All Paul wanted to do, honestly, was go to sleep.
"Can we start the movie now?"
And he would get that sleep. Soon.
"When Mommy gets here with the pizza," he grumbled out, "I say again, Rora."
When the pizza got there. And he started the movie. And the girls got distracted. Then he could definitely catch a few winks.
His six year old only said, "We could start it now though." She was pretty pumped about the movie; it was one she'd never seen before! Paul didn't want to tell her that was because it was just some bargain bin DVD that one of their nannies had picked up for them. It looked like garbage. "If you really wanted, Daddy."
They were all on the floor, Paul and his girls, with the couch pillows and some blankets. Aurora, his oldest, was sitting kind of far away from him, laying instead against Bluto, their Mastiff, as he rested on his side, also bored, it seemed, waiting on Stephanie to get home. Paul's other girls though, Murphy and Vaughn, were very concerned with him.
"We gotta wait for Mommy, Rora."
And correcting their sister. Or at least Murphy was.
Huffing a little bit, she only said, "I know. But she won't care none. Daddy."
"I care," he informed Aurora. Not because he did. Or thought that Steph would. Or even would care if Steph did. Rather, he was just far too comfortable, the way he was resting on the floor, and had no plans of getting up.
Plus, he had his toddler on his chest at the moment, resting and being a good girl. Recently, she was never a good girl. He was not interrupting that for anything.
Until the pizza got there.
Because then the girls were Stephanie's problem and he could shift away from being the main parent and just being the fun one.
He was much better at just being the fun one.
Or the sleeping one.
The position shifted for him, many times.
Aurora only made a face though before turning her attention back on Bluto, bending over to give the animal a kiss. Murphy, for her part, was sitting right up against Paul's side, her back to him, as she played with some toys. At four, her play was some what stinted, in that she was mostly just making the toy horse that she had gallop around and make noises, but the man had long learned to love the sounds of his children playing.
Or at the very least tune them out.
So long as they weren't wailing or screaming, his mind could wander freely. Just being around them was enough for him, usually.
At six, four, and barely two, they could be very fun, but also weren't exactly great conversationalists. Aurora, who had officially started school, could come home and talk about those sorts of things, Murphy was very adventurous and spent any and all of her days at home playing outside, so there were tons of bugs stories for Paul to pretend to care about on her end, while Vaughn, his little one, well, her vocabulary was about as big as his pinky, so not that great.
They thought that he was good at telling stories though. Very good. He could tell them made-up stories or fairy tales. The man had so much life experience too, so they heard very rudimentary things about his life from time to time. They thought he was the best storyteller ever. That was really all that mattered.
"Daddy, can I go get more pillows?"
"Mmmm?" Paul hadn't meant to, but he was staring to drift off, there, on the floor, before the pizza even arrived.
Or his wife. If that mattered.
He figured he should think it mattered.
"What? Aurora?" His eyes met hers as she stared across the floor at him. "I didn't hear you."
"Can I go get more blankets? And pillows? From my room?"
"Why?" He was blinking a lot, trying to wake himself up. "You're not getting cold, are you?"
"Yes! I am! Aren't you?"
Meh. But they were edging ever closer to winter.
"Go on," he told her as his eyes slipped closed once more. "But you gotta take everything you bring down here back up, you know."
She knew.
But she'd probably just pretend to be too tired and let him do it for her.
He was also very good at doing things for them.
Even when he swore he wasn't going to.
Nee, especially when he swore he wasn't going to.
The lights shining through the windows and up the drive had his older two really excited about ten minutes later. Paul refused to get up though, until his wife was actually coming through the garage and into the house, calling out to them as she did.
"Okay," he heard his wife call, her voice giving off how obviously exhausted she was. To him anyways. The girls only rushed straight towards the sounded excitedly. "Who's ready for pizza?"
They were still hanging off her too, Murphy and Aurora were, when Steph made it to the living room. Making a face at her still lounging husband, she only went to set her purse and the pizza box in her hands down on the shoved to the side coffee table (they needed room, after all, for their blankets and pillows).
"How come Daddy didn't even get you in your jammies yet?" Steph asked the girls, though Paul knew the question was for him. Bending over, she wrapped an arm around both her older girls before saying, "Come on then. Mommy can do it. We need to wash our hands before pizza too, huh?"
"Yes," Aurora said though Murphy only struggled to get out of the hug then, not liking the idea of washing anything. And certainly not her hands. "We do."
