Chapter Text
“Teucer!” The mother of the family shouted towards the empty steps of the stairs. “Come down and greet Scaramouche!”
“In a second mama!” Teucer shouted back, his voice coming off muffled through the walls.
“I’m so sorry, Scaramouche,” she faced Scaramouche, eyes apologetic, “I was planning to leave tomorrow but they called me and it was pushed forward, I’m so sorry for making you come a day earlier,” she sighed, “this is so frustrating.”
Scaramouche could see how obviously stressed the poor woman was, he would assume it was not just the fact that she had to call the babysitter the day earlier that made her irritation flare up, most likely the fact that she had to rush everything else as well added to the stress.
So, Scaramouche, needing a summer away from his home, put on the most polite smile he could muster. “No, it’s no problem really,” he shook his head.
“I really hope I didn’t ruin any of your plans, it’s just—- Argh!” she flung her arms up, “so much work.” She hurriedly walked closer to the staircase, “Teucer, honey!”
“Yes mama, I’ll be there!” Teucer, immediately after screaming, opened the door of his room and ran down the stairs at a hurried pace.
He stopped next to his mother with a deep exhale and put on a respectful smile on his face, as if practiced.
“Okay so, Scaramouche, will be your babysitter, while I’m away and—“
“But what about Ajax?” Teucer interrupted and looked up, his face looked utterly disappointed.
“Your brother will be here too,” once she has assured the little boy, she turned to Scaramouche, “I’m pretty sure I told you my son, Ajax, will be here too; he’ll be flying tomorrow night,” speed of her speech was picking up, realizing she didn’t have much time to get ready herself. “Also, not that I can’t leave Teucer with him, he cherishes him but, you know, he’s coming back to the hometown he will be out, meeting old friends and stuff, I want him to freely enjoy his stay,” despite her hurried state she made sure to put in a good word for her son.
“I completely understand,” a polite smile hadn’t left Scaramouche’s lips.
“Now I really have to go, I’ll run upstairs real quick,” she turned to Teucer, “you will listen to Scaramouche right?”
After receiving a nod as a response, she was running up the stairs. Everything happened in a flash and suddenly there was a car honking outside. Teucer was kissed by his mother on his forehead who had run down the stairs with extreme urgency and then Scaramouche was left alone with a small ginger kid who was looking up to him hesitantly.
“Umm.” Scaramouche swallowed, “My name is Scaramouche.” Scaramouche facepalmed to himself feeling ridiculous introducing himself again to the kid. How do you even talk to kids?
“Yes,” the kid nodded, “I’m Teucer.”
“That’s good,” Scaramouche nodded, the extreme awkwardness taking over the whole atmosphere.
The conversation was very unnecessary in general. Scaramouche actually thought the kid would simply run up the stairs to continue playing or whatever he was doing the moment his mom left the house but for some reason the kid was staring at him like he was supposed to do something.
“You can sit down,” Scaramouche awkwardly pointed at the couch in the middle of the room.
“Okay,” the kid said cheerfully and skipped towards the sofa. Scaramouche stood there for a second before taking a deep breath in. Unfortunately he hadn’t considered his lack of social skills before accepting the job. The kid was described as a polite boy, which he seemed to be, at least for now but he had assumed that the politeness included minimal interactions and from what Scaramouche was seeing it wasn’t a case.
“You know,” Teucer started speaking and Scaramouche decided he should spare that poor kid from breaking his neck trying to look behind the couch, towards him and started walking to where Teucer sat, “my brother is coming home after I sleep two times.”
“That’s cool,” Scaramouche nodded and sat down next to Teucer. But it wasn’t cool at all. Scaramouche had been informed about this other guy, but he had thought that the guy would drop by sometimes and would go back to his apartment that he had convinced himself he had. So yeah this was not an ideal situation. But all he had to do was avoid that guy, do his job and get paid. Ajax, or whatever his name was, would most likely barely be at his home anyways.
“He’s really cool and amazing.”
Scaramouche raised his eyebrows and nodded with a slight not-so-genuine smile on his face.
“I want to be just like him when I grow up.”
If Scaramouche was being very honest the little guy’s excitement over his brother was not so annoying in a general sense. Being excited to be around your family was quite an unfamiliar territory for him. Unlike that Ajax guy, he, despite being in a normal financial situation, willingly chose to spend his summer babysitting a child of a neighbour who had been nice to him at the market a couple of times, rather than going back to his home to see his own family.
“That’s amazing,” Scaramouche said feigning cheerfulness.
“I hope he hangs out with us a lot!” Teucer bounced lightly on the sofa beaming.
Absolutely not. “Yeah, that would be so fun,” Scaramouche could only hope the gritted teeth resembled a smile at least a bit.
