The Cookie Monster
Black-Angel-001: i am emotionally exhausted from all the depressing drama of 'Saving Me' and i need a recharge...so, here's some fluff and humor in it's most desperate form. yes, i'm reaching for straws on this. inspired by an episode of sesame street (so i'm a 21 year old woman who still watches the occasional episode of seseame street i am not ashamed of this) and my favorite charecter. i know in the other two e! fics joanne is dead but for the purpose of this story and my own peace of mind, she lives.
Disclaimer: I don't own Emergency cause if I did, Roy's mother in law would have been told off years ago, Chet would get got, Mike would have more lines and screen time, Marco would never have lost his moustach first season, and Cap would promote 'Wacky Dress Friday' at the station...well, maybe not the last one. :)
The Cookie Monster
Roy loved his Saturdays off. He slept in until eight, nine at the latest, he got to cuddle with his wife until at least seven thirty, pancakes and waffles were the standard breakfast, and he could play with his kids as long as they were willing, which was nearly all day. Yes, Roy DeSoto loved Saturday off.
This Saturday morning however found him up at seven with his kids despite a late run to a fire that kept him from getting home on time. His body was sore and achey, there was still the smell of smoke in his nose and in the back of his throat, but nevertheless, Roy was up when his kids were and was laying on the couch with his three year old daughter watching Seseame Street snuggled in against his chest. Chris was leaning back against his dad's bent knees, watching too, although at seven he deemed himself too cool for Elmo. Every so often, Jenny giggled at the charecters and shifted. Roy hugged her close, thinking back to the run yesterday that had involved children. Jenny and Chris' laugh of delight brought him out of it and he chuckled. Cookie Monster appeared on screen with a fairy and when he got a 'cookie touch' Jenny giggled and laughed and squirmed at it.
When the show went off, Chris curled up in the chair with a comic book and Jenny insisted her daddy play with her. Being the good daddy he was, Roy remembered how much she enjoyed the cookie touch from the Cookie Monster episode. Keeping that in mind, he grinned and said in as deep and gruff a voice as possible, said, "Me got cookie touch, me got cookie touch." Then he tickled her stomach. At eight, Joanne walked into the living room to find her two kids running around the room from their father squealing and laughing as their father chased them and said, "Me got cookie touch, me got cookie touch." When he did catch one of them, he picked them up and tickled them, saying, "Cookie!"
Joanne didn't know if it were possible to explode from not laughing hard but she was pretty sure she almost managed it.
At breakfast when everyone was eating, Jenny looked up at her father and smiled.
"Cookie daddy, cookie!"
Roy shook his head. "Jenny, you know you can't have cookies right now. Finish your breakfast."
Obediantly, Jennifer speared a piece of waffle on her toddler's fork but instead of putting it in her mouth, she waved it around saying, "Cookie daddy, cookie, cookie!"
Joanne raised an eyebrow at her daughter. "Jennifer Lee you do not wave your food around like that."
Glumily, she put the waffle in her mouth. Satisfied that her daughter was behaving again, Joanne said gently, "Now, what are you talking about sweetie?"
"She wants daddy to do the cookie touch again," informed Chris before taking a drink of his milk. It was so obvious to him, why not to his parents? Maybe it was just a grown up thing.
The scene Joanne had witnessed in the living room popped in her mind and she giggled. She glanced at Roy then chuckled. His quiet, "Jo" caused her to stop and look him fully in the face, but she couldn't hold it for more than a few seconds before she burst out laughing. The kids didn't know why mommy was laughing, but they liked the way she was doing it, loud, and just got louder whenever she looked at daddy. Because they liked it so much, they laughed too. Jenny threw in, "Cookie cookie!" and Joanne laughed harder.
Eventually the laughing died down and Roy was frowning at his wife, red in the face. Jenny was getting desperate for the silly phrase again and started to cry a little bit. Resigned because Roy would do anything for his kids short of murder, Roy sighed then leaned forward a bit towards Jenny.
"Me got cookie touch, me got cookie touch." He even did the flapping finger movement. Jenny practically fell out of her booster chair from howling with laughter. Chris laughed too, but unfortunatly he was taking another drink and choked a little. That put an end to it at breakfast.
It did not end for the rest of the day though. Even when Roy was doing a chore on his 'honey-do' list, Jenny toddled up to him, smiled cutely, and said, "Cookie daddy!" Sometimes Roy was too busy to do it, like when he was cleaning the drains outside, so he told her to go play while daddy worked. She accepted it, but when she found him doing something else, she repeated it all. When Roy played the game with her, she laughed then ran to find her brother. It was fun for her, but Roy couldn't seem to get any work done, and everytime Joanne saw him now she'd stare at him for a second then burst out laughing. He grumbled, but he loved making his kids laugh like that.
