Author's Note: No lie, I picture Joey as one terrifying mother fucker. And the reason he's so terrifying is because no one really knows the extent of what he does or can do when no one's looking.


Mother

"Hey, Atty?"

"Mmmm," Atticus grunted, pulling his blanket over his head. He curled up a little, then grunted again and peeked out at his clock. "Ugh. Alexis, it's two in the morning."

"Sorry," Alexis mumbled, crawling under the blanket. She cuddled up against his back. "I had a bad dream."

The older boy huffed. "Then go wake up Dad. He likes it when we wake him up after bad dreams."

"It wasn't that bad. And he's been really busy at work lately, so I don't want to bother him."

Atticus hummed quietly. Their dad had been pulling a lot of extra hours lately. "'kay. You wanna tell me what it was about?"

"I don't even remember, really," Alexis mumbled, pressing her forehead against her brother's back. She sighed softly, frowning, then snuggled closer. "Atty?"

The brunet opened his eyes, even though all he wanted to do was fall back to sleep. "What."

"…Do you ever wish we had a mother?"

Atticus blinked, surprised, then sat up a little, turning to look over his shoulder. "What?"

Alexis shrugged. "Sometimes I just wonder how life would be different if I had a mother."

"What, like… if either Dad or Papa was a girl? Or if one of them was gone and there was a lady instead?"

"…I mean, I was thinking if one of them was gone, but now that I think about it, I can't really imagine Daddy without Papa or Papa without Daddy." Alexis puffed her cheeks out thoughtfully, then released her mouthful of air in a rush. "Who do you think would be a better mother?"

Atticus rolled over to face her, brows furrowing thoughtfully. "I don't know. Dad is pretty much the stereotypical dad. He can't really empathize with us much and kind of just throws his credit card at us sometimes. But Papa's kind of the stern disciplinarian since Dad can't bring himself to do it. It's like it could go both ways."

"I guess so." Alexis paused, then began to giggle. "Can you imagine what Daddy would be like if Papa was a girl?"

Atticus grinned. "Or what Papa would be like if Daddy was a girl?"

"I bet there would be a lot more sighing and eye-rolling if Daddy was a girl!"

They laughed so loudly that Roland came and shushed them from his room down the hall (after he made sure they were alright, of course).

.-.-.-.-.-.

"Parents," Alexis began, pulling the bowl of oatmeal a maid set in front of her closer. "Who do you think would make a better mom? Daddy, or Papa?"

Seto blinked at her slowly. "…Me."

"What?! No!" Joey exclaimed, glaring at him. "Me!"

"Why you? Why not me? I could be a bombshell. I could wear a dress and heels," the brunet muttered petulantly.

Joey huffed. "First of all, I've already done the dress and heels—twice."

Seto couldn't help a smirk. "Yeah you did."

Atticus and Alexis cringed as stealthily as they could at their dad's smug expression. That was usually his 'laid so hard' expression. On the bright side, their papa looked like he was offended he'd say that out loud in front of his children.

"Eat your fuckin' oatmeal," the blond hissed, glaring at him. When the older man opened his mouth, he leaned forward, looking a little murderous. "Eat. Your oatmeal."

Seto stared at him a moment, as if not wanting to admit defeat, but then the blond's left eye twitched, and he hurriedly looked down at his bowl of oatmeal.

Atticus leaned over, smiling, and whispered, "Papa would definitely be a better mom."

"Yeah, Daddy backed down too quickly!" Alexis whispered back, giggling.

"I try not to irritate your papa when his eye twitches. You know what happened to the last guy that agitated him when his eye twitched like that?" Seto asked petulantly. When the children shook their heads, he scowled at them. "Neither do I. No one does."

Alexis and Atticus quickly whipped back to look at their papa, but Joey was firmly distracted by adding the perfect amount of brown sugar and cinnamon to his oatmeal. When they whipped around to look at Roland, he merely shrugged, as if to say, 'It's not untrue.'

Alexis decided then and there that her papa would probably be a better mother, simply because from all of her friends' stories, their fathers were threatening toward possible boyfriends, but their mothers were sickly sweet in their threats, and that was much scarier.

Atticus wondered if he'd ever be as pants-wettingly terrifying as his papa. He edged a little closer to his dad and began to quietly eat his oatmeal.

"So what are you guys doin' after school?" Joey asked after a moment.

Alexis had been planning on hanging out at the arcade with her friends. Atticus had thought he might go catch a movie with their dad. "Homework!" they both squeaked instead.

Joey raised an eyebrow and looked at Seto. "And what are ya doin' after work?"

"…Coming home and reading the newspaper," Seto replied cautiously. "And then I might take you to get a pedicure."

The blond beamed. "I love those!"

"Yeah," the older man croaked, shoulders slowly relaxing now that he could see the blond no longer looked murderous. "We could make it a family thing."

Alexis perked up at the suggestion. "I want my toenails painted pink!"

"Me too!" Atticus exclaimed, and laughed when she turned and punched him in the shoulder.