Paul only watched Steph lead them (well, wrangled, on Murphy's part) up the stairs to get all this done. Then, turning his vision back down to his chest, he grinned at the by then awakened Vaughn, who was wiggling under the hand he had holding her to his chest.
"Mmmm." Burying his nose in her soft blonde curls, he said, "Just a bit longer. Then we can both really go to sleep."
But pizza came first. For Paul, at least.
For Vaughn, she had to have some Mommy time.
She got it as, after getting some plates and drinks to set out on the coffee table, Steph got the older girls their slices of pizza before presenting her husband with his plate.
It was a pretty fair trade, Paul figured, Vaughn, for some pepperonis.
Plus, she probably wanted her mother a bit more than him anyways.
"Vaughn," Steph cooed when she came to take the girl, holding the plate out to her husband without even looking at her. "Did you miss me, baby?"
After the trade, Paul only sat up, with his back against the couch, his older two quickly rushing to join him, Murphy leaning up against his side, apparently needing constant contact that night. Which was fine. He liked them snuggled up to him too.
"How come you don't gotta wash your hands?" his middle daughter asked, staring up at him with a frown.
Aurora, who had been prepped to take her first bite of pizza, took pause at that before shifting away from him. Ignoring that though, Paul just grinned at Murphy.
"Because, squirt," he told her as he dug into his own plate. "I'm a boy."
"Boys don't wash their hands?"
"Nope. Never."
"That's nasty," Aurora informed them though Murphy, then, was pouting a bit, about her misfortune of being female. "Daddy."
"Boys are very nasty. Extremely nasty. In fact-"
"Okay." Steph, who had left the room with Bluto and Vaughn, no doubt to take the dog to the bathroom, was back then without the Mastiff, but her baby in her arms. "Who's ready to start the movie?"
"Yes!" Aurora bounced a bit, not caring to listen to her father's proverbial insistence that his kind were very disgusting and not at all to ever be trusted (other than him, for some reason). "Now. I've waited all day!"
Murphy only took to crawling away from Paul then, to go get a blanket, and bring it back to their spot, He watched as the four year old tried to toss it over his lap, only got the job halfway done, and then sort of gave up before just tugging it over her own lap instead.
"Thanks," he told her anyways, because effort was always appreciated and should be rewarded. She only beamed up at him though.
After getting the DVD playing, Steph left the room for a bit, again, with Vaughn. She was kind enough to hit the lights for them, at least. When she returned five minutes later, it was with her mutt and they sat down on the other side of the floor, from Paul and the girls.
Aurora was so enraptured with the movie that she didn't think to go sit with her mother while Murphy, who had the attention span of a flea, had taken to entertaining herself by playing with her father's fingers. She enjoyed popping them and the glares he'd give her when she did so.
For children that could have the world, his girls were pretty simple to entertain.
Vaughn, of course, wasn't interested in the movie at all and, rather, had woken up a bit with the arrival of her mother. She'd eaten before, as Paul wasn't sure what time Steph was getting home with dinner for the rest of them, so he gave the toddler something of her own. Her mother though had given her a bit of her pizza and, well, just the taste of food was enough to rouse the two year old, apparently.
"Vaughn is too loud," Murphy complained to her father more than once as the girl would giggle as she tumbled around between Steph's lap and the area in front of her. The entire floor was covered in all the pillows and blankets from the house, offering many interesting fabrics for the toddler to examine. "Daddy."
Paul, who'd shifted to lying on his back again after his dinner was finished, hardly peeked open an eye. "Not botherin' me. You're the one doin' that."
"Shhh!" And Aurora had shifted too, away from him even more. She was sitting in the middle of the floor then, head tilted back, staring at the screen. The movie, which was crummy, but filled with plenty of subpar singing and colors galore, had enraptured his six year old. "Be quiet."
Murphy, not getting the reaction she wanted from either of them, made a face at both her father and older sister before deciding that Vaughn was getting far too much attention from Stephanie. Bear crawling across the floor on her hands and feet, Murphy took right to snuggling up with her mother, whining something or other that Paul didn't catch as he tried to drift off again.
He and Steph hadn't been having a very good past few weeks.
Err, maybe that wasn't the right thing to say. They had been good, in some ways, and poor in others.
A lot had been going on, after all.