That was how the day went. For a few hours Chris was able to keep Jenny entertained enough that she didn't bother Roy. That resulted, however, in Jenny looking like a sloppy mummy and Chris looking like he was one big mass of band aids. Roy couldn't decide if that was better or worse, so he shook his head and told the kids not to get into the gauze and band aids again. A firm 'no cookie touch' rule was set at lunch because of the breakfast incident with Chris. Jenny pouted, something that usually moved Roy to go ahead and do things anyway, but not this time. After lunch, he chased Jenny all around the yard with the cookie touch before wrestling with Chris. At bedtime, Jenny refused to go to sleep unless he did it again.
By the time Roy got in bed, he felt like he had been pulling more than two shifts in a row. To make matters worse, Joanne still couldn't look at him without laughing so that put any amorous thoughts out of his head quick.
Sunday, Jenny asked for the cookie touch once and Roy was glad. Although Joanne seemed to find a fit of giggles every now and then when she saw him in the living room.
Monday was a work day. As usual, he was up before the kids were and after kissing both of them on their heads, was out the door and at the station. Since it was a blah day just on general principle, everything seemed to be worse. The minor traffic accident with the complaining and barely harmed victims only succeeded in giving Roy a headache. He and Johnny missed lunch when they went to help a man who was having a heart attack but he really wasn't; he wanted the attention it brought. Johnny was having his usual girl troubles and was coming up with a scheme to get rich quick all at once. Roy's headache increased a little all through the day. So, by the time he pulled the squad into the station and went into the dayroom, he did not expect his captain to look up from a paper with a look of harried concern on his face.
"Roy, you need to call Joanne," Hank said.
"Okay," he said even as he moved toward the smell of food on the stove.
"Roy she called at least a dozen times since we've been here, and each time she sounds more frantic and I think I can hear a kid crying."
That stopped him. Unless Chris had stayed home or come home early from school, it had to be Jenny crying. But if it was something very serious, Joanne would take her to the hospital, or call the fire department for the paramedics. The worst case scenarioes played out in his mind while he picked up the reciever and dialed his home number. Johnny came up beside him, worried for Roy's family.
"Hello," a breathless Joanne answered after the third ring. In the background, Roy could hear Jenny crying.
"Joanne? What's wrong?" There was a long wail and Roy flinched. There were plenty of reasons why children Jenny's age could cry like that, from ear infections to a temper tantrum. Jenny wasn't prone to many tantrums, and visions of his little girl with a broken limb came into his head and he shuddered. John stepped closer, eyebrows together.
"Roy, where have you been," asked his wife. Before he could answer she went on. "I haven't been able to get her to stop crying since ten this morning, she refused to stay down for her nap, hardly ate anything at all today, and when I am finally able to distract her, suddenly she remembers and it starts all over again, worse! I haven't been able to get any work around the house done! I don't know what to do-"
"Annie," he said firmly into the phone, using the tone he got when working with patients who were at their wits end. "Deep breath. Now, what's wrong with Jenny? Is she hurt?"
Joanne took the deep breath but wasn't much calmer. "No, she's not hurt. It might be easier if she were!" Roy took a sharp breath and Joanne sighed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. It's just frustrating right now. Roy, she wants the cookie touch thing you do, she doesn't like it when I do it, and I don't think either of us can hold out until you get home. She could make herself sick if this keeps up."
The desperation in Joanne's voice was easy to pick up on, so was the aggrivation. Not at her child, just the situation.
"Did you tell her that-"
"You're at work and can't do it until you get home and that she'll have to wait? Yes. I told her that, and so much more. Roy, you have to do that cookie touch thing!"
The irony of the whole thing did not escape Roy. All weekend his wife had laughed at the cookie monster thing and now she wasn't. Roy smiled a little and Johnny's expression went from worried to confused.
"Okay, put her on the phone." When Jenny came on, Roy talked to her to calm her down. Suddenly what he was going to do kind of hit him and he blushed. Then he straightened his shoulders and set his jaw. Embaressment in front of the guys was a small thing if it made his daughter stop crying like she was. Finally calm, the only sound Jenny made on her end was an occasional sniff. Roy turned his back on his shiftmates, who were watching with curiosity.
"Me got cookie touch," he said in the low and gruff voice he'd somehow perfected during the weekend. Jenny giggled. Roy decided he wouldn't stop until she laughed. "Me got cookie touch, me got cookie touch." More giggling. "Me got cookie touch." There was the laugh he was looking for. Smiling now, he told Joanne he'd see her that night, gave them both his love and hung up the phone. Still smiling Roy turned around.
"What was that," asked Johnny, looking at Roy like he was nuts. Roy shrugged.
A conversation broke out among the crew about acting like a fool and doing the most outrageous things when you had kids. Roy calmly walked over to the counter and got a cookie for himself. Leaning against it, he shared a look with Hank.
Fathers just sometimes had that touch.
Black-Angel-001: yes, this was definetely what was needed. hope you lol'd as much as i did!