[Fic] Sunshine and Shadow

[kittydesade]

Title: Sunshine and Shadow
Fandom: Very, very loosely Dresden Files
Characters: Stephen LaMarck (OC)/Max Parker (OC), with Stella LaMarck (OC)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,922
Summary: Two men and a little lady; a scene in the life of a small portion of a family
A/N: Written for the Prop 8 meme and much, much delayed. Stephen is mine, his lover Max is kikibug13's, and much much thanks to her for being so patient with me while I dragged this out kicking and screaming.

There was still warmth to be had outside, despite the lateness of the season. Solace and Claudia had taken advantage of it by taking Sammy and the twins out for a girls' day out; Stephen was taking advantage of it and the rare time off to be with Max out on the balcony with Stella.

Stephen himself was seated and leaned up against the outer wall of the house, watching Max gravely and deliberately teach Stella how to fold paper into pleasings shapes. It was a pleasure to see. The work was repetitive, motions carried over from one paper crane to the next until she was gravely, deliberately making crane after crane to add to the heap that was growing behind her. It reminded him of a story he had heard long ago, from a Knight of the Cross. One thousand paper cranes would turn into real birds and fly up and carry one wish to the heavens. One thousand paper cranes would grant your most hopeful and dire dream.

He wasn't sure he believed it, but given the world in which they lived, anything was possible.

"Would you even want your fondest wish to be granted," Stephen murmured, half to himself, half to Max. "With all the ways things could happen."

Fold and press and fold over again. Max looked up over at him. "Was there anything in particular you were wishing for?"

"No," Stephen shrugged. Thought about it. He was looking at Stella when he answered. "There are some things... I would like to ... There are some things I could wish were better."

Max understood. Stella hadn't heard, for which Stephen was profoundly grateful because he still wasn't sure how much of the complexities she understood and how much she didn't. She was acutely sensitive to moods, to feelings, even if she couldn't communicate what she was picking up or how. He loved her; she was his daughter, his baby girl, and he loved her dearly. But he wished it didn't have to be this way. And he didn't want her to take slight from that.

"There are always things we wish were better." Max shrugged, turning back by now mostly to supervise the girl and her stack of paper. Young woman, really. Stella was a young woman for all that she was hampered in her ability to process information, communicate with the world outside her own mind. For all that she seemed child-like she wasn't, really. Stephen vacillated wildly over remembering that and still wanting to wrap her up in soft cotton and keep her safe. "That doesn't mean we don't appreciate what we have now."

Stephen smiled over at him. Almost a grin. "If there ever was anyone who was the expert on appreciating what he has now..."

The paper airplane hit him square in the middle of the chest.

"You were saving that up."

"Of course."

Stella went on making paper cranes as Max retreated, having satisfied himself that she had the motions memorized. Repetitive action, rote movements, she could do those as well as anyone else. And she had an eye for color and pattern and the way things went together, too. She was starting her own little rainbow of colored cranes, arcing from her left side to her right, every bird in its place. Stephen admired his daughter at her work so intently that he almost missed Max settling in next to him, with a bit of a low chuckle and an arm around his shoulders. The other man laughed softly, tugged Max into him with an arm around his waist.

"How long do you think she'll go on?"

Stephen snorted. "Until she runs out of paper. And there is quite a lot of paper there."

Max laughed, settling further into him, shoulders slumped a little, back against his chest. It felt good, the weight of him, there. It felt right. "You spoil everyone," Max told him, in a tone that was only mock-admonishing and certainly didn't mind.

"Everyone can use a little spoiling, now and again." He nuzzled a kiss against Max's temple, taking advantage of the comparatively rare opportunity to do so to the taller man. "Besides, it's quite easy to do when I'm spoiled by my own good fortune."

"Mmm." Max chuckled. "Good fortune doesn't have much to do with it, not so much as your inborn talents, anyway." But evidently he didn't feel like debating those points any more than Stephen did. Shyness and self-consciousness had no place in the warmth of the day.

"And what talents would those be, mm?" Mock-modesty, on the other hand, and suggestiveness. Those definitely had their place.

"Talents we can't exactly explore in front of Stella," but he laughed when he said it, and if Stephen had been serious anyway he would have been touching, nuzzling, following up the words with movements and gestures designed to tease Max into an inability to resist. He wasn't serious. Or at least, not immediately so.

He would be more serious later.

"I think we should take the time to explore these talents at great length." They hadn't had the time to relax like this for longer than Stephen would have liked, one job after another, and if it wasn't the job it was something else keeping them away. Work, more work, extra-curricular work, parenting work. "I think we should take more time out of the day for such activities." That, and this. He missed this. Quiet moments like this, with him.