The end of July was filled with birthdays, the end of August it's own and then the PPV, of course, to round out the summer. Then Aurora started school that was stressful too. Paul was working more up at the office and Steph had her usual stuff to deal with, along with their three daughters and it was just...easy.
Easier, rather, to stay apart rather than try and wrangle in time together.
They saw one another when they did and when they didn't, they just didn't. Then, at home, they focused mostly on the girls before retiring off to bed.
Days were just too packed for much else.
Paul wasn't too concerned with it, of course, because they had periods like this. They'd been together for over a decade and married for nearly the same; downtime was a necessary evil that went along with the deep appreciation they had for the highs.
And honestly, if a lull in a relationship was just not talking to one another as much rather than, say, cheating or developing stagnancy or hatred, then there wasn't much to gripe about.
When he woke up though, during the middle of the movie, he kind of expected Steph to have been resting too. All of them, actually. Other than Aurora. She was right where he thought she would be, still very intently watching her movie, but instead of sleeping, Steph was still very busy with Murphy.
Vaughn was curled up in some of the blankets, next to Bluto, but her middle sister didn't seem to be winding down at all. She and her mother were still sitting on the floor, but she was very animatedly (and annoyingly, to Aurora) talking about her day which was filled with her usual Friday schedule nothing.
Honest.
Murphy did nothing all day. She did nothing everyday. Week in and week out.
But still made a big production about it.
Constantly.
Paul kind of felt sorry for his wife, then, as it was obvious even before the half hour interlude of his nap that she was tired. She, like him, no doubt thought that the movie was gonna turn into a kind of pre-bedtime nap, as it frequently did. Usually the youngest two were asleep by the middle and Aurora, the end.
Not the case for Murph that day.
She must have gotten in a hell of a nap at nap time.
Still rather groggy from only a half hour, Paul shoved up slowly before getting to his feet. Everyone awake (which was everyone other than Vaughn and Bluto) glanced over at the man, but he only headed off to the bathroom to take a leak.
When he returned, Paul went to flip open the pizza box and grab another slice.
"Did you wash your hands?"
"Hush, Rora," he carped playfully, not even glancing back at the glare he was receiving from his oldest. "People are watching the movie."
"You're nasty."
"I'm a boy. Boys are nasty. Very nasty. We're gross."
Aurora only went back to her movie and, walking carefully across the living room floor, Paul headed over to his wife and younger daughters.
Stephanie only stared up at him as Murphy, who was sitting in her lap, grinned at him.
"Daddy, are you done sleepin'?"
"No." Paul moved to sit down next to them, Steph's eyes still on him. "But I'm gonna eat some pizza first. You got a problem with this? Squirt?"
"No," she said, but it was quickly turned to a giggle as, while shoveling his slice into his mouth, Paul reached over with his free hand to grab Murphy by the back of her nightgown and pull her over into his lap. "Daddy!"
"Hush," Aurora griped as Paul only snuggled his middle daughter up in his lap. "You guys don't even watch the movie!"
"We're sorry, honey," Stephanie said through a yawn. "You can turn it up louder if you want."
"You sit with Daddy," Paul was saying to Murphy, unconcerned with Aurora annoyance. Staring down at Murphy, he said, "You let Mommy rest. She worked all day. She's tired. You should be tired too, you know."
"No."
"No, you don't know? Or-"
"Just no."
"Hn." Taking another bite of pizza, Paul spared his wife a glance. He thought that she'd move to go lay beside Vaughn and Bluto or at least shift to lay down, but instead she was shifting closer to him.
Mouthing her thanks silently, Paul realized that was the first time that they'd spoken, since she got home. And, shoving the rest of his pizza into his mouth, Paul changed the arm that was snuggling up Murphy so that he could reach out with his other and lay it across his wife's shoulders. This, of course, got a smile out of the woman, one of those almost embarrassed ones that she reserved for him (and Bluto, actually, but that was beside the point), as if even after twelve years, she could still become bashful over a simple gesture from the man.
She could, actually. Even when they were in their own home and only in front of their uncaring children.
Settling into his lap, Murphy sat so that she could stare at the television. Softly, she told her parents, "I don't like this movie. Can we do something else?"
"Rora likes it, so no." Paul tried hard not to grin as Stephanie took to leaning into his hold, resting right up against him. "And it's late anyways; just go to sleep. Like Vaughn."
"Vaughn's a baby."
"You're a baby."
"Am not." She took to shoving at his arm then, annoyed with this claim. "You're a baby."
