5SOS Preferences

Baby Talk (T)

“We’re not so bad at this babysitting thing. Think we should start a side business?” Calum pulled himself up on the counter, right by the stove, kicking his legs and asking before throwing back a cold sip of dark ale.

“No.” Shaking your head, you chuckled and leaned up against the sink across from him. “You’d be a great Dad though. I always think that when I see you with Emmy.” It had crossed your mind countless times. When he would pose for pictures with young fans, engaging them in conversation despite their underdeveloped verbal skills, you wondered why Calum wasn’t all over you to have kids. Now that all of his friends had kids, you were even more surprised that he wasn’t itching to be a father himself.

“Ah, I don’t know. I always think that you would be a good Mom and I just wouldn’t know what to do.” It wasn’t that Calum didn’t want children to call his own, he just wasn’t sure if he could make the grade. There was a large difference between his current role of ‘Fun Uncle Cal’ and then being an actual parent responsible for the life of a mini person. Calum was considered fearless by many, but the idea of being a father terrified him at a cellular level. “Do you want kids?” Sometimes he worried you would leave him due to the fact that he hadn’t made any offers of proposal or really talked about anything bigger than living together. He certainly didn’t like the idea of you with another man though starting your own family. He knew he would never forgive himself if that was the reason you decided to end things one day.

“I don’t know.” Pensively, you knocked your head to your shoulder and itched at your head with the top of the bottle’s neck. “I always thought kids would happen when they happen since I was more focused on a career, now I’m wondering if maybe they will happen…”

“They could.” He raised a single shoulder up to his ear, throwing back a sip with the other. He hadn’t thought about it too hard before. A part of Calum wondered if he could still be a cool Uncle while being a father. He really did love his relationship with all the kids in his life and he didn’t want any of them to sacrifice. What if he couldn’t sing The Cure to Emmeline anymore because he was too busy changing his own kid’s diapers?

“So, you want to have kids?” The question was a bullet fired out of a smoking gun from the empty hand you had resting on your thigh out of habit. Calum exhaled loudly, his chest pushing out for a moment as he leaned forward and checked out the window for the moon, watching it staring in through the window like a crazed fan or lurking paparazzi. He could feel his skin, slimy, over himself as he tried to come up with an answer that didn’t dig a grave for himself. If he said ‘no’, he worried that you would consider that a deal breaker and leave and he also didn’t actually not want kids. If he said ‘yes’, he worried that he would change his mind or that you would begin painting the guest room some Laura Ashley or another. Calum just wasn’t sure if he was ready for the big change that he had seen three of his friends, his older sister, and even your siblings go through. He liked that Michael was going be at his door around midnight, taking Emmeline and baby Iden away. He liked that when Molly began to sob in his arms, he could just pass her off to Ashton. Calum especially liked that when Penelope was near a bag of peanut M and Ms, it wasn’t technically his job to operate her epee pen. Children were walking hazards. Anything could happen to them that, if you were their guardian, could become your fault. When Luke sat him down and asked him if he would be Penelope’s godfather, he nearly said ‘no’ despite how honored he was because he didn’t want any opportunity for Family Services to roll up into his home and arrest him.

“Maybe one?” Wrinkling his forehead together, Calum turned away from the window and checked with you. “A boy. Yeah, I’d be cool with a boy.” It was his basic and somewhat ignorant understanding that they were less trouble to raise. If you raised a boy to be an asshole, he was still a man. If you raised a girl to be anything, but perfect, you failed.