laughed, wiping another spot of peas off Teddy's chin with the tip of his finger, and then dotting that on the towel too, dropping down to sit next to him. "You did good with them. They're happy," he said quietly.

Teddys chuckles at the process of Tommy cleaning him up. No one else dared to touch him like that, and so he had more than a few instances where people tried to, clumsily, tell him that there was something wrong. It was never easy, but like this? It was. He leaned into that touch and when it was gone, he moved to sit with his former lover.

“Well, what do you think? Of the children? Of feeding them”

Tommy leaned into him as soon as he sat down, instant and easy. Natural. He didn't know how to be with Teddy and not be touching him anymore. It didn't occur to him to try without Billy or someone there to notice and make him aware of what he was doing.

"I think they're cute, and sweet. They're good kids. I think ... it's still a lot to work my head around, Ted. I've been thinking you just ... I thought I was an asshole, for liking what we had, when you had to like it and wouldn't have. You loving me, us being parents. It's hard to just figure out how to flip that around. But I'm happy, I think. Just confused still, too. And I wish I'd been here. For you." He half smiled. "Feeding them's kinda messy. But cute, too."

"I've had a lot more time to deal with it," Teddy admits. But he had learned to be alone. Very alone. And he's learned to be stronger for the experience of it.

"While you're here, you're welcome to enjoy it," Teddy promises.

Tommy lifted his head from Teddy's shoulder to look at him, trying to figure out what that meant. Did he want him to plan on leaving? Or did he just expect Tommy to leave? "Ted ... do you want me to go? Not right away, but later?" he finally just asked.

"I don't," Teddy sighs. "But... this is a lot. If you're here, you're here as their father. You're here as the Consort."

Tommy shook his head. "I guess this is part of what we need to talk to Billy and David about too. But Ted ... it's been two years. Long enough that I know I don't do that great without you. I missed you. I want to be with you. I don't know how I'll do in space all the time, maybe I'll need to take breaks on earth or something. Maybe you and the babies can come too. I don't know. But I wasn't ... I kindaofdidn'tplan on leaving as soon as you said you loved me."

Two years that he'd not done all that well during, leaning on his people. Leaning on his needs. And every time he'd been able to hear Tommy's voice had been agony. But this... was something.

"Then you'll stay? You'll try something that's us without, you know, pheromones?"

Tommy rolled his eyes, reaching over to tickle lightly at Kathryn's foot before sitting back again. "I don't need pheromones to want you. I didn't need them way before we got broken out of there. I haven't had them in a long time. And I want you all the time. No one else is ... it's not right without you anymore. Nothing is, okay? So yeah. I want to try."

"Then..."

Teddy smiles. And instead of reaching for his food, he reaches out to lay his hand over Tommy's.

"I'd like you to stay. If you're not ready for it to be as my consort, then as the father of my children, and as a liason to Krakoa.

Tommy curled his fingers back through Teddy's. "Yeah. I'd like to stay. Consort is ... that'd be like married, right? Or whatever Skrulls call it? Maybe wait on that, at least until we all get used to the idea. But I wanna be with you. Get to know them. Figure out ... how we are when there's more than one room." He didn't know what kind of liaison he'd be ... they might not even want him here without a chaperone for all he knew, they still got nervous about his powers. But he could give it a try.

"Consort would be similar, but it's not quite the same. I wouldn't mind you being the proper Prince Consort, though. The wedding would be overwhelmingly huge though."

The Alliance needed something to celebrate for a change, other than their prince and princess.

"I imagine with more than one room, you won't be brushing my hair with your fingers just to have something to do."

Oh yeah. Wedding a space emporerer for two races. That'd probably be ... a huge thing. For Tommy, who still has issues with crowd and noise after their time in captivity, that's a little overwhelming to think about all on its own. But ... yeah he might do it. For that, no matter what.

He smiled. "Yeah ... having books and shit back has been nice. Still like your hair though." Teddy would grow it out longer to let Tommy play with it when Tommy was out of his head bored, sometimes. And as Tommy's got long, he'd like it when Teddy played with his.

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