"No, you're-"
"I wanna watch the movie." Aurora was not having it that night, apparently. Paul understood; it was Friday night, which meant the end of a very strenuous school week. Of course she wanted to unwind...with singing bears and a paper thin plot. Who were they to judge? "If you don't, go away."
"You sure are bossy tonight," Paul remarked as she only turned back to the television. "Rora. And after all I did for you today."
"What'd you do for her?" Murphy titled her head back to stare up at her father.
"Uh, gee, I gave her life. I gave you all life. Other than Steph. And Bluto. That counts, even to this day."
"What's that mean?"
"Paul." Stephanie spoke the first words aloud then as she shifted away from her husband. "Honestly."
With his wife out of his grasp (and apparently back to being indifferent to him; it was nice while it lasted), Paul only moved to hold Murphy with both arms then and fall to his side, tightening his grasp on the four year old.
"Daddy-"
"Shhh. Rora's watching her movie." Paul flexed, just a bit. "And you can't break my hold, squirt."
"Don't hurt her," Steph added because, apparently, now that she'd spoken to him once, she was able to continue doing so. Just to be annoying though. "Paul."
Right. Because he'd ever do that in the first place.
"Can't hurt me." Murphy wiggled around in his grasp until she was facing him. Staring into his hazel eyes, she said, "I'll hurt him."
Then she did it.
She tried to eye rake him.
The brat.
Paul tilted his head back though as she giggled before shifting to rest his chin over the top of her head, burying her face in his neck.
"Daddy-"
"You're bad. You no longer get to watch the movie."
That actually sounded like a reward, but whatever.
This settled things out though, as Murphy seemed to have just been revving herself up, to fight off the sleep. With some time to wind down, however, she drifted off rather easily, snuggled up against her father. It didn't take Paul long to follow suit.
It was Bluto, actually, that awoke the man some time later. The dog had gotten up and stretched, letting out a low moan as he did so, causing his master to groggily come to.
The TV was still on, but it was back to the menu screen of the DVD. Aurora was conked out in front of it, fallen to her side, while Stephanie was resting under some blankets with Vaughn cuddled up to her.
And then, of course, there was Murphy, who was the worst sleeper ever. She'd wiggled her away away from Paul at some point and was tangled up in a blanket. He grinned, at the sight, before slowly sitting up as Bluto walked through the maze of toys and pillows the girls had strewn across the floor.
"Bathroom, buddy?" Paul yawned softly as he stretched, just a bit, his muscles more than a bit tight. "C'mon."
With bleary eyes, he went to lead the Mastiff out of the room and to the front door. Letting the dog out it, Paul knew it'd be a bit before he had to come back for him; it had to be around ten and, well, that was when Bluto liked to take a lap around the property.
Check things out.
Chase a few nocturnal animals.
Keep his mother safe.
...And the rest of them too.
From squirrels and owls, mostly, but a threat all the same.
Paul was at a bit of a crossroads then, as to what to do with all his sleeping girls. Usually, if they all fell asleep somewhere other than their beds, he'd just cart them off there. It was rather easy; they were all still so small.
But he was too tired for it that night. He honestly wasn't even sure if he'd wake back up to let Bluto in, should he fall asleep before it happened. To prevent this (and Steph bitching in the morning when she found her frozen baby trapped outside), Paul decided not to lay back down.
He went upstairs, instead, to go to the bathroom and shower. He hadn't done the latter yet that day and, well, it was needed. Or at least a good way to kill some time.
Tomorrow was the weekend, but Paul had to go meet up with someone to discuss work things, but not until the afternoon. He'd be able to kind of sleep in that morning (if eight counted as sleeping in; it did when you married into the McMahon family), but still knew he'd be beat before the day even began.
Paul only put on some shorts, after his shower, slightly annoyed that he even had to put those on. He wanted to just slide into bed against the warm blankets and pass out. But...if the girls were all downstairs…
When he made it down there he found his three daughters all still sleeping in the same positions, but Steph was on her knees, in front of the television, putting away the DVD it looked like. Just as he made it into the room, she turned off the TV, leaving them in darkness.
Now a bit fearful of stepping on one of the girls (even though he knew he was nowhere near them), Paul was extra careful, as if they could somehow manage to make it across the length of the room in that time.
He put nothing passed his kids.
Especially Murphy.
"What'd you do? Shower?"
