Work Text:
“Corbin, darling, would you please get down!?” Charlie shouts, more than mildly distressed but trying his best not to sound it, if he scares his son he might trip and he certainly cannot have that right now.
The son in question, Corbin, has recently learnt to walk; which has been wonderful! Don't get him wrong, Charlie is very pleased about his little boy's newest milestone and words could not even begin to describe how proud he is.
The issue, however, is that raising a vampire baby is quite different to raising a human one. They have powers. And no parenting book Charlie has been able to find in his hours of hours of searching has had a chapter on dealing with babies who can sprint across the ceiling.
“Darling! Are you listening?!” Charlie calls nervously again as he listens to Corbin's giggles echo through the house and watches him happily run across the ceiling of their home. The house is thankfully not as big as somewhere like Orpheus' castle was, but it's certainly large enough for Corbin to get a kick out of exploring the–probably pretty dirty, Charlie notes distastefully–ceilings; will he have to steam clean the walls and ceilings now?
Anyway, this new found power has definitely quickly gotten to Corbin's head–he is Charlie's son, afterall, forever making a spectacle of himself–as he ignores his father. Another big worry currently is the very real possibility of Charlie's son falling and cracking his little head open; something that is giving the man just enough adrenaline to keep this going and the reason why Charlie is currently chasing after the baby bat with a pillow in hand.
“I'm serious… sweetie… get down here..” Charlie breathing out between his exhausted panting. Yelling is starting to get exhausting, especially with all this running; For heaven's sake this fun has lasted at least an hour now and Charlie's legs are killing him! How does a kid with his same condition have this much stamina? No doubt Orpheus’ genetics plotting against the man…
Charlie decides to give the boy the benefit of the doubt and presume Corbin can't hear him–It's more than likely he's just being ignored, but Charlie would rather believe it's a matter of distance.
He drops the pillow underneath Corbin and quickly shifts into his bat form, flying up in front of his son to stop him in his tracks. The toddler stops finally to look at him, thoroughly intrigued by his Dad's new look.
Charlie smiles, relieved the kid has finally stopped running. He flaps in place to meet Corbin's eye line, “Hi dear, can you get off the ceiling for Daddy? Please?” He requests politely, if a little desperate.
The little boy goes from staring wide eyed to happily clapping his hands together and giggling again, reaching out to suddenly grab hold of Charlie.
The man squeaks in surprise, smiling nervously as Corbin curiously stretches out his wings. “Oran!!” The boy exclaims at them.
“Yes, yes, my wings are indeed orange.” Charlie nods “Be careful with Daddy, sweetheart. Those can get hurt if you're too rough..” He adds with a fearful laugh, worrying his son might accidentally get too reckless and rip his delicate wings.
“Bat Dada!!” Corbin babbles happily, squeezing Charlie with both hands as he starts to shake the vampire up and down. The man lets out a wobbly “Wo-oh–oh-oah!!” that makes Corbin laugh again; a sound which he adores but doesn't exactly want to be the cause of right now.
Charlie squirms free of his son's grasp after another minute of the boy's shaking, he dizzily attempts to stay in the air, shaking his head to collect himself. He takes a deep breath, looking back at Corbin, who's reaching out for him and doing grabby hands as Charlie hovers a few inches away.
“Bat dada!! Up-down!!” He protests.
Charlie half smiles, half grimaces “Honey, I know you're having fun and all, but please no more shaking. It's your nap time soon and I'd really like for you to get to sleep.” He says, soft but stern “And I'd also like to avoid a toddler-induced concussion.” He adds under his breath.
Corbin just stares, barely paying attention, watching how Charlie's brightly coloured wings flap. He points at them, “Or-ang” Corbin states again, and Charlie sighs.
“Look, how about… if you get down now, I'll read you the Wizard of Oz again as a bedtime story. Hm? How does that sound?” He bargains.
At this point, the man has that picture book more rehearsed than some of his scripts have been. It has been memorised front to cover and he has a feeling reading about that stupid pathetic lion again is going to make him rip his hair out. However, if it convinces Corbin to go to bed, Charlie is willing to suffer through a thousand more ugly red shoes that clash with Dorothy's outfit, annoying munchkins and freakish monkeys with wings.
Corbin pauses for a second, and briefly Charlie hopes he may have just talked some sense into the toddler. Much to Charlie's disappointment, however, Corbin immediately gets bored with that idea and spots something more interesting across the hall, immediately taking off again.
Charlie groans in frustration, turning back into his human form and landing square on the pillow he set down before. He was getting tired of flying anyway, he supposes it's back to running. He quietly hopes that this sweating doesn't make his leg pop off, knowing that kid, if Corbin got his hands on it now that he can walk Charlie would probably find it in an hour's time out on the lawn after being used as a shovel.
As Charlie goes to pick up the pillow he spots Ceridwen turning the corner and instantly brightens up.
“Four eyes!” Charlie shouts with a beaming grin to get his boyfriend's attention, Ceridwen looks over at him in mild annoyance at the nickname.
“A little help?” He requests, pointing up to the little vampire who has now made his way over to a large cobweb with a spider on it that Corbin seems to be trying to make friends with.
