Chapter Text
Vincent Callahan was known for many things but one of the traits that Durandal complained the most about was the fact that he was a heavy sleeper. Usually this meant that he was the last to wake up, occasionally doing so when Durandal got impatient and employed what Vince regarded as excessive measures to wake him up.
Which was why it was a surprise when he woke up one morning to find himself both far from alone in bed and the only one currently awake. Durandal was on the other side of the bed, hair spread out everywhere, legs bent forwards to press against Vince’s and face oddly solemn in sleep. In the gap between them was an equally asleep little boy who Vince was ninety-eight percent certain was a perfect copy of himself at that age.
To say that Ethan had been a surprise was an understatement, fatherhood being something that neither of them wanted, expected, or even thought about. In fact, it shouldn’t even have been possible given that not only were they two guys but one of them wasn’t even organic.
But then the universe apparently decided to take that as a challenge and inflicted upon them an improbable chain of events involving their weird luck, slightly malfunctioning alien technology, and what some may argue was poor decision making given that the reasons why the two of them shouldn’t even think about being parents could fill a hanger. The result of said chain of events was them being saddled with a healthy male toddler (thankfully both the alien technology and the universe had decided to cut them some slack and allow them to skip the most helpless and breakable stages) who wasn’t exactly Vince’s clone. As he understood it, it was all his DNA but it had been shuffled about a bit, although sometimes he suspected that despite it going against all laws of both common sense and science there was somehow a bit of Durandal in there as well. The kid was way too smart for his age and was entirely too good at using said smarts to cause trouble. Among other things he’d made a fairly good attempt at hacking one of the Rozinante’s computer terminals at an age where most kids are still getting to grips with two plus two equals four, albeit only because Durandal had been inclined to see how far he could get rather than putting a stop to it as soon as he’d begun.
Right now though he was the picture of chubby cheeked innocence. In fact, the scene was at odds with those currently in it in general. To an outsider it would have looked like just a young family in a quiet moment of domestic bliss, with nothing to indicate that one was an AI who was feared across half the galaxy, another had greatly helped the former to gain said reputation and had an only slightly less infamous one of his own amongst certain species, and the third was a pint-sized galactic menace in training.
The realization that his life had gone against all expectations and somehow ended arrived at some bizarre variation of domesticity had been a weird moment for Vince and it was still weird for him to think about it. But right now he wouldn’t change it for the world.