Steph's voice was about as silent as Paul was trying to make his steps (he was a big dude, okay), but still caught by his ears.
"Yeah." His eyes had adjusted to the lack of light then and he was able to see Rora, when he got closer to her, and stepped over her to get to the girl's mother. "Why'd you get up?"
"I guess you woke me up." Steph sat back on her butt as he came to stand over her. When the man moved to sit as well, she whispered, "What are you doing?"
"Sittin' down. What's it look like?"
"Why don't you just go on to bed?" She only sat there, staring at him in the dim light of the moon outside. "I can sleep down here with the girls."
"Bluto's outside. That's why I'm really up." Running a hand lazily across his face, he scratched at his beard as he said, "I knew my oh so caring wife would be up my ass if I left her precious baby out in the cold."
"She's about to be up it anyways, you keep cursing in front of the actual babies."
"They're sleeping."
"Still."
"Besides," he said slowly, still rubbing at his stubble. "Maybe I'd like that."
Steph sounded like she sneezed, but he was pretty sure it was meant to be a choking noise. "What exactly are you wanting me to put up your-"
"Not that specifically." Then he paused. "Err, well-"
"If that's not specifically what you meant-"
"It wasn't before."
She wasn't going to laugh for him that night. She just wasn't.
"-then what was it that you meant?"
"Just...I dunno." She was making things hard on him without meaning to, but he wasn't appreciative regardless. "We haven't been..."
"Been?"
"Steph."
"What?"
"You know what," he said with a frown. "We've been off."
"Off?"
"Stephanie."
"You can keep saying my name, but-"
"You've had to have noticed."
"We've been busy," she corrected with a nod. "That's all."
That wasn't all.
Still, he only said, "Well, I wanna be less busy then. Back on."
That time, it wasn't a choke or a sneeze that she let out, but rather a rather obvious sigh of annoyance. "You're acting like there's been something wrong with us."
"I didn't say that."
"We still see one another at home and you're always around. Maybe not with me, up at work, but just being in the vicinity-"
"I'm not mad, Steph." He also hadn't been trying to have the current conversation. Literally ever. "Things have just been..."
"What?"
"Stephanie-"
"Say it."
"I don't know what I was going to-"
"Stale?"
"No." Paul was finding it hard to continue whispering. "Never. Why? Is it to you?"
"I'm not the one feeling like something's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong. We go through this," he insisted, as if to convince her that the thing he had previously brought to her attention was nonexistent. "It's just something that we do. There's not-"
"You're acting like we don't… Because, like, literally a week ago-"
He didn't mean to (he hadn't meant to do anything he'd done since getting out of the shower), but he said, "It's different."
"What?"
No longer rubbing his beard, Paul went for broke with a shrug as he said, "When we're like this, it's not… Come on, Steph;; you know that since, like, July-"
"July?"
"Stephanie-"
"It's the middle of September, Paul; you've thought we've been having problems since July and haven't said anything?"
"Not problems. Stop saying problems. It's not a problem. It's just something that we go through. You know that."
"Apparently not. Because it was the same for me as it always is, last week."
"It was not."
"Then what was it? Bad?"
Paul wished he was as good with a shovel as people thought, because he felt like he was never going to get himself out of his ever growing hole. "It's never bad with you, Steph."
"Then-"
"It's just better, is what I meant." And he wasn't whispering anymore, but his tone was soft, given the nature of the discussion. "It's just...better, is what I meant to say. Better when we're more synced up in here."
He knocked then, against his shaved head with a knuckle before reaching out with that same hand, towards her. Tapping gently under her chin, he caught her blues in the darkness as he left his thumb pressing gently under her lip, finger curled beneath.
"When we're both in better moods and not so tired and can joke around about things other than whatever stupid cartoon the girls are making us watch," Paul went on. "When everything's not rushed and you can do that stupid talking thing after or just let me run my hand across your stomach as much as I want. When we're, you know, happier, with one another, and not so exhausted from work that we can't just...play around. Joke around. That's what I mean. The really good times. They outweigh this shit so much that it's unreal. That's why it's not even a big deal, you know? To me? From July to now? Compared to the rest, it's nothing. Our chemistry's just off-balance for a minute, but it'll be back. Even if it wasn't gonna be, you're still mine regardless. Right now with you is worth more than anytime with anyone else ever. You know how much I love you, princess."