“Help with wh- Oh.” Ceridwen asks, cutting himself off as he follows Charlie's hand and looks up “Yeah, he should not be up there...” He mutters, which earns him a brief eye roll from Charlie “Do you.. need me to help you get him down or-?”
“I need you to help me catch him if he falls.” Charlie corrects. “At this point I don't think he's getting off the ceiling, so it's best to just let the kid tire himself out and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself in doing so.”
Charlie glances behind Ceridwen to an open door, inside of which is a guest bedroom that gives the man an idea.
“Keep an eye on him, please.” Charlie says before running into the room, grabbing a blanket off of the made bed and dashing back out to throw it at them.
“I'll grab this end, you grab that one. We'll follow after and catch him if he falls.” Charlie explains, dropping his pillow in the middle of the opened blanket before gesturing his head for Ceridwen to start chasing along with him.
The child notices Ceridwen and Charlie under him after a couple minutes and assumes that this is a new game of ‘catch the Corbin’ or something. He begins running in circles, laughing maniacally at the way the two of them bump heads as they scramble to get underneath him. It really is quite cartoony, in all fairness–Charlie would probably laugh too if he wasn't actively fearing for his child's safety.
“You're awful at this!” Charlie complains, Ceridwen scoffs.
“Well excuse me for never having to catch a baby mid-air! I didn't come up the stairs expecting to play a part in this make-shift net.” Ceridwen argues.
Just as Charlie gets ready to shoot back another snarky comment, he hears a little “Ah-!” from above. The older man looks up just in time to see Corbin lose his balance and trip, as expected.
Unluckily for them, he did so about 5 feet away from their safety blanket.
Charlie yelps and drops the blanket, grabbing his pillow with one hand as it falls and diving head-first to get it under the boy.
Charlie slides a bit across the floor, landing on his stomach with his arms outstretched as far as they'll possibly go like a baseball playing doing that home run thing that he never understood. Thankfully, his arms are just long enough for Corbin to land on his butt with a soft thump.
There's a deafening pause of silence before a bubble of childish giggles erupts from Corbin, falling onto his back and clearly wanting to have another round of this ‘fun new game’ of theirs.
Charlie, on the other hand, breathes a loud sigh of relief, letting his head fall flat on the floor as he relaxes his incredibly tense shoulders for the first time in an hour.
Corbin continues to laugh brightly as Charlie lifts his face from the hard wood floor, looking at the boy with an exhausted yet affectionate smile.
He takes another slow breath as he sits up and wraps his arms around the toddler, nuzzling his face into his little boy's hair as he squeezes his son tight to his chest.
“Oh, you absolute menace.. I'm not letting you go for the rest of the day, you hear me?” He coos, chuckling at the absurdity of spending the last 20 minutes chasing down a giddy toddler who was running across the ceiling while Ceridwen moves to pick up the dropped blanket.
“Wizard book?” Corbin asks after his laughter dies down, and Charlie smiles fondly.
“Yes yes, Wizard book. As promised.” He nods tiredly, pressing a kiss to Corbin's forehead and ignoring the slight bit of pain he's in from diving across the floor.
Ceridwen walks over “Is he okay?” They ask, still holding the blanket that was hurriedly abandoned.
“Yeah, he seems to be. I managed to get to him in time.” Charlie replies shifting to hold Corbin against his shoulder with one hand as he reaches out the other for Ceridwen to help him up.
“And what about you?” Ceridwen asks before Charlie leans in to plant a kiss on his lips.
“Tired, but fine. Thanks for your help with Mr ‘cant-keep-his-feet-on-the-ground’.” Charlie jokes lightly with a soft smirk, the nickname makes Corbin snicker.
“You like that one, hm?” Charlie comments teasingly, ruffling his son's hair with his free hand.
Ceridwen smiles at the two, “No problem, and call me if you need anything.” Ceridwen replies, “I can walk on walls too, y'know. I could probably catch him a lot quicker than you could.” He adds.
“That… sounds like a much better idea.” Charlie mutters slowly, wishing he had thought of that before exhausting his legs in a fatherly panic.
“I'll come get you first next time. Or maybe find Julian to use his telekinesis; I wonder if he's ever tried to lift a 16 month old...” Charlie says, and Ceridwen chuckles before moving to pick up the pillow.
“Right. Well I think I'm gonna get this one off to bed. Bye Ceridwen” Charlie finishes, waving him off as Ceridwen goes to return the things in his arms to the guest bedroom Charlie took them from.
“Dada?” Corbin asks
“Yes sweetie?” Charlie answers as he turns around to take Corbin back to his room.
“Play tomor-row?”
Charlie thinks for a second before he nods “Yes, alright, we can play again tomorrow. But no more running on ceilings, okay?”
“But fuuunnn!!” Corbin whines in complaint
“And dangerous. We can think of a different game tomorrow… something that doesn't involve forcing me to sprint.” Charlie suggests with a mutter.
Corbin yawns as he nods slowly as he lays his head down against Charlie’s chest “O-kay…” He mumbles.
Charlie smiles fondly, giving his boy another tender kiss on the head.
“Love you Dada…” Corbin adds sleepily, tuckered out after the long day of playtime.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”