Chapter Text
“Another, Papa, another!”
Tyler knew he shouldn’t give in to his toddler’s demands; hell it’s probably parenting rule number two, right after not letting them run with scissors. At first, he had figured there was no harm in giving in just once, but he had told himself that three stories ago and he knew deep in his soul he could not do another. So he looked into his little dictator’s deep obsidian eyes and put his foot down.
Sort of.
“How about you tell me a story, Nyx?”
The child’s eyes lit up at the idea. “Like Mama?”
Tyler smiled and nodded, but if his three-year-old began to describe a gruesome, bloody crime scene right out of his wife’s bestselling novels, he may have to throw in the towel for the night.
Although part of him wouldn't be surprised.
He could tell that Nyx was taking his new job with as much seriousness as his little body could muster. He sat up in his bed, his spine ramrod straight and so very like his mother’s everyday posture. He pushed the few unruly strands of midnight hair that had managed to escape his braid out of his face.
His parents have been waiting for his signal that he wanted it cut, but Nyx had no plans to do so anytime soon. He enjoyed the feeling of his mother’s hands running through his hair to braid it every morning and night. It was their special time. Even when she was busy and on a deadline, he knew his Mama would be there, brush in hand, cool hands ready to soothe and massage his scalp before plaiting the hair that was identical to her own into a neat singular braid down his back.
It also must be said the amount he enjoyed whipping the braid around like a tail was also a huge factor in his decision.
And so, serious as a heart attack, the child began his tale.
Or rather his parents’ tale. His absolute favorite.
“Once upon a time, there was a scary lonely monster and a spooky brave girl…”
It was a story Nyx had heard countless times, but he couldn’t help but change a few of the finer details as he described a young girl in all black finally meeting the frightful 20-foot monster to which Tyler simply raised his eyebrows but allowed his son to continue his story.
The story Nyx was telling his father was not the complete one. While Nyx’s monster was a beastly, fearful thing to behold, it only terrorized the townsfolk. In this story, innocents didn’t die and a bigoted woman did not mold the monster boy with her twisted, repulsive, agonizing ways to do her bidding.
Tyler promised himself that he would one day tell his youngest child the complete unabridged tale, but tonight all the small boy knew was that the tale’s brave dark heroine defeated the monster and saved the boy that lived inside it. The same boy she had grown to deeply and dreadfully love.
And as Tyler hoped, when it came time for the now 60-foot monster to fight the clever girl, the child’s eyes began to droop and his words became a slurred mumble as sleep finally took hold of him for the night. A kiss on the forehead and blankets tucked tightly around him sealed the deal.
Once he was sure that the child was deeply asleep, he got up and closed the heavy blinds, flooding the room in the pitch-black darkness his children preferred when they slept.
Maybe it was his fatherly instinct or maybe it was his Hyde senses that told him there was someone else in the room.
“You can come out now,” he whispered, low enough that it wouldn’t disturb Nyx but he knew the intruder could hear.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow soundlessly move forward until it was right in front of him in the doorway of his son’s room. All four-foot-two-inches of his oldest daughter stood in front of him, glaring with hazel eyes that seemed to slightly glow in the dark.
“You know, if you wanted to hear the story, you could have just joined us.”
The glaring continued. Tyler let out a quiet chuckle before gently leading her out of the room with his hand on her reddish-brown curls, closing her brother’s door and walking across the hall toward her own bedroom.
While Nyx’s room was still very much a baby’s room, with the only decor being placed there by his parents, Tyler was happy to see small personal touches beginning to fill his daughter's room. A black leather-bound diary that cursed anyone that dared read it other than the diary’s owner, Dahlia Addams Galpin, a fencing kit sat on the floor on the corner from where she carelessly threw it after her lesson, in a hurry to join her family for dinner, next to the that a pair of pale ballet slippers were placed carefully on the floor. A beginner taxidermy kit that had been gifted to her by her great Uncle Fester sat on her desk, and countless books on countless subjects sat scattered on every available surface. A salt lamp on her nightstand illuminated the room in a soft glow.
His daughter was growing up, and at six years old, the topic of Nevermore would be brought up in only a few years, along with the testing needed to determine her outcast designation, and Tyler wasn’t blind; he knew his eldest had inherited more than just his looks.
He was standing in the room’s doorway while Dahlia got into her bed. Finally, once she was settled into her bed, sitting upright like a queen, she resumed her glaring before informing him of his wrongdoing.
“Why did you let him tell it all wrong?”
Tyler huffed out a small laugh, “I wouldn’t say it was wrong --”
“Your Hyde is not 20 feet tall, Dad,” she deadpanned. “Much less 60.”
Her father raised his eyebrows jokingly, “And how would you know that? Maybe I had a growth spurt?”
Dahlia rolled her eyes and turned her head to hide her small smile, Her father was absurd.
The young girl leaned back into her pillows, and her father moved further into the room, intending to tuck her like he did her younger brother before she stopped him.
“I do not need you to tuck me in.”
Tyler raised his hands, “My apologies, ma petite vipere.” And pivoted towards the door, knowing he would be stopped in 3… 2… 1…
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Tyler smiled and turned back toward his daughter. Blankets tucked around her and her head not fully resting on her pillow, presenting him her forehead. His baby girl was still in there after all.
Dahlia rolled her eyes at the enthusiasm her father tried and failed to hide.
After kissing her on the forehead and turning off her salt lamp, plunging her room into darkness, he closed her door.
With his hands on his hips, Tyler stood in the hallway in between his children’s rooms and allowed his happiness to settle in his bones. His enhanced senses let him hear his kids' even deep breaths and their steady heartbeats through their bedroom doors. And like it did so often nowadays, he felt his Hyde calmly stir inside him, proud and content in the fact that his children, his progeny, were safe and warm under his protection.
Tyler let out a satisfied sigh before moving towards the bedroom he shared with his wife, sure he would find her still typing away at her typewriter burning the midnight oil to ensure her manuscript reached her editor’s hands by her deadline. He knew he would have to coax her into bed as she repeatedly stated that she would just write one more page, one more paragraph, one more word until she would be lulled to sleep in her husband's warm arms.
Before sleep fully took her, she mumbled one last question, “How many stories did he force out of you tonight?”
She was fully asleep before Tyler could answer her.