And the whole thing was just laced with comments to make Stephanie, who was typically extremely bashful, blush or coo or any of her normal responses to affection from the man, but it was that one tag-along on the end, the add-on at the end that he didn't even think about as he said. It was an afterthought, really.
But Steph hadn't heard it in so long. He didn't call her that anymore, her husband didn't. Not really. She was Steph or babe or silly now. Not princess. Not for awhile. The girls were that.
Hearing it though, then, when it was most needed, made her shirk away from him shyly for a moment, as Paul only let go of her chin. He wasn't too pleased, she knew no doubt, that he had to say all that, but he still did it and it still counted.
Paul only watched as Steph, after he withdrew his hand, moved towards him then, resting a hand on his arm. Blinking down at her, he only listened as his wife spoke, perhaps a bit dumbly.
"You should have told me," she told him softly as her other hand reached up to brush against his cheek. Paul only tilted his head, just a bit, enough so that it could be argued he didn't at all (but he certainly had), so that it could rest more truly in her palm. "If you felt something was off then you shouldn't have to just wait around for it to fix itself. I always...think that we're doing good. Even when we're not spending every free moment we have together or just avoiding the ones we do. I always think so much of you and tell you so often that, I guess, sometimes I forget that I need to show-"
"It's not all you." He didn't wanna just listen silently any longer. Moving to grasp the outstretched arm that was resting against his cheek, Paul gripped it as he told his wife, "I'm bad about it too. We just both get so busy… I always thought that when I stopped wrestling full time, I'd have more of it, you know? I mean, the only serious thing I've had going on in the story was that stupid Lesnar shit. But office stuff-"
"It's not as easy as you always thought, is it?" Stephanie bit at her lip. "Office stuff?"
Shaking his head, he made sure when he stopped it was still resting in her palm. "It's what I always wanted though. After...you know, after finishing working in the ring, I always wanted to be a part of something like the company. The exact stuff I'm doing, I've always thought about. Always wanted. I-"
"I know."
"I just..." Paul let out a breath. "I just wish I had more time to spend with you. You and them."
She grinned fondly as he nodded his head around the room. "I think they think that you make plenty of time for them."
"I think that you think that I don't for you though. Whether you want to admit it or not."
"Is that what you think that I think? Or is that what you want me to think that you think because you secretly think that I don't spend enough time with you?"
She'd lost him a bit, in their word play, but he was able to figure out what she meant. Tightening his grip on her arm, Paul replied, "You give up more of your career for me that I ever have you."
"That's not true."
"Who would drop anything and everything to sit up at a hospital with me if I got injured?"
"Who was with me every single time I gave birth?"
"Who put those babies in you to begin with?"
Her grin was more real then as she said, "My man."
Paul's matched as he nodded his head. "I hear he's pretty good at it."
"Oh?"
"Mmmhmm."
"'cause I hear," Steph whispered even lower then as she leaned towards him, her final words being breathed tenderly against his lips, "that he's much better at taking things up his-"
"It was just something to look into."
"You're so full of it."
"Maybe just put some stuff up yours."
"Still full."
And she laughed, at him, for the first time in forever, but it was into his mouth as they kissed finally, truly, really. Their hands shifted and, even though he didn't know how it began, suddenly they weren't just kissing, but they were kind of sort of making out.
In the middle of their living room floor.
He couldn't remember the last time that he and Steph just made out, no insinuations for later stipulated onto it, much less on their living room floor.
Maybe never, with that last part tacked on.
It was still odd to Steph, he knew, that his hair wasn't there anymore. That he'd shaved his head. He could always tell by the way her hands would eventually come to caress his head, as if missing what used to be there. But she always told him that she liked it too, the way that it was then, that it was sexy.
And that was all that mattered. What Steph thought.
She, honestly, was all that mattered.
Until one of the three things that actually outranked her a bit reminded him of this fact.
It was a giggle, finally, that got Paul and Steph to pull back some, from over by the couch.
"Murphy," Steph whispered as she rested her forehead against her husband's. They hadn't been going any further than where they'd been stopped, of course, what with the girls down there, but neither was too glad with the way that it was brought to an end. "Why aren't you sleeping?"
But she had a better question.
"Why are you kissing?" More giggles. In the darkness, they heard some rustling of the blankets and such. "That's nasty."
"It's not nasty," Paul said as he could hear her beginning to crawl over towards them. A glance her way told him that she was actually army crawling.
