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#the adventures of ripan the invincible possibly part one of more
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Imagine Roxas and Axel babysitting for Sora and Riku
Teamwork
"I like adding spontaneous, fun extra challenges to the day as much as the next guy, provided the next guy is you, but I have to say, I think Floor is Lava Tuesdays is a better idea than weird plastic puzzle locks on the cabinets."
Roxas glanced up from where he knelt on the floor, fixing covers and bars on the under the sink cabinets in the kitchen to see his husband framed in the doorway, looking the casual print ad model, chiseled lines under soft sweats, hands curled around a mug of steaming liquid that smelled almost as delicious as the holder (of course the mug was emblazoned with the word SLUT in bold letters which would probably have to be censored out of the ad), bun with just enough flyaways to seem careless but pulled to the perfect angle.  "I'm baby proofing."
"As the baby, I resent that remark," Axel tutted before setting his coffee next to the sink and crouching down beside Roxas. "What brought this on? You have some news to tell me?"
Axel expected an eye roll from his husband, but Roxas set the angry looking plastic finger trap he was holding down and ran a hand through his hair nervously, a mild pink tinge crawling up his neck and Axel felt his smile freeze in the middle of forming.  "Well, actually, I do have some news..."
"You're kidding." Axel felt his blood run cold and then super heated through his veins in quick succession as time slowed down.
Roxas's frown at the interruption morphed to a furrowed brow of confusion and then annoyance. "Axel, I told you already. Replica bodies don't work that way. I'm not going to 'go seahorse'"
"Xion can..."
"Xion is a special case. You are stuck with me with no alterations."
"Eh, I still have the much better end of the deal."
"Yeah, you do."
A shared smile and a quick kiss distracted Axel a moment longer from asking, "So what's the news?"
"I told Sora and Riku we'd babysit for them tonight." Roxas ripped the bandage off quickly. He braced for a less than enthusiastic response, though actually receiving one was still disappointing.
"Listen, I'm sorry about the acknowledgements. Every book I write is dedicated to 'my heart, my love, my Roxas.' I thought that was a given by now, and I just had to write what other dedications would come after it. It was the publisher's fault, and I should not be punished."
"I'm not punishing you," Roxas felt his face wilt as he picked back up the baby proofing supplies to finish what he had started. "I thought it would be fun. Riku and Sora really need a night out, and it gives us a chance to, you know, see what it's like."
It wasn't that Axel missed Roxas's hurt tone or his latter words and their meaning, even if they had been mumbled. It was more a combination of not wanting to be lured toward a slippery slope of manipulation or ready to revisit the conversation of whether he felt they should start seriously thinking about adding to their family soon rather than a general "some day" they'd always said before. Roxas had brought it up last week, and Axel appreciated that he had, but it hadn't exactly gone well when he'd been taken by surprise and his gut instinct response was less enthusiastic than Roxas had seemed to want. He was letting the idea soak in now, and it needed a little more time to marinate before he could give a response. If Roxas was going to push, it would probably need even more time. So it was better not to toe too closely to the sensitive, personal part of baby discussion and do what they both had the inclination to always go back to, deflection with a joke. "To let a Babynort into the house?"
"Ripan is not a Nort." Roxas hissed defense of his other's son since Sora and Ripan couldn't defend themselves.
"Then how come he has white hair? Answer me that," Axel challenged.
"He has silver hair. Like Riku. Riku's genes are the only inherited evil Ripan has and I don't think we should hold that against him. He's just a baby."
"No, no, babies are adorable balls for holding and cooing at and then handing back to their parents. Terrifying because their heads are squishy and they can't hold them up, but otherwise not dangerous at all. This thing is mobile. I've seen it." Axel lent the revelation the appropriate air of horror, though he neglected to mention he'd seen Ripan crawling up a wall, imitating either one of his fathers or the younger Incredible boy, which rendered his warning easily mistaken for his typical melodrama.
"That's why I'm baby proofing."
"Did you get the upstairs?"
"It's not going to be able to climb the stairs by itself...Is it?"
Axel thought it over since the stair thing seemed to alarm Roxas. "Probably more easily than it could get to the ceiling. I'm just going to feed it ice cream and hope that appeases it."
"I don't think it..he can have ice cream yet. Sora said he was going to write us a list of rules."
Axel's attitude toward the night ahead of them turned on a dime when the suggestion that someone else thought he was less than capable intruded to punch at his ego.  "Rules like what? We know what to do."
"Damn straight." Roxas stood, dusted off his hands, and stole Axel's coffee off the counter.
"We'd be great with kids," Axel insisted, reaching out to take the coffee back, taking a sip, and returning it to Roxas.
"That's right," Roxas encouraged.
"We take care of Demyx!" Axel could honestly say that he'd fed, bathed, and rocked Demyx to sleep under different circumstances. Luckily, no diapers had ever been involved. "We're Turkey's dads!"
"And he's the most demanding little baby of all!" Roxas championed Axel's logic even while being reminded that he'd forgotten to feed Turkey before starting his project with the cabinets. He'd have to rectify that now. It was a miracle Turkey wasn't already dramatically expressing the utter betrayal of being left to starve.
