Repost- Arthur and Bertie as parents (aka beings, the next generation)

[thatrcooper]

orbisonblue:

@sweetfirebird I would like to hear more about Ralphie, if you’re willing.
(My phone won’t let me send you an Ask, for some reason)

Ralphie. Precious stressed out junior Ralphie. I think he wants to be a teacher. Nothing fancy. Sort of a simple werewolf (he thinks) with simple dreams. Maybe a bit lonely without a pack at his chosen college, but he has friends, he’s doing okay. Grades are good. Like sports, but you know beings aren’t allowed on teams with humans. Which is some bullshit, but the weres tend to let it go, since they are capable of accidentally inflicting serious damage. So he studies and he walks a lot, since he is in Madera, and the woods are too far away for a run, and he ends up passing by this one house a lot.

This one house, and sometimes a different part of campus. But he doesn’t think anything of it, even though everyone knows that’s a dragon’s house (and a professor’s house!) and it’s so filled with magic it makes his nose itch. But his walks lead him there, and it’s sort of… calming… to see the house everyday.

Until one day the door opens and an older man, with gray in his blond hair, comes out to ask what he wants. And Ralphie realizes he has been staring at the house for about ten minutes .

“Bertie, that boy has been by our house everyday this week.” 

“Bertie, he’s just standing there, rubbing his nose.” 

“Bertie are you listening to me? I’m going to go ask what he wants.” 

I imagine at this point Arthur is of two minds. Part of him is demanding he go out and defend his family and castle from this random stranger, but his mother hen instincts are on red alert because look how sad and waifish this poor lost wolf is. 

aha Parent!Arthur is so confused (omg. Arthur and Joe’s mom. I bet she wins. I bet she wants to feed Arthur soup forever and he lets her) but he has to do something. And Bertie is reading and distracted, and it is going to take him at least twenty minutes to realize what Arthur said. But Arthur trusts the wards, and he trusts his instincts, and he also has seen his kids through several admirers over the years, and he assumes this wolf has a crush on one of his kids.)

Poor Ralphie is so horrified to be caught, but Arthur is so very magnetic and parental and he spends a moment just frozen, weirdly undecided about what to do. He probably would have run away if Eddie hadn’t come out to provide support for his dad. 

I don’t think Eddie is tattooed up like Zeki. I don’t think he needs that sort of focus, because he doesn’t do multidisciplinary the way that Zeki does. This earnest, distracted studious figure, with tremendous control (because magic) and a deep appreciation for knowledge, and very little sense of embarrassment. But, he did grow up in a house full of people, with almost no alone time or privacy, so the idea of having a mate–of someone who is for him alone–is the best thing ever.

Not that he knows about that yet, when he goes outside and finds a were apologizing to his dad. Tall, but all weres are. And built (but all weres are) and cute, and he obviously doesn’t know what sort of house he is dealing because he is making all this effort to seem unthreatening to the human in front of him, and yeah, Eddie’s dad is hardly going to be afraid of one werewolf.

Then the werewolf looks up and notices Eddie and sort of freezes for a second, and then blinks and shakes his head and focuses on Arthur again. But a moment later his attention drifts to Eddie as he walks up to meet them. And his apologies die off as he takes a deep breath. He seems to be having trouble focusing. Or maybe that is speaking. His eyes flash a few times, turn ferocious brown gold before returning to brown.

Arthur is calm about it, despite how strange it sounds. But he fostered more than one were. He knows how their instincts can lead them strange places sometimes. “So you find our house’s scent calming? It must be, if you’re willing to get used to the itchy magic smell.”

“It won’t itch once you learn to accept how magic works,” Eddie offers, calmly, like when one of the little ones has a bad dream. He doesn’t know why he’s implying that the werewolf will continue to come around, except that his dad might invite him in. Arthur does that.

“Itch?” The wolf asks, almost comically confused for someone still rubbing his noise. “No. It’s the best scent in the world,” he remarks. Which is a little too polite of him, but Arthur will like the show of manners.

Eddie is very pleased to know the wolf is polite, that he is impressing Arthur., although he doesn’t get a chance to think why. Because the wolf looks at him again and this time his eyes are definitely wolf, as well as wide and amazed, and he says, “You!” in a shocked whisper a moment before he bolts and runs full speed down the street.

Eddie is left standing there, extremely confused and abruptly a little upset for no good reason. “What was that about?” he feels suddenly adrift and more than a little lost. “Do you think he’s okay?” and as soon as he asks that he freaks out a little because what if he’s not okay? 

Arthur, next to him, is very quickly putting two and two together. And when they get into the house Bertie is suddenly paying A LOT more attention because his son is upset. Who has upset his son? 

(In my head I imagine that some of these kids are adopted out of the foster system, and maybe one or two adopted as babies in a more traditional fashion. After a few kids though their house starts marinating in all the magic happy, secure being children radiate and suddenly it’s a beacon for kids in need of family and safety and more than one being child just kind of, shows up. Usually this ends pretty simply with a trip to child services and an uncomfortable social worker who can’t really argue that they aren’t properly caring for the child. 

This is great for the kids in foster care because officials are way more careful to make sure kids aren’t miserable because if they are there’s a good chance Bertie and Arthur will find out about it and be unhappy. Nobody likes it when Bertie and Arthur come in unhappy. 

Once though a kid shows up with no clear origin and then Bertie goes on the warpath trying to figure out where this kid is from because if they can’t keep this child Arthur is going to be broken hearted and that is unacceptable. The MacArthur-Jones household is never boring.)

It’s like this magical Cheaper by the Dozen house. And Arthur gets gray hairs, and he worries over all of them, and he LOVES it. (And maybe, with those kind of parents, so fucking in love all the time, the kids grow up with these ideals about love as well and OH GOD OH GOD I TURNED IT INTO INGLESIDE. OH GOD. IT’S ANNE AND GILBERT AT INGLESIDE.

AND NO. NOPE. IT’S THE SAME, BUT NOT WITH WALTER. NOT LIKE THAT.

 

AND OOOOHHHH THAT MAKES YOU KNOW WHO RILLA OMGGGG)