A/N: Ah! 1000+ words! I can breathe freely again~
When the Thief King re-entered the room, the sight that met his eyes was pretty predictable, all things considered. Ryou had picked up the baby and was frantically trying to comfort her, but his efforts were obviously fruitless. Grunting, the Thief King scanned the room for something to stuff in the girl's mouth to silence her.
"Yami," Ryou was saying to him, though he was hard to hear above the wailing. "Help?"
The Thief King cursed under his breath. "What am I supposed to do?" he shouted back. "Knock the thing out?" Ryou gave him the death glare in response. Nevertheless, the Thief King drew nearer to Ryou and the baby, yanking her out of his light's hands. "Shut it!" he growled at the child.
And she did.
Both boys were stunned at the abrupt silence. "She... listened." Ryou paused and looked at his yami warily. "...How did you do that?"
"I-I have no idea," the Thief King said, trying to keep the surprised stutter out of his voice. He held the girl out as far from him as his arms could reach, as if she would explode any second. She only cooed.
"No, yami, really! How did you-?"
"I have no bloody idea!" he snapped before getting himself under control and placing the baby back in her basket. She stretched her chubby little arms up to him, making little "unh! unh!" noises.
"I think she wants something," said Ryou after a moment.
"What, then? The milk?"
"You might as well try it. I think we have some straws in the silverware drawers."
"What good would straws be?"
"You can't expect a baby to drink out of a cup, yami," said Ryou, his tone clearly adding a "no duhhh" to his statement. "Try dribbling it in her mouth."
"Fine," the Thief King said, once again leaving the room for the kitchen in order to heat some milk.
Suddenly, Ryou and the Thief King both went deaf!
Or that's what it felt like, since the baby started screaming her head off at the moment the door closed. And man, that girl had a pair of lungs on her. Ryou clamped his hands over his head as his yami swung the door back open again.
"What is it now?" he yelled, re-approaching the baby. She made no answer (her mouth already occupied with the screeching, of course) until he bent down and picked her up, sorely tempted to shake her until she no longer made noise at all. At that moment she again stopped crying.
Ryou burst out laughing.
"What?" the Thief King said angrily, still glaring at the baby in his arms (who was then reaching for locks of his fluffy white hair, which were tantalizingly only inches away).
"I think she wants you!" Ryou said amidst his laughter.
The Thief King scowled at the baby, trying to think up some retort. Finally he had to satisfy himself with the ever-so-witty, "...No."
"She does!" The baby wiggled her fingers stiffly and chirped in agreement.
"'Not good with kids,' my foot." Ryou chuckled. "I'll get the milk ready. You two can stay in here and get to know each other better."
"I'm not good with kids! I loathe children!" the Thief King argued as Ryou hustled his bustle the heck out of there, sniggering all the while. It took the Thief King a couple valuable seconds to realize he was being abandoned to the mercy of the baby. "...Get back here!" he bellowed as soon as he noticed.
No answer came from the kitchen.
He gritted his teeth and focused his attention on the baby in his arms, who had managed to catch hold of a bit of his hair and was waving it about like a trophy. "You," he said sulkily, "you are turning out to be a great deal of trouble, you know that?"
She blathered something in half-syllabic baby talk back to him.
He sighed, doing his best to ignore the heart-melting cuteness exuding from the baby. "You're getting heavy." He shrugged a shoulder to move her hand, making her let go of his hair. "And don't touch my hair."
She whined in the back of her throat.
His eye twitched as he fought to keep his expression grumpy. "Come here, you little monster," he muttered, plopping down on the couch and setting her on his lap firmly. "You'll be on your best behaviour for the Great King of Thieves, won't you?"
She sat there, gazing up at him with shining innocent orbs that betrayed nothing foul or devious about them. If the most evil person on the planet were to look into those eyes for a full minute, they'd be convinced the world was nothing but puppy dogs, sunshine, and flowers. That's how innocent those orbs of hers were. Or "eyes of hers," I guess, but orbs sounds much more beautiful and innocent, right? Yes. Yes, it does.
The Thief King just hardened his expression as he looked at her before finally relenting in the face of her power of pure cuteness (though if asked, he would have claimed this to certainly not be the case). "Hmph," he hmphed, trying to save face (because goodness knows he had a bad-boy reputation to uphold, even if the only one watching was an infant). "You had better behave." He watched silently as she jiggled herself up and down on his lap. For support, he slipped an arm under her head. "Don't wiggle your bloody head off, now."
All was well until the Thief King's ears pricked at a muffled giggling sound from behind him. Swivelling his head to face the doorway, he caught a glimpse of a guilty Ryou's head peeking in before it disappeared along with the sound of hasty retreating footsteps. The Thief King's face burned.
"Now look what you did!" he growled to the baby. Ryou was never going to let him live that "Precious Moments with Baby" snapshot down.
Showing no signs of guilt at all, the girl made another grab for his hair and yanked, chirping again and cutting the Thief King off mid-complaint.
"Little monster," he repeated. "Let go of my hair!"
Yeah, remember when I said the Thief King's hair was going to be a minor player in this story?
(This is your cue to say, "That's right, Donne/author-whose-name-I-don't-know! You did!")
...I lied.
The Thief King meanwhile was wrestling the baby's clumsy hands away, sharply commanding the girl to let go and borderling-threatening her for her blatant, remorseless disobedience.
He couldn't help but wonder if she were more evil when crying or when giggling.