Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy (JoeMazzello!JohnDeacon fanfic)

ninety one

"'m home!" John calls and Arthuus falls down onto his bum before making a beeline for the door, "Rox?"

"In here!" she replies, "He's behind the door so please be careful!"

The baby waits patiently for him to enter the living room, immediately holding up his arms when he finally steps in.

Like always, John scoops him up and starts playing with him; pretending to throw him up in the air a couple of times before he moves onto tickling him.

Roxanne glances at the pair briefly and then looks back down at the shirt she's folding up but then, her hand freezes.

Wait a second...

She looks back at the pair, mouth dropping ever-so-slightly, "Holy-"

"Don't finish that sentence," John says sternly, "Don't want this one's first word to be that, do we?"

Roxanne is still just staring at him. He'd cut his hair. He'd been saying that he was going to for a while now but she never thought that he'd actually go and do it.

Nervous from her silence, John runs his free hand through his now significantly shorter locks and Roxy swears she feels her heart skips a beat, "What do you think?"

"I..." she scrambles up from the floor, moving to stand in front of him, where she reaches up to run a hand through his hair herself, "It feels softer."

"Does it look ridiculous?" he asks softly as Arthur tries to copy his mum, "It does, doesn't it?"

She's quick to shake her head, running a hand through his hair once more, smiling when he turns his head to press a kiss to her palm, "It looks...great."

"You don't sound too convinced."

"I-it's different, I'll give you that," she admits, biting her lip momentarily, "And it'll take me a little bit to get used to it but it looks good...really good."

"Yeah?"

She nods, toying with the shorter strands at the base of his neck, inching closer to press a kiss to his lips.

Arthur lets out a shout and not a second later, Roxanne feels his little hand smacking at her shoulder.

John laughs as she rests her forehead against his chest, "Always have to be the centre of attention, don't you?"

++|++

Cathy had arrived the day before they left, spending the whole day doting on Arthur; taking him to the park, buying him some new toys...anything she could do to soak up what little time she had with him before they set off she took - even getting up to see to him when she woke up from naps. For the first night that she was there, she was sleeping on the couch and when they were gone, she'd be sleeping in their bed.

At exactly 3am on the 11th of January, John's alarm clock went off to let them know that it was time to get ready to head to the airport. The minibus would be outside the house at half-past, which meant that they'd have to have the bags ready to go and Arthur settled in his car seat.
Roxanne is wandering around with a blanket around her shoulders, barely awake as she carries one of her duffles down the stairs to set by the door.

The next challenge is to get Arthur ready to go. That means that they've got to try and get him into the car seat without waking him.

"Do you want me to do it?" John asks, taking the blanket when she holds it out to him.

"No," she picks up the car seat, "No, I got this."

Tiptoeing into his room, Roxy switches on the lamp that's in the corner before making her way over to the crib, peering over the side to see that he's still asleep.