Upon seeing the amount of energy Teucer had, Scaramouche did truly feel lied to. Thought that was fully due to his own interpretation being skewed. He was polite and energetic.
“Do you have a brother?” Teucer asked, unwilling to let Scaramouche free.
“No I don’t,” Scaramouche shook his head.
“I have many brothers and sisters,” Teaucer beamed and opened his fingers; his eyebrows frowned in concentration and he started counting each one. Scaramouche, noticing how many fingers he was raising muttered ‘Damn’. It didn’t go unnoticed by the little boy as he looked up at him with wide, curious eyes.
Scaramouche cleared his throat. “There’s a lot of you.” He would more likely go insane if he had that many people around him.
“Yes,” Teucer nodded his head excitedly, but suddenly his face dropped, “they all are very busy though.”
Scaramouche wasn’t sure of his abilities when it came to comforting children. Actually he was quite sure he’d be below average at it, so he had to do something before it escalated.
“But your brother is coming soon, right? It will be even more special now that you haven't seen each other in a while,” Scaramouche’s voice sounded too soft even to himself.
“You’re right!”
The kid was quite easy to talk to.
“Are you not sleepy?” Scaramouche asked suddenly.
“It’s so early,” Teucer looked at him, confused.
“No afternoon nap?”
“That’s what babies do,” Teucer crossed his arms, puffing his chest out. “I’m much older now.”
“Of course you are,” Scaramouche assured. However he had no idea how to help the kid pass time, that didn’t include learning about every single detail about his siblings. “So what do you usually do?” He decided just to ask.
“I love to play,” Teucer beamed and pumped his fists in excitement.
Scaramouche had noticed that the kid loved to emote a lot. He was extremely expressive.
“Don’t you want to play now?”
“You want to play with me?” Scaramouche had no idea how Teucer had come to that conclusion from a simple question. He didn’t mean his words to be taken as an offer but Teucer’s eyes were literally sparkling and his hand had already reached out to grab Scaramouche’s one.
“Let’s go,” Teucer started tugging at Scaramouche, across the living room, up the stairs and suddenly they were in a huge room with nothing but colorful toys all around.
Scaramouche had figured this family had more than enough money but now he was sure they were loaded.
Teucer let go of Scaramouche's hand and ran inside, towards a shelf that had little too many puzzles on it. Scaramouche decided to look around first, inspecting some toys for no reason, or maybe to get himself ready for the god-know-how-long puzzle making session he was about to have.
“That’s Mr. Cyclops,” Teucer exclaimed so loudly that it made Scaramouche jump.
“Oh,” Scaramouche didn’t know who the hell Mr. Cyclops was, so he had no idea how he was supposed to react to that. “It’s cool,” that was all he could come up with.
“My brother made it for me.”
“Very cool,” Scaramouche nodded his head. That conversation was starting to be extremely awkward so it was time to change the subject. “Puzzle time,” he clapped his hand, hoping that the fake smile on his face showed at least an ounce of excitement.
“Yey!” The kid exclaimed, clapping his hands.
Scaramouche sat on the floor next to Teucer looking at the puzzle box that had five hundred pieces written on it.
“Isn’t five hundred, like, hard?” Scaramouche asked.
“But it’s really fun,” Teucer said, emphasizing ‘really’.
Scaramouche sighed. “Okay, let’s start.”
It was hard.
At first Scaramouche actually had a plan not to do anything and let Teucer finish the whole thing. That was actually ‘plan B’, ‘Plan A’ being just sitting on the couch and scrolling his phone while Teucer played in his room. However, that was blown out of the water after meeting the kid.
All of that said, Scaramouche wasn’t about to let this damn puzzle make him believe he was an idiot. It was difficult and frustrating. The genuine happiness he felt every time he fit the piece into the correct place was also extremely annoying. Teucer was having lots of fun too and somehow had a good enough attention span to do this thing for two and a half hours, little too rare for kids nowadays.
“Are you tired?” Scaramouche asked after noticing Teucer yawn.
“Tiny bit,” Teucer answered. Scaramouche himself was very tired. “Should we eat now?”
Scaramouche had completely forgotten to think about what to make for dinner. Maybe he could get a delivery. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't given any dietary guidelines “do-s and don’t-s” so it was fair to assume that he was allowed to do whatever. Though the lack of preparation could be blamed on the change of plans.
All of Scaramouche's worries were washed away once he opened the fridge door and saw a stew in a huge pot, ready to be heated up. Now he could admit he was a bit hungry too.
“Would you like stew?” Scaramouche asked Teucer, knowing full well he wasn’t going to be making anything else anyways.
“Yes!” Teucer took his seat at the table, ready to be served.
