"You know," the Seith mage began as he fought back a yawn while picking up his newborn son, Chace. "For a kid born on Valentine's Day, you are so full of hate."

Ah, yes. Valentine's Day two weeks earlier had been completely ruined by the arrival of the little demon. And little demon was just putting it lightly – at least if you asked Bickslow. He'd known right from the minute they'd found out Lucy was pregnant (or, since he'd found out) that if they had a boy, he'd be an absolute nightmare, and it was why he'd hoped it would be a girl. Though really, it wasn't like they weren't happy that they'd had a son rather than a daughter, because they were. It was just that the kid, as expected by Bickslow, really was a fucking nightmare, and Bickslow was sure that ever since Chace had been born at a little after 2 a.m. on Valentine's Day, his son had hated him.

At first, he'd really just thought it was because he was a baby that he cried so much, because babies cry a lot. And it wasn't exactly like he'd be the best parent right off the bat because for people so small, they were so complex (at least that was what he said, though Lucy just looked at him and told him he was being kind of stupid), and each goddamn cry could mean literally fucking anything, and learning how to decipher each of those horrible sounding cries that had him trying to remember what sleeping felt like was no easy task.

But no. It wasn't because Chace was a baby and babies cried a lot, in between sleeping and being gross. And it wasn't because he was still kind of trying to figure out the whole part where he was supposed to be a responsible adult and actually take care of something other than himself, which really, he couldn't even do at the best of times (that was what Lucy was for).

It was because the kid actually fucking hated him. Or at the very least, he liked fucking with him. Which wasn't all that surprising to Laxus once Bickslow had had to escape for an hour to the guild after all of five days of being a parent. He'd always known Bickslow's child would be a handful, just because it was Bickslow's child. Bickslow lived to make his guild mates' lives hell, and obviously, his newborn son was already out to make his own father's life a living hell. If that wasn't karma, Laxus didn't know what was. He did have to admit it was quite entertaining seeing the usually so energetic Seith mage so sleep deprived, too.

But Bickslow really was convinced Chace hated him. Which was okay. He kinda hated him, too. Well, that was a blatant lie, because he really, really loved the kid, for some bizarre reason. He might have cried when he'd been born as well, right when his little hand had held onto his finger for a few seconds. (Okay, he most definitely cried, but he made Lucy swear on her soul not to tell anyone else.)

Whenever Chace cried and Bickslow told Lucy he'd get it (because really, he couldn't let her do all of the work), he'd go through every single possible reason he knew of that babies cried for, and tried to pinpoint what it was.

Hungry? Nope. Lucy had, nine times out of ten, just taken care of that.

Need changing? Nope.

Too cold? Too hot? Hell fucking no. The kid was goddamn perfect. He had a near over-meticulous mother.

Just wanted to be held and be the centre of attention? Apparently not, and ten times out of ten, whenever Bickslow picked him up, he just cried more.

It was annoying, too. Even when Bickslow went in just to check on him when he was sleeping or would probably just be waking up from one of countless naps (because he wasn't in a crib in their room, because Gajeel complained about his crying waking him up too much, and, well… They weren't so mean that they would deprive him of sleep, too), it was almost as if Bickslow's presence was enough to make the kid cry. He'd wondered if it was the tattoo at some point, or maybe even his hair when he didn't have the energy to try and sort it out, but Lucy didn't think so. Lucy just thought it was Chace being a baby and babies cry.

Fortunately for Bickslow, Chace had already been crying by the time he'd walked into his nursery just next to their room that night. (Chace's room was a little farther from Gajeel's bedroom in his apartment just right next door, so it shut him, the Dragon baby, up most of the time, thankfully.) But it was three-something in the morning, all Bickslow wanted to do was sleep, and by under no circumstances did he want to be getting up to make his son stop crying. He had to, but he didn't really want to. Couldn't the kid just learn how to sleep through the night already? Oh good lord, he couldn't wait for those days to come.

So as usual, once he'd picked his son up and accused him of being so full of hate, he went about trying to figure out why he was crying. Changed him, made sure he was warm enough because it was still a little cold those days, tried rocking him as he walked around the room and then the living room to try and get him to calm down a little…

But he didn't. He just kept crying.

And crying.

And crying.

And screaming.

(At least they knew the kid's lungs were fine.)

