…
"Hey, Dad?"
Feigning casualness, Cody leaned against the door of his father's subterranean recording studio. The normally organized man was sitting at his beloved piano, intently scribbling away on messy paper and surrounded by what could only be described as the aftermath of a tornado rampage through a sheet music store.
"What's up, Cody?" Blaine asks, looking up from his work.
"What are we doing for spring break this year?"
"Papa and I told you kids already, we're going to Paris to see your grand-mère and Luc. Why?"
"Tristan was bragging in school today about how his family was going to Cancun and how awesome it was gonna be. I was thinking…maybe we could do something like that? Go somewhere cool instead of…France. Again."
Blaine looks at Cody incredulously.
"Kiddo, you have got to be the only teen in America who thinks a European getaway to France is uncool. Do you know what I would have given to travel to Paris when I was your age?"
"Yeah but Grandma Pam always says you were like an old person trapped in a kid's body when you were growing up – "
" – And anyway," Blaine interrupts, ignoring the embarrassed flush rising in his cheeks, "taking a thirteen year old to Cancun for spring break is not 'cool,' that's child abuse. Sorry buddy, we already booked the plane tickets and your grand-mère is excited to see you. We're going to Paris."
Frustrated, Cody lets out an overly dramatic growl. "UGH. This is SO UNFAIR. I'm not a little kid anymore! You never let me get to do anything FUN." Blaine winces as he hears Cody's surprisingly heavy footsteps thunder up the stairs towards his bedroom, brushing past Sebastian, who had wandered down to see his husband in the basement, reading glasses perched on his nose, munching on an apple. Blaine quickly surmises that Sebastian is looking for a distraction from reviewing bind-numbing legal documents in his upstairs study.
The taller man casually leans against the studio doorframe, a striking mirror of Cody just moments before. Despite the tension with his eldest son, it's a thought that makes Blaine's heart flip happily.
"That was a little over the top. A little, dare I say, Cooper-esque?" Sebastian suggests impishly.
"Oh no, no, don't go there."
"All I'm saying is, he's already got your father and your brother's baby blues, maybe it was only a matter of time before other Cooper genes started manifesting," Sebastian teased.
Blaine playfully tosses a crumpled up wad of paper at his smirking husband, trying to restrain his own grin from breaking out. Sebastian glides over to the piano bench and sits down beside Blaine, lifting up his apple for Blaine to take a bite, and rubbing Blaine's back with his other hand.
"How much did you hear?" Blaine asks.
"Most of it. The boy is loud. Like Coo-" but Blaine gives Sebastian a gentle shove before he can finish that sentence and Sebastian wisely drops the comparison.
"Let's give him some time to stew and we'll talk to him after dinner, together, hm?" Sebastian suggests, wrapping an arm around the back of Blaine's shoulders.
Blaine nods in agreement and rests his head on Sebastian's shoulder, grateful for the solidarity as Sebastian tosses his apple core and brings his free hand up to play nonsense on the piano keys.
Parenting is hard.
"Mamie! Look, duckies!"
Dean dashes towards the pond as fast as his little six-year-old legs would carry him, his raven curls flopping around in the wind. The twins, Spencer and Lily, are not far behind, chasing after their little brother.
"Careful, mes chéris!" Sophie implores, brushing an elegant strand of blonde hair out of her face and laughing as she follows her three youngest petits-enfants, arm-in-arm with her partner, Luc.
Her oldest grandchild, however, was trailing behind, so fixated at looking down at his watch phone that his wavy chestnut hair kept falling in front of his eyes.
It was a breezy, sunny April afternoon in Paris, and the Anderson-Smythes were out for a stroll in the fashionable park beside Sebastian's mother's luxury apartment.
Bringing up the rear, Blaine and Sebastian amble comfortably behind the others, holding hands, but swapping concerned glances as they observe Cody from afar.
When they talked to Cody before their transatlantic crossing, Cody had agreed that it was unreasonable for the entire family, including two ten year olds and a first grader, to visit the most notorious college party town in the Western Hemisphere during that city's annual pilgrimage of vice.
But the boy still remained largely disengaged from his family, spending most of his time glued to his social media rather than interacting with his relatives. Not unlike most teenagers, to be sure, but Blaine and Sebastian had raised him better than that. After all, they had worked so hard and fought so hard to have a family in the first place. So they resolved to remind him of that.
