#alice teasing jasper about his cooking when simon is getting exasperated by how hopeless she is when he teaches her

[goldeneyedgirl]

So....more of baby-verse?

Y'all are going to come for me when you see the Official Babyverse and it is nothing like what I'm posting. But I did whip this up for you to enjoy.

And tumblr ate the ending (never write fic directly on tumblr guys; you will lose it), so it's not perfect.

The quiet of the house is almost unnerving to him, as he carefully gathers up the toys discarded on the floor of his study. Alice had warned the entire family not to go overboard, but they had ignored her and now Ollie's toys seemed to occupy every room. Esme tried to keep everything under control with baskets, but there was always another block, another truck, another little wooden animal to find.

It was one of the rare weekends where he was home alone - Carlisle and Esme were off hunting right up in Canada, Emmett and Rosalie had taken a couple of weeks to go to New York, and Edward was most likely at the Swans, helping Bella make wedding plans.

Usually that meant Alice would be at the Cullens with Ollie - and he loved and looked forward to those nights where they could just live in the moment like a normal young family - Alice would make dinner, Ollie would tear through the house like a whirlwind, and it was just a night of simple joys. That had even been the plan until Alice had found out her father was getting an award at the school he taught at, and had wanted his daughters to be present at the dinner.

It was a no-brainer that he would take Ollie for the weekend; it wasn't the first that he'd been alone caring for his son, but Ollie was firmly in what David Brandon called the 'terrible twos', and far more active than the last time he hadn't had a second pair of hands. It had been a long-ass night of getting a giggling two-year-old into the high chair, to feed him the dinner that Alice had brought over (he might have a handle on many of the aspects of childcare, but preparing edible food was something that he just could not get a handle on - anything more complicated than juice and a cut-up banana was just inviting trouble), to get him bathed and tucked into his crib.

But there was something terribly satisfying about it, even as Ollie darted into Rosalie and Emmett's room to wriggle under their bed dripping bathwater everywhere, because of his boy's sheer happiness. There was no fear or apprehension, just a baby's innocent joy and a constant stream of baby-babble. Even at bedtime, rubbing his eyes and demanding his plush bear and 'Mama', he hadn't been distressed. Just tired and irritable. But he'd gone to bed agreeably, singing to himself for a little while before he had dozen off. Hell, he'd even left Ollie's pacifier in the bag - Alice would be delighted.

Finishing the tidying, Jasper stretched out on the couch. Edward and Emmett had both made jokes about Jasper fucking this up now that Oliver was known to get into anything, anywhere, and Rosalie had been dubious about the plan. But everything was fine. The dishes were done, the toys were cleaned up, and Ollie was asleep. It was genuinely disappointing Alice wasn't coming over tonight; they could have squeezed in some kind of micro-date night. Ice cream and dancing in his study wasn't much and he felt bad that he and Alice never seemed to make it out to their fancy Seattle dates, but Alice was always happy, and that was always the goal. The little whimper was headed into a wail when Jasper finally realised what the sound was, and ventured into the room opposite the study; it was ostensibly Alice's room, but Esme had paused the work on Ollie's bedroom for wedding planning, so they had set up his crib at the end of the bed. And he was standing up with his bear, teary-faced and worried in his bright blue and yellow footie pyjamas. "Daddy," Ollie whimpered, reaching up for him, and it was a moment that made Jasper freeze entirely, staring down at his crying son. There was never a moment when Jasper didn't claim Oliver as his own; more than one Forks' gossip had mentioned Ollie, or spotted the photo of him and Alice on his phone screen, or the photo of Ollie haphazardly crammed into his wallet, and he had confirmed that yes, Oliver was his son. His boy. It was an abstract concept, on that made panic prick at him a little. That there was this vulnerable human baby, and he was responsible for him. The fact that Alice was his partner and co-conspirer in keeping Oliver happy and healthy was one of his main reassurances. There was absolutely nothing that Alice could not do, and her complete certainty in every single choice regarding their child - whether it was something small like the brand of shampoo they used, to the bigger things like schools and their future - gave him the confidence that maybe this would be one of those things he could do. The thing that he could hold close and look back on as knowing he had done his best and his best was enough. 

But Ollie had never called him Daddy - Alice referred to Jasper as such when talking to Ollie, but Ollie had never taken up the term. And it hadn’t worried him - he was absent in those early days, and Alice still lived with her parents and spent the majority of her time there (Esme had been hinting that everyone would be fine if Alice moved in permanently, but Alice wasn’t ready for that. They had talked about the future in detail, and their plan was to be living together full-time by the time Ollie started school. And - the part he didn’t want to admit to Esme - was that if they were still in Forks then, it would be the Brandon’s house he would most likely move to, not the other way around.)

Ollie called Alice ‘-Ama’ first, having a hard time with the first ‘m’. His first word had been ‘up’, demanding a cuddle. And Jasper had become ‘Ja’ or ‘Jas’, mimicking Alice, and fitting in with what Ollie called the rest of the family - Rosalie was secretly smitten with the way Ollie called for his ‘Ro’, and Edward loathed being called ‘Ed’ but knew better than to correct Ollie or take it up with Alice. 

But Daddy? That was… that was a lot more than a name or title. It was a promise, a declaration of something that felt much larger than Jasper felt capable of providing. That was… that was like the way he called Alice ‘mama’ when he was sleepy, curled in her arms as she read him some painfully repetitive bedtime story, when he had his bottle and just fell asleep sprawled across her with the absolute trust of the young. The way he clung to his bear when he got worried or nervous. It was a big thing, and it made Jasper feel very very old and impossibly young. 

Ollie let out another whimper, and his instincts kicked in, to scoop up his boy and hold him carefully close; the rocking motion Alice used kicking in subconsciously as Ollie let out little hiccuping cries and buried his face against Jasper’s shoulder.

Daddy. It was… it was something warm, somehow impossibly strong and certain but also very fragile in his mind. A gesture of trust and affection and happiness. Something he would only get offered once. 

And he could only try.  

“It’s okay, Ollie, I’ve got you,” he said, pressing a stray kiss into his son’s hair. “I’ve got you.”