And Bickslow wondered just why the hell he had wanted kids in the first place. Why didn't they just adopt? They could've skipped the whole no-sleep and permanent crying-induced headache thing if they'd just adopted a child.

Oh. Wait. Chace hadn't been planned. Right. And Lucy had really wanted to keep avocado-mango-weird-fruit baby. And so had Bickslow.

He just wished he didn't cry so much. Really. "I don't know what you want," he said over his son's crying as he turned on his heels again and trekked back out towards the living room. "Why won't you stop crying? What did I ever do to you to make you hate me so much?"

No, really. He wanted to know.

"I hug you. I play with you. I make you all nice and warm and clean and comfortable. Hell, I even helped make you. You should love me."

And then when all else failed, Bickslow turned to nursery rhymes. And not the nice kind. The creepy kind. The ones that made even Gajeel comment on them whenever Bickslow managed to sneak away to the guild for some 'peace' (honestly, anything was better than constant crying), and the ones that made Lucy wonder just how twisted Bickslow's brain was.

The answer was very, of course.

Three Blind Mice and Rock-a-Bye Baby were his favourites. They didn't work, sure, because most of the time, Chace just cried for the sake of it, Bickslow figured, but they were kinda fun to sing to him, even if they made him feel like a horrible parent and made Lucy hate him. But hey, Chace seemingly hating him and having not a single shred of love in him for his amazing father already did a good enough job of making Bickslow feel pretty bad, so whatever. Bad nursery rhymes it was.

So of course, when Chace just continued to cry that morning (er, night, sort of), Lucy eventually pulled herself out of bed and went to handle it herself. She, too, had to admit that it was kind of amusing that Bickslow couldn't really do anything to get Chace to stop crying most of the time, because it meant that she got more cuddles from their baby. She liked cuddles.

"He's probably hungry," she sighed as Bickslow seemed to reluctantly hand him to her. She only fed him like an hour earlier, but whatever. Maybe he was still hungry. His father seemed to have a bottomless pit of a stomach anyway, so maybe Chace already did, too…

Fortunately, he wasn't. Well, it was fortunately for Lucy. Unfortunately for Bickslow, the kid just wanted his mother. Because apparently, he wasn't good enough. And honestly, Bickslow couldn't really blame him. A hug from Lucy could get him to stop crying in five seconds flat, too.

"Aw, you just wanted a hug from Mama, didn't you?" she cooed. "You're my precious little munchkin, and you love Mama Lucy so much more than you love Daddy Bickslow, don't you?"

"Hey, I'm pretty sure if I had boobs, the kid would love me a little more, too," Bickslow grumbled. He was otherwise convinced that that was it, because surely it had to be some primal or some fucking natural instinct to love the one who feeds you and carried you for nine goddamn months.

Well, apart from the fact that Lucy had birthed an actual demon. That was still part of it. He was sure of it.

Weeks went by, and Bickslow found himself with a new problem. Chace hating him didn't seem to be that big of a deal anymore. Sure, he still cried a lot, and he seemed to still love Lucy a whole lot more than he loved him and Bickslow was still convinced it was the whole thing where she had breasts and he didn't (but he still didn't blame Chace for loving her… or them. Because Bickslow did, too, and he didn't exactly like having to share that much, but whatever), but it wasn't as bad as it had been in those first few weeks. Chace had actually fallen asleep on him at one point, and then he'd cried when he'd gone to put him down in his cot again, so he'd just let him go back to sleeping in his arms. It had been a great day in all.

But seriously, Chace still kind of being out to making Bickslow's life a living hell and causing him to rekindle his romance with caffeine aside, Bickslow had bigger problems.

His babies were the bigger problem. Well, the flying ones, and most definitely non-human ones.

The babies were attention seekers. They always had been. And that was fine. Pretty much everyone who knew Bickslow knew that the babies were troublemakers, and Lucy was well aware of how much attention they needed most of the time, too, and she had always been willing to give it to them because she loved them as much as she loved her spirits.

But Bickslow would be the first to admit that he hadn't exactly been paying that much attention to them as he used to, since honestly, Chace was much more important than them. It wasn't really until Chace had been nearly a month old that Bickslow even noticed the babies again, which he felt just a little bad for because he loved those lil' guys so much and they were really part of who he was. But the only reason he even seemed to notice their presence again (because really, he'd just gotten used to them always flying around or just sitting around on his shoulders or his head or whatever) was because they seemed to be the main reason for Chace crying a lot more those days.

