#so real story my younger cousin stole my book once and tried to flush it down the toilet because I wasn't paying attention to her

[arrowflier]

Hi! Love your daily speedwrites and I look forward to them everyday! Can you write a fic where Ian and Mickey are like in their mid to late 30s/early 40s and they're dealing with their preteen kids? Babysat my niece (11) and nephew (7) today and boy they're a handful. Made me wonder how Ian and Mickey would handle the kind of meltdowns I dealt with today. Thanks!!

Here goes nothing! I don't remember being either of those ages and have no kids in my life lol so we'll see how this goes.

"Ian, have you seen your daughter's shoes?" Mickey calls from the living room.

Ian, busy putting together lunches in the kitchen, rolls his eyes and shouts back, "Which daughter?"

"Jesus, Ian, I'm right fucking here," Mickey complains from behind him, having apparently extended his search to the space under the kitchen table. "And which one do you think, asshole, the one that can't tie her shoes yet."

"Really?" Ian muses as he slices a sandwich in two and places each half in a separate ziploc bag. "I thought you were working on that, Brit had it down when she was six."

"That's because the Brat," Mickey answers as he moves on to poke through the mess of jackets and bags at the back door, "takes after me. Kid handles shit."

"And Mina doesn't?" Ian asks, affronted, and Mickey straightend up just enough to give him an annoyed look.

"No, she doesn't," he says, then expands, "your little Minnow keeps following in your footsteps."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ian questions.

And, as if on cue, a blood-curdling shriek sounds from the next room.

"Give it back!" comes a different voice, cutting through the wordless scream, and Ian and Mickey meet each other's eyes with twin looks of horror.

"Not it," they claim at the same time, then Mickey is shoving Ian through the archway into the other room.

"Already dealing with her other stupid shit," he mutters under his breath, kicking at the back of Ian's leg when he doesn't move fast enough. "You get to deal with this stupid shit."

Then he abandons Ian and high-tails it back to the kitchen, leaving his husband to face two screeching children on his own.

Ian sighs at the image before him. Little Mina is clutching a book to her chest, yelling in her sister's face as Brit tries to take it back from her. Brit is clearly getting increasingly frustrated, and when she starts clawing at her little sister's arms, Ian steps in.

"Hey, hey, no," he chastises, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her back. "You know we don't do that."

Mina struggles in his hold, but he tightens his grip until she stops, pouting sullenly and glaring daggers at Mina, who had finally stopped screaming when Ian appeared.

"But she took it," Brit whines, halfheartedly slapping at Ian's hands. "I was reading it, and she came up and she took it from me."

Mina just blinks innocently, her big doe eyes shining. "My book," she asserts, hugging it and twisting her body back and forth.

Ian represses the urge to roll his eyes at her.

"Mina," he starts gently--maybe too gently, by the way Brit immediately scoffs--, "You can't even read yet."

"Can too," Mina insists. "Daddy let me read the...the...," she pauses, searching for the word she wanted. "The letter!" she finally finishes triumphantly, and Ian feels his eyebrows rising.

"Did he now?" he asks, but Brit cuts him off with a snort.

"She means a letter," she tells their father. "Dad taught her one letter yesterday, and now she thinks she can read!"

Ian sighs again. It feels like he's always doing that, lately. Thankfully, he's saved from having to continue the mediation by Mickey popping his head in from the kitchen.

"Hey, bus is here!" he informs them. "Come on rugrats, get moving. Mina, come here so I can get your damn shoes on."

Mina goes running, dropping the book to the ground now that new events have her attention.

"But my book," Brit whines when Ian starts pushing her toward the door at the opposite side of the room.

"Will be here when you get back," he promises. "And you can even read in our room after school if you want."

"Can I lock the door?" Brit asks as she gets her own shoes on and grabs her backpack.

"We'll see," Ian compromises, and takes the lunchbag Mickey passes to him as he enters the room behind a running Mina in her light-up tennis shoes.

He tucks the bag into the backpack Brit is already wearing, opens the door, and ushers them both out. The girls both run down the front steps and along the sidewalk to the corner where the school bus awaits, looking back at their dads once they get in line to board.

Ian lifts a hand to wave goodbye.

"Thank god they're someone else's problem for a few hours," Ian murmurs, his smile barely shifting as he continues to wave them off.

"Tell me about it," Mickey agrees, hiding his own face in a mug of stale coffee.

"You're on laundry duty, by the way," Mickey adds as the bus pulls away and they turn to head into the house. "Had to strip the sheets again this morning."

Ian lets his head fall with a groan, and Mickey just pats him on the back on his way inside.

"And you better hurry up," he tacks on, "cause we got pickups today, Red."

Ian groans again, planting his hands on the porch railing so he can lean over and glare at the ground. If he had realized having his own kids was this much harder than watching his siblings, maybe he wouldn't have pushed so hard for it.

With a final sigh, he gets up, and gets to it.