Scaramouche actually was an okay cook, considering he was usually in charge of food at home, back in Inazuma, he was forced to be considering his mom would have trouble heating up this stew even. So it was always either Scaramouche or delivery. Well, since Scaramouche had come to Snezhnaya he assumed a delivery was a way to go in that house.
He just didn't want to cook at that moment.
He was quick to put the pot on the stove, hovering over it. Suddenly his stomach grumbled and he could hear a little giggle coming from behind. He sighed, deciding to ignore it and continue stirring the pot.
Scaramouche was let out of his misery of standing over the gas, bored out of his mind while hearing irritating sounds of utensils clashing against each other by an equally bored child, in a couple of minutes when the broth started to bubble.
“It’s ready,” Scaramouche said and brought the food to the table.
Scaramouche figured, Teucer must’ve been extremely hungry the way he devoured the dish. He, himself, wasn’t a man of a big appetite so he unfortunately did have to waste some food, unable to finish the whole plate.
Teucer, noticing, pointed at Scaramouche’s bowl, “can you not eat anymore?”
“Yeah, I’m quite full,” Scaramouche nodded, raising his eyebrows.
“I can finish for you,” Teucer said, disguising his offer as a favor.
Scaramouche hummed. “Okay, you finish my food and then wash up and go to bed right away. Deal?”
Teucer squinted and pursed his lips before exclaiming, “deal!”
Scaramouche sighed in relief, anticipating the end of the working day.
Another thing that came as a relief to Scaramouche was the fact that Teucer could do all the ‘getting ready to bed’ activities by himself so he was grateful he didn’t have to be in constant worry if he was doing everything right. All he decided to do was look at him get into bed and tuck the duvet under his chin as he’d seen in movies sometimes.
Scaramouche must've done something right because Teucer smiled at him. “Goodnight,” the kid said, getting a nod in response. “When I do this tomorrow and wake up, Ajax will be here,” his voice was starting to slur a little, sleepiness taking over.
Thankfully his eyes were pretty much fully closed when Scaramouche rolled his eyes slightly at hearing the name ‘Ajax’ once again that day. Nothing against him nor the child, he simply didn’t like the idea of having another stranger around, though the stranger in this situation was a resident of the house and a son of an owner, which Scaramouche was very aware of but still it was quite ambiguous what would be demanded of him, would he have to attend his needs as well, would he have to ask for a rise? Or would that man be by himself, out even, most of the time? Would he bring girls over? That he would make sure to complain about.
Scaramouche was also aware of the fact that he was creating non-existent problems, for now at least. Maybe he would be the quietest person ever to exist. He just had to wait for Teucer to wake up two times to find out.
The problem that actually existed was the lack of a bedroom Scaramouche could sleep in. Due to everything being rushed he wasn’t told which room to take. He took upon himself to find something himself. One of the rooms was obviously for the mother of the house, so that was a no-go, another one had boxes stacked up on each other, so Scaramouche wouldn't be able to go in even if he wanted to, the third room he checked had a double-decker bed along with couple of boxes in it, Scaramouche figured it that was for some of the siblings. He had only one room left, which had a queen-sized bed and no boxes inside, it was clear it was not a guest bedroom but he wasn’t willing to do physical labor and start lifting boxes that night, or any other night. He just had to hope the owner wouldn't mind lending the room.
Scaramouche, not wanting to lift any heavy objects, decided to leave his suitcase downstairs and just take his pajamas out.
He fell asleep the second his heat hit the pillow, not even his damp hair could stop his brain from shutting down.
It felt as if only some minutes passed when Scaramouche’s sleep was interrupted. Opening his eyes, he saw nothing but a black void, he rolled to his side, tapping on his phone. The clock showed 3:00 a.m. Scaramouche groaned and fluffed his pillow before clashing against it with his cheek.
Suddenly he heard a rattle from outside of his room and his eyes shot open. He pushed himself up with his palms, looking around in the black room. He got on his knees and grabbed his phone, quickly turning on the flash. Slowly he got on his feet and walked towards the switch. He squeezed his eyes shut the moment the lights turned on.
The rattles started to get louder and closer. Scaramouche scrunched his eyebrows and got on his tiptoes. He circled around the bed and grabbed the lamp from the cupboard with both of his hands, ready to resort to violence if necessary.
The sounds coming from the outside of the room that had gotten very loud stopped for a second and suddenly the doorknob of Scaramouche’s borrowed room started to turn. Eyes wide, Scaramouche tightened his grip on the pipe.
Door opening, he came face to face with a tall ginger guy with widened blue eyes.
Scaramouche easily deduced by the mop of ginger hair on the man’s head that he must've been the part of this family. But the adrenaline rush and the fear, didn’t let him let go of his weapon of choice, just yet.