They'd always been so excited about Lucy having a baby that their bed had become her belly, and whenever they went to sleep together, they'd always nestled against her abdomen when she was on her side.

But once Chace had been born, and once Bickslow had remembered that he had five other 'children' to 'take care of', he'd quickly realised that they weren't exactly all that happy about Chace being there. At first, Bickslow realised that they'd kept their distance because it was a new tiny human and they hadn't really seen that before and they weren't sure what to do with it, but then they got a little gamer…

It started with them always making a point of being near whoever was holding Chace. And at first, it had been a little annoying because when Lucy was feeding him, she really did not want to have to be keeping the babies entertained, too, because they just got in the way, to be perfectly honest.

Then it had been them flying into Bickslow (which they'd done before, so it wasn't that odd) to get him to pay attention to him. But really, that was just annoying, too, because he was always too tired to play with them or talk to them.

Then they'd started getting dangerously close to Chace when he was on the soft play mat on the living room floor. Or even just swooping down on him when he was in his crib. That was when Bickslow had started getting mad at them, though. If they couldn't behave and if he couldn't trust them around his son, he'd have to put them to sleep for a while.

Except that didn't work either. That just made things worse. And so when Bickslow was walking into the guild one afternoon, he was holding Chace against his chest in one arm and ducking and swatting the babies away when they tried to hit him with his other arm.

"What's wrong with them?" Freed asked as the Seith mage sat down beside him, and the five tikis continued to angrily swoop down on him and Chace, making Freed move along the bench slightly, just in case.

"They—" He stopped himself when one began to glow just a little, and another came within millimetres of the infant's head right before he started to whimper. Chace didn't really like the babies. "That's it," he snapped suddenly. "You're all done. I told you guys not to be assholes." And all at once, the tikis fell to the ground around him. Now, they could do no harm.

"Um…"

"They're jealous," Bickslow answered to the confused looks everyone around him was aiming his way. "They don't like Chace."

"How can anyone not like Chace?" Evergreen asked. "I mean, look at that cute wittle face!"

Bickslow shrugged. "They're just mad at me because Chace gets more attention than they do."

"Then don't you think you should maybe talk to them about it, instead of just… putting them to sleep?" Freed suggested. Bickslow just side-eyed him looking a little ashamed all of a sudden, and Freed couldn't help but smile softly. He'd probably never thought of it, what, with being severely sleep deprived and all. Logic was never anyone's strong point when they were lacking sleep. "Maybe if you explain to them that they're not always going to be able to receive all of your attention whenever they want it since Lucy and yourself have a child now, they'll calm down a little?"

Bickslow considered it for only a moment. That was all he needed. And then he was getting up, picking up each of the fallen totems and putting them in his arms until he was holding all six of his babies (well, sort of), then said, "And this is why you're our leader."

Because Freed was the one with the brain.

Unfortunately for Bickslow, though, talking to the babies with Lucy and having their first official family meeting didn't exactly work. They calmed down a little, which was good, and they seemed to stop trying to attack Chace… But then they just turned all of their efforts to him, and he was having to go back to sharing his wife's cuddle time with not only their son, but the babies again, too, just to get them to stop sometimes.

Compromises had had to be made to make their home a little safer.

On the upside, Bickslow getting annoyed with the babies all the time seemed to entertain Chace once he was a few months old, and any day of the week, Bickslow would take his demonic child's laughter over his screaming.

Seriously.

Even if that meant essentially being a punching bag to the babies.

There was supposed to be more to this. Like, the actual conversation with the babies, and more of the babies being nightmares, but I kind of liked it better like this, even if this is kind of a waste of 3k words. Oh well.

Anyway. There's a chapter for the Gajeel being their neighbour thing. Don't worry. I'll write it one day...

As for where this story is set in the HWHL timeline:
1. How It All Began
2. Pride
3. Spontaneity
4. Not All Accidents Are Horrible
5. We're Telling Them
6. The Job Boycott
7. Here We Go Again
8. Sleeping Arrangements
9. The Bet
10. Trick or Treat
11. 2AM
12. Jealousy

Anyway. Hope you liked it. Please let me know if you did!

Until next time!

- April