Youtuber Egos Short Story Collection!

It's Hard Being a Single Father... (JSE egos)

(A/N: The egos are supposed to be toddler-aged in this story (well, all except Jack that is XD) because that's what the person who asked me to write this requested. Just wanted to clear that up!)

"Marvin! Jackie! Get down here right now!" Jack called. He was looking up at the lampshade as two toddlers flew around it in circles, chasing each other and laughing with glee. One of the kids was wearing a bright red t-shirt and trousers, and the other was wearing a blue t-shirt with a bin-bag cape and a cardboard cat mask covered in felt-tip pen that Jack and Marvin had spent the entire morning making.

"I won't tell you two again!" Jack called, jumping up and trying to grab Marvin's cape as he whizzed by, "Get down! You're going to break something!" He jumped up again, swiping at Jackaboy's leg this time but missing again. The two kids laughed harder, pleased that they weren't getting caught, and suddenly moved away from the lampshade, flying across the room and into the kitchen.

"For fuck's sake..." Jack muttered. He took a step towards the kitchen but was stopped when he felt something tugging on his leg. Looking down, he was met with another child. This one wore a grey t-shirt, similar to Jackie and Marvin's, and was looking at Jack through the giant grey cap that Jack had given him earlier that day. The cap was far too big, however, so it slumped over one eye and seemed to swamp his head.

"Oh, hey Chase!" Jack said with a smile, "What's up?"

"Do you like my picture?" Chase asked, shoving a piece of paper into Jack's hand. Jack unfolded the paper and was met with a crude crayon drawing of a stickman lying on the floor. It had crosses for eyes and a shape lay next to him with the label "gon" (meaning "gun") next to it. Red crayon was scribbled all over the floor around the stickman to represent blood.

"What do you think?" Chase asked, looking at Jack with big, hopeful, eyes.

"Um...it's...great!" Jack said, unsure what to make of the context of the image.

"YAY!!" Chase cried, not noticing Jack's discomfort and taking the paper back from him, "What should I draw next?!"

"Oh...um..." Jack replied, not sure what to suggest, "How about something less...bloody?"

"Anti! No! Stop!"

Jack turned in the direction of the sudden, shout. He was met with Schneeple and Anti, both of them playing Operation. Schneeple had the plastic tweezers in his hand and was trying to slowly and carefully take out the pieces from the body on the board, only for Anti to stab his plastic knife into the whole Schneeple was trying to work in, hitting the metal sides and making the board buzz and the nose of the body flash red.

"Anti!" Schneeple shouted again, his German accent becoming thicker as he got angrier, "STOP IT!"

"This game is boring!" Anti complained, placing the toy knife on the body's neck and slowly drawing a line across it hard enough to scratch the sticker away.

"Anti no! You're ruining it!" Schneeple cried, snatching the knife away from Anti.

"Hey! Give that back!" Anti shouted, grabbing the knife and yanking it back to him with Schneeple still clinging to it.

"Not until you stop scratching it!"

"Give it back!"

"No!"

"I don't wanna play this game!"

"Stop it!"

"That's enough you two!" Jack shouted, finally having enough. He'd hoped the two of them would be able to sort the quarrel out peacefully, but it seemed now that that was impossible. "Schneeple, Give Anti his knife back! Anti, stop scratching the board!"

Jack was met with a slew of "but he started it!" and "that's not fair he did something wrong not me!" from the two of them, but ignored it completely and continued.

"If Anti doesn't want to play this anymore, why don't you try and find something else that you both want to play?" Jack asked a little more calmly, "And if you can't do that, why don't you both play your own games for a while and come back to play together later?"

After a moment, Schneeple sighed.

"Ok." He said. Anti simply huffed and stood up, striding away to play with his action figures, all of which had long knife marks etched into their necks.

Jack took a breath, just managing to calm down when suddenly the loudest crash sounded from the kitchen, making everyone jump. Chase immediately burst out crying at the sound.

"For god's sake...MARVIN! JACKABOY! GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW!"

The two kids hovered sheepishly into the room, heads down.

"Down." Jack barked, and the two of them slumped down to their feet.

Jack took a deep breath and gripped the bridge of his nose.

God, it's hard being a single father...he thought.