Great. She was getting all wound up again.
"It is nasty." Murphy clambered right up into Steph's lap as he and his wife separated even more, once it was clear that their middle daughter was not just going to go back to sleep. "Daddy."
"You like it when Mommy kisses you," he said as, with the girl snugging up in her arms, Steph bent down to do just that. "Why can't I like it?"
"It's not nasty for Mommy." Murphy stared over at him with far too serious an expression for it to be nearing midnight. "It's nasty when it's you."
As Paul only glared, Murphy stuck her tongue out at him and Steph gigged.
"You did say you don't wash your hands, babe," Stephanie reminded.
"And that boys are gross. You're a boy." Murphy apparently hadn't been keyed in on him being the exception. Shaking her head a bit, she deemed him, "Super gross."
"Fine. That's fine." Paul even huffed. "I'll just give all my kisses to Rora then, from now on, squirt, and-"
That was not how she was envisioning things to play out.
"What?"
"Yep."
"No."
"It's happening."
"Daddy, that's not fair."
"Aurora appreciates me."
At the moment all she was appreciating was some deep sleep as she slept right on through their conversation.
"I 'preciate you." Murphy yawned though, snuggling harder against Steph then, as if she were a pillow. "Lots."
"Apparently not."
"You don't wash your hands."
"You don't either!"
"Okay, okay." Stephanie had enjoyed her bonding with the man, but listening to him do so with Murphy (because, believe him, their arguing was definite bonding) wasn't as much fun when she was dead tired. "Let's all settle down before we wake-"
But they didn't get a chance to as, outside, Bluto finally found an offender (a frog) in the yard and let out vicious and deafening barks as he chased it off his property. Or at least tried to.
Regardless, the noise was jarring enough to rouse Vaughn, the toddler, almost immediately.
Now she was someone that could stand some Daddy kisses. Especially after that horrible beast outside ruined her slumber.
Not that Aurora woke up though, apparently, as Paul headed across the room to settle Vaughn back down, and the oldest girl didn't move an inch.
If she wasn't snoring (she had a bit of a stuffy nose), he might have gone over there to check her breathing.
Vaughn needed some snuggles though (she actually wanted her mother, but Steph had gotten up and taken Murphy with her to go force Bluto back indoors) and though her tears stopped, her complaints didn't.
Things had been changing for her recently. As far as bedtime went, anyways. She'd just recently been shifted into a big girl bed and, well, it wasn't as comforting to her, as her crib had been. The living room floor even less so.
Keeping her cuddled up to his chest, Paul settled out on the floor once more, head finding one of the pillows as the hand that wasn't snuggling his daughter pulled a blanket over them.
When Steph returned with Bluto, who immediately went to fall beside Aurora, his second master (Paul was his first, but all were outranked by his mommy, of course, like most boys), and sleep there, as well as Murphy, who saw her father snuggling her sister and was less than pleased. Tugging on Steph's hand, she drug her over there quickly.
"We can all sleep down here?" she asked as she snuggled up under that blanket Paul had thrown over himself and Vaughn, cuddling into her father's side. "Mommy?"
"Apparently." Stephanie fell too, not far away, but was focused then on setting an alarm on her phone for in the morning. "Just this once."
It made them both more comfortable, he knew, at times, he and Steph, when they could be so close to their girls. There were times, of course, where privacy was more welcomed (and if they had been in their beds already, upstairs, before, well, Paul might of just boned Steph right then and there in the living room, but live and learn; he'd had his chance to put his daughters to bed for the night and blew it on showering), but others when they just wanted them close.
And when Aurora woke up in the middle of the night, to go to the bathroom, she came to lay over in front of the couch with them too, Bluto following eventually (though that was more because he wanted some attention from Steph and went to nuzzle against her side a few times before just giving up and falling asleep).
Just knowing that he and Steph were at least on the same page again, about where they had been and were both aware of how the other was feeling, was enough for Paul, honestly, to drift off a bit more peacefully. Even though in the morning he'd have to scold the girls about cleaning up the blankets and pillows (they'd wanna just sleep in the living room every night because that made so much more sense to them) and Steph would be in a sour mood over sleeping awkwardly and tweaking her neck, it would all be worth it, just for the comfort he felt right then.
No matter where he was in his relationship with Steph, she and the girls (plus Bluto too, he guessed) were still the greatest things in his life. Nothing beat spending time with them.
Nothing.