"I think that would take breaking one of the rules," Max said wryly, smiling. "Or the universe taking pity on us and letting us have a breather for once."

He knew it was a stupid idea even as he said it, but the question had been hovering about his mind for at least a year now, if not longer. "You could always move in with us. There's more than enough room, and then..."

Max took a slow, even breath, and let it out just as slow and just as even, and no one but Stephen or Solace or perhaps Claudia would have been able to hear (or feel) the tension in it. Stephen held back the shiver, but he was already beginning to regret having said anything. It had been a stupid idea. Of course not, their lives had always been separate this way, it was a ridiculous idea, of course he didn't want...

"It would be a security risk," Max said finally, the surface of his voice and his expression light, strained and worried underneath. Knowing the potential impact of his words on Stephen. Feeling the way his friend and lover tensed against him; he couldn't help it. Neither of them could. And he would have given a great deal to rewind that time, have Max take those words back, except that he couldn't, nor the pause before them that told Stephen all he needed to know. "It wouldn't be wise. Or responsible. Or anything like that."

"Of course." The sun was shining and the ground was chilling through their slacks, jeans, what have you. The wall was cold against Stephen's back.

Max sighed, sitting up, coming to a straight-backed position and kneeling over the other man's outstretched legs. "Hey." Cupping his face in both hands. "That's not what I meant and you know it, sure as I know what you're thinking right now." While certain activities were forbidden in front of young children, the general public, and Stella, kissing was not. First a gentle kiss, then one slightly less chaste but still gentle. Loving. "I do want to. I want to a lot. But it wouldn't ..."

The world seemed to hold its breath.

"If I let myself say yes, if I let myself go that far, it wouldn't be fair to you. It wouldn't be right. And when something happened, I'd know it was my fault. Because I didn't do everything I could to stop it." Max cupped Stephen's face in both his hands, warmly, his breath still as close as the kiss. "But I am deeply grateful for the invitation." Not question. Not suggestion. It was what it was, and he had no intention to make it anything less. The green eyes found the dark - Max was completely earnest, it did mean a lot to him. Even if it also meant that he had to refuse his friend, and that stung him possibly almost - if not quite - as much as it did Stephen.

Whose hands closed over Max's hands, not to pull him away but just to feel him, the warmth of him between his hands and over his skin. Stephen slid his hands up after a moment's pause, along wrists, arms, up to his shoulders. It wasn't that he disagreed, or that he wanted to object in any way. But his breath still came just a bit ragged and he wasn't sure what to say.

"Stephen..." Power, entirely unintentional, thrummed between them. Names, power, love, power. Deep emotions running so fast and thick through them both, like to carry them off on the currents. Stephen swallowed, closed his eyes, let his head fall forward to rest his forehead against the other man's and take a breath and let go of what had almost happened, what was still happening. Hold onto what was, which was the two of them. No, three of them.

For now Stella was over them, kneeling beside them both and putting her arms around them with an awkwardness so ungainly it was almost grace. "Silly papas," she said.

Stephen chuckled, although at this rate it was more an exhalation of breath than a laugh at all. "Are we silly, do you think?" Stella moved the arm around his shoulders in between the two men, touching the tear that had fallen with a fingertip, as though she had never seen one before.

"Maybe a little." Max kissed his forehead, easier to reach. "With luck, she'll forgive us."

"I love you, papas. What does 'forgive' mean?"

Max turned his head towards her, a little, insomuch as such things were possible the way they were arranged. "It means ... to make it all right when someone's done something wrong? Or silly." Stephen snorted a little, but smiling again. For certain, smiling.

"Oh." There was a pause, because, certainly while people did things wrong in this household (and usually when they did it was quite spectacular) balance and recovery didn't involve the formal speaking of such terms as 'forgiven' and 'redress' or 'recompense.' She turned her head from one papa to the other. "Are things all right again?"

She beamed as Max leaned over and kissed her forehead, and Stephen couldn't quite help but smile a little more, too. It was hard not to, when Stella was in this sort of a mood. "It's in your power to make it so."

Strange, how they were all so attuned to each other. No one in the house had been attuned to anyone when Stephen was growing up.

"I should think so," came out on the exhale, the only sign of the upset that had gone before in the way his arm tightened around Max's shoulders. Stella got a kiss on the forehead from him, too. And then Max with a slightly more lingering kiss on the lips, before Stella nudged her way in to try and settle on both of their laps at once. Stephen laughed. It was a ridiculous sight. "I definitely think so."