"Next to me," Axel provided the punchline at his expense.
"Next to you." Roxas leaned up on tiptoe to steal a kiss and pressed the coffee cup with its last sips at the bottom into his husband's hands for him to finish off. "Now go put on something more suitable for tonight."
"What's more suitable than sweats for babysitting a baby? A tarp?" Axel drained the coffee.
"Put on something nice."
"Is Ripan conducting a formal interview before storytime?"
"No, but his dads might."
Roxas's instincts turned out to be right. Sora and Riku not only had a list of rules but a pop quiz on protocol and babysitting readiness that needed to be passed before they would leave, despite the fact that Roxas and Axel, already had the job, were doing it as a favor, were only taking Ripan for a few hours and not permanently adopting him and taking him into the heart of Deep Jungle, and Riku and Sora's normal babysitter was a fifteen year old girl (though Violet had warned them that she might have to cut back even more than she had. Ripan and her brother Jack Jack tended to be "a little challenging" in her words, when she had to watch both of them).
Ripan's part of the testing was to sit on the floor sucking on his giraffe pacifier and rolling an alphabet block between his hands, occasionally looking up with large, liquid blue eyes either to question why he was sitting on a strange floor or to ask why his dads were still there. Or maybe to ask why the other baby curled in the entertainment center next to the cable box was so ugly and meowed.
"I promise you. Ripan is going to have so much fun tonight he's never going to want to leave...but he's also going to be asleep by nine and I won't forget to rub the cream on his arms before I put on his sleepytime shirt," Roxas swore, crossing his heart over the I like coffee and maybe three people shirt he'd neglected to change out of despite telling Axel to look nice.
"Okay, I believe in you," Sora assured him before selling out his husband. "But Riku sincerely does not. So can you please promise me you will take extra good care of our little angel? I know he's kind of a handful, but-"
"Are you kidding?" Axel chuckled, unperturbed. "You're talking to the best babysitters in the business. There is no one more qualified for this job."
"You've literally never done this before," Riku groused, hands clenching in his pockets as he regressed to his old nervous tick.
"We are totally capable of taking care of your precious angel, okay? It's not like we don't have kids too." Roxas gestured to the entertainment center where Turkey sat, eyeing the miniature human. It had eyes like His Boy, so Turkey thought he might be able to trust it, but the threat of someone else Heat Giver and His Boy might want to snuggle that was not Turkey was hard to face.
"That's why I'm concerned," Riku concentrated on breathing evenly through his nose and not sounding too snappish. "That is not a child. That is a cat in a knit sweater."
"We'll be fine," Roxas insisted, ignoring Riku's slight, when defending Turkey's status as first child would make Sora and Riku miss their reservation. "We have your list and everything he needs. You two just enjoy yourselves!"
"See, it's fine, Riku." Sora nudged Riku toward the door. "Bye Ripan! Behave yourself for your uncles!"
Ripan gurgled solemnly, swearing to be nothing but the perfect child.
"Have fun guys! We'll be back around eleven!" Sora nudged Riku a bit harder, recognizing him for the immoveable object he was. "Riku stop glaring and walk."
Roxas opened the door for them, Axel waved to them as they retreated, Roxas closed the door. It was a total of maybe fifteen seconds they didn't have eyes on Ripan. The first fifteen seconds they were in charge of the vulnerable life of the baby that had been sitting near motionless and content in the living room for fifteen minutes. The baby that was still sitting content after those fifteen seconds and still near motionless, just with his pacifier out of his mouth and on the floor beside him and his mouth working as if he were chewing.
Axel and Roxas shared a glance and dove at the same time. Ripan shrieked, which should have proved his mouth was empty, but Axel used the opportunity to sweep a finger inside the child's mouth to make sure. Ripan employed natural defenses. Namely, biting down as hard as he could with his four impressive teeth.
Axel howled. Ripan laughed which allowed the red head to withdraw his injured hand. Roxas comforted Axel, for a moment, then warned him not to take his eyes off Ripan again because they might not get lucky again, and went to wash floor germs from the pacifier for the first, but, by no means, last time of the night. Minute one drew to a close with everyone still unscathed.
Minute fifteen gave birth to everyone's least favorite game, Turkey Chase and Smack, though Crawl Behind Couch gave it a difficult battle for the title.
At the end of the first hour, a nice balance had been found and everyone was getting along until Axel tried to heat up a bottle by summoning fire in his hand and subsequently scalded his wrist while testing results, as well as putting the idea of fire into Ripan's head. Sora had been right. Ripan was very smart and liked to try and mimic what the big people did. The living room couch suffered.
The next hurdles were The Incident of the Second Bottle Being Too Cold, The Great Despair of not Being Able to Have Both Bottle and Pacifier at the Same Time, Bottle Gone Too Quick, The Pukening, Second Washing of the Pacifier and Trial of Separation Anxiety, The Changing of the Onesies with Ripan Super Spleen Kicking Action, and The Pukening Part Two: Roxas's Shirt Looks Absorbent.
It was all minor stuff. Normal stuff. Expected, other than perhaps setting fire to the couch.
The real trouble didn't begin until the pacifier was lost.
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