…
In a move so stereotypically "angsty teenager" that it made Sebastian and Blaine break out into actual laughs, Cody had perching himself alone on a bench far from where the rest of the family was now gathered along the edge of the pond. He sat there, staring sullenly out at the rest of the park visitors, and just…brooding.
Spotting a snack vendor, Blaine and Sebastian purchase a round of ice cream cones for everyone, along with some bread for the younger kids to feed to the ducks.
Turning towards Cody, Blaine motions for him to join them, holding aloft the teen's favorite ice cream flavor (strawberry, just like his Papa), in order to entice the boy closer. Like an easily-startled deer, Cody treads lightly towards the pond, accepting the cone but keeping his distance from his family.
"He's so stubborn," Blaine quietly grumbles to Sebastian.
"Yeah, just like both his parents. Who'd have thought," His husband teases back.
Cody's Wall of Teenage Feelings finally starts cracking, however, when the twins take it upon themselves to have some fun with Dean, wrapping their arms around his small waist, hoisting him up, and playfully dangling him over the edge of the pond, while the little boy squirms and bursts into uncontrollable peals of laughter. Cody watches, and gets a mischievous glint in his eyes.
He waits until Spencer carries Dean back to solid dry land and sets him down. Then Cody charges at his light brown-haired brother, delighting when catches a glimpse of Lily's blonde ponytail whipping through the air as she dives out of his way, and when he sees Spencer's olive green eyes widen in surprise. He lifts the fifth grader into the air and scrambles into the pond. Cody will later swear that he only meant to do to Spencer what the twins did to Dean, and he didn't mean to drop Spence into the water. But drop him he did. So naturally, Spencer retailed by pulling his big brother down with him. And thus began the great Anderson-Smythe Water War of 2036.
…
As Blaine brushes water from his eye brows (he's pretty sure his six year old baby boy, of all people, had gleefully splashed him at some point), it occurs to him that they're probably breaking all kinds of city ordinances by wading around in the pond water. But he soaks in the big smiles on (all) his children's faces, on his husbands' face and his in-laws' faces, and he thinks there's nothing in the world he could ever possess that he wouldn't give for moments like these.
In the late afternoon, dried off by the warmth of the sun and still full of smiles, the Anderson-Smythes begin making their way back towards Sophie's house. Luc is cradling a sleepy Dean against his chest while Sophie listens to Spencer and Lily chatter away on either side of her. Cody approaches Blaine and Sebastian with an expression of penitence.
"Dad, Papa, I'm sorry I got upset before. I really am having fun here, I promise."
"I'm glad." Blaine replies softly. "We love you so much, Cody, and your father and I just want you to remember that family is important. You're starting high school in a few months, and you'll be going to college before we know it. Don't be in such a rush to grow up that you forget to enjoy the time that you have now."
Sebastian cards his fingers through Cody's hair and adds, "Look, Tiger, we understand that hanging out with your "boring" parents and younger siblings is not what most 8th graders dream of."
"But we appreciate the effort you've been making." Blaine continues.
"So we got a surprise for you, Bud." Sebastian finishes, pulling out three tickets from inside his sport coat. Cody's eyes grow big as he gets an idea as to what he thinks they might be for. Greedily accepting them from his father, he gasps audibly when his eyes validate his hopes.
"No way. Tickets to the PSG match tonight!?"
"Tickets to the PSG match." Blaine confirms. "Mamie and Luc are going to take your brothers and sister out to a movie after dinner, so it'll just be the three of us. If that's ok with you."
"Yes, absolutely! Thank you, Thank you!" Cody grabs his parents in a big hug, smacking a kiss on both of their cheeks. "I love you Papa and Dad! Wow!"
Then, with all the reverence due a holy relic, he carefully tucks his ticket into his pocket before wandering off to furiously tap at his wrist phone, no doubt gloating about his good fortune to his classmates.
Sebastian and Blaine chortle as they continue the walk back towards Sophie's, reaching for each other's hands again and entwining their fingers together.
"Just wait until he finds out that you and I have actually been to Cancun for spring break before. Multiple times." Sebastian muses.
"Shush you. That's never happening, just like he's never finding out that not only did we drink before turning 21, but the first gift you ever gave me was a fake driver's license."
"Touché."