The ginger guy’s eyes narrowed as he tilted his head, “Umm…” he looked behind him, then back to Scaramouche. “No, that for sure is my lamp,” he said, fixing the position of the suitcase he'd been rolling around.
“Who are you?” Scaramouche pushed the lamp in front of him, holding it like a gun.
“That should be my question?”
“Well, I beat you to it,” Scaramouche gritted his teeth.
“I’m Childe,” Childe smiled.
“Like a kid?”
“No,” Childe chuckled, “with an E at the end.”
Scaramouche squinted, “as I know there is no Childe in this family. There’s just Teucer and he’s a child without an E.”
There was a second of silence before Childe burst out laughing. He started giggling uncontrollably, still trying to keep a reasonable volume.
“Stop laughing,” Scaramouche slowly lowered the lamp without loosening the grip.
Childe waved a hand in front of his face and managed to contain his giggles for just a couple of seconds, before putting his face into his palm and shaking.
“Done?” Scaramouche asked, face unamused.
Childe nodded his head and blew air out through his pursued lips. He looked at Scaramouche with a grin and tilted his head.
“I know,” Scaramouche started speaking, “there is a guy named Ajax or whatever who will get here in like two days or something,” he shook his head. “Teucer said after he woke up twice so I’m guessing that’s two days.”
“It is two days, yes,” Childe said, smiling wide.
“What about everything else I said?”
“I’m Ajax,” Childe pointed to himself.
“You said you were Childe with an E.”
Childe bit his lip, chuckling. “It’s a nickname.” His eyes looked Scaramouche from head to toe, stopping at his eyes. “You must be Sacarmouche.”
Scaramouche narrowed his eyes, “how do you know that?”
“Mom told me. You’re Teucer’s babysitter.”
“Yeah,” Scaramouche put the lamp back on the cupboard.
“Can I come in?” Childe asked, raising his leg up, as if he was threatening to walk in.
“Is it your room?” Scaramouche folded his arms.
Childe hummed and walked into the room, suitcase rattling behind him. He leaned it against the closet and headed towards the bed. He sat down and in an instant he laid on the bed, looking up at Scaramouche upside down.
“I’ll shower and I’ll take the couch,” his voice sounded tired, for the first time since the start of their interaction.
Scaramouche pursed his lips. “No, it’s your room, so you can take your bed and I’ll go to the couch.”
Childe let out a breathy laugh. “You couldn’t sound less reluctant,” he said, lips stretched out into an open smile.
“It’s no problem for me,” Scaramouche said and went round the bed, walking towards the door.
Childe shot up into a sitting position, grabbing Scaramouche’s wrist. Indigo eyes looked at the hand touching him.
Childe’s eyes followed. “Is this not allowed?” he asked, looking up at Scaramouche, head tilted to the side.
“What?”
“This,” Childe swayed Scaramouche's arm.
“I don’t care,” Scaramouche said pointedly, “but touching strangers is not necessarily the most polite thing to do.”
Childe hummed. “We know each other’s names so when does the strangeness start to turn into acquaintance?”
Scaramouche huffed, not saying a word.
“Hmm…?” Childe persisted.
“Not yet.”
Childe nodded with a grin and loosened his hold on Scaramouche’s wrist. He slid his fingers down, softly grazing against the soft skin of the smaller hand.
“I was planning to offer to share a bed but that’s not happening, I guess,” the ginger raised his eyebrow.
“No.”
Childe flashed a big smile and slapped his thighs, standing up from the bed. “Take the bed. I’ll go to my mom’s room.”
“That’s a better idea,” Scaramouche nodded.
Childe started to take the same route as when he walked into the room, but before he could leave Scaramouche spoke.
“Why are you here though?”
“At my home?” Childe stopped at the door, opening it.
“No,” Scaramouche frowned, shaking his head, “I mean yes, but why are you here now.”
“Oh,” Childe leaned against the doorframe, “I wanted to surprise mom by coming a bit early and seeing her before her work trip but that failed,” Childe made a clicking sound with his mouth.
“That’s why she didn’t tell me,” Scaramouche muttered.
“Yeah, she didn’t know,” Childe shrugged, “she still doesn’t.”
“Well, Teucer will be happy.”
“Did he talk about me?” Childe asked.
“Yeah,” Scaramouche widened his eyes.
“And what did you think of me?” Childe eyes sparkled.
“Nothing,” Scaramouche deadpanned.
Childe laughed. “Hopefully you’ll think nice things about me soon,” he said, straightening his posture, “goodnight.”
“What about the shower?” Scaramouche pointed towards the bathroom.
“I’ll do it in another bathroom, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worrying, I said it because you said it,” Scaramouche corrected.
All he could hear was a faint chuckle and a sound of a door opening and shutting before getting back in Childe’s bed.