Chapter Text
Gavin opens his eyes to find the room dark. No light peeking through the blinds. It’s quiet except for the slow breathing of his partners. He tries to close his eyes and go back to sleep, but to no avail. He turns over, looking to the digital clock on the nightstand. 5:04 a.m. Deciding it’s not worth it to battle with sleep for another couple of hours, he gets up and pads over to the kitchen for a glass of water.
After stopping in the kitchen for his water, Gavin remembers his freelancer’s texts saying that they would be home late from studying a few extra hours and would just sleep on the couch to not wake anyone. He smiles to himself thinking about how hard they’ve been working recently; improving on their magic at every chance they get. He carefully walks over to the couch, footsteps so gentle for someone his size.
When he gets to the couch he stops dead in his tracks. Shock and a bit of fear flood his brain. The glass of water nearly ends up shattered on the floor, but Gavin pulls himself out of his thoughts and reminds himself to breathe, eyes still glued to the sight in front of him. A small child laying on their stomach, head turned to the side, small breaths leaving their nose as they sleep. The child is covered by the couch blanket and wearing a shirt that’s much too big for them. Gavin recognizes it as Freelancer’s favorite sleep shirt. Thoughts race through his mind of what could be going on. Thoughts such as: Is this some kind of prank? Where’s freelancer? Where would they even have found a child? ‘Whose goddamn white baby is that?’ Are they okay? I’m not good with kids, what am I even supposed to do with it?!
He stares at the child still contemplating his thoughts. It isn’t until now after he’s calmed down that he realized that this tiny human is emitting a faint aura. Unempowered people don’t have auras, so why does this child have one? Gavin focuses his magic towards the child, reaching out to feel their aura. He lets out a small gasp when he feels the aura of his favorite freelancer reverberating back to him. He takes a step back and sits down on the coffee table, setting his glass of water next to him. He brings his hands to his face and rests his elbows on his knees.
He sits like that for a while. Constantly thinking about how that could be his freelancer and how this could have happened.
After about thirty minutes of staring at them they start to stir and their eyes begin to flutter open. Gavin’s breathing and heart rate increase when he realizes they’re waking up. Freelancer stretches a bit and pushes themselves up into a sitting position. They start to look around while rubbing their eyes. They notice Gavin, but continue looking around, taking in their surroundings. They stop and look straight in front of them. Then, tears are welling in their eyes and they sniffle and before Gavin can do anything to stop it, a tiny freelancer is crying on the couch in front of him.
Gavin’s heart breaks in that moment. He never likes to see his freelancer sad and he especially doesn’t like to see them crying. But this is different. Freelancer’s a child. He’s never been good with children. He’s not built for it. Most of the time children are just intimidated or scared by him. And to think that freelancer might be scared of him right now almost makes him want to cry as well. The idea that they might not know who he is or where they are didn’t even cross his mind.
He hesitates for a moment, unsure of what to do.
“Hey, it’s okay! It’s okay, don’t cry! Please don’t cry.” He says nervously, reaching out his arms. He picks them up and places them on his hip. Freelancer still cries and wails despite Gavin's shushing. His mind races with ideas of what he could do to have them calm down. Most of the things he would normally do to help them calm down wouldn’t work because they’re so small and they also don’t recognize him. He can’t talk to them like he would if they were their normal age. He thinks back to conversations with them where they talked about their childhood and how they loved going to butterfly gardens and watching how the butterflies gracefully floated around them, just out of reach above their head. They reminisced on how the butterflies looked just like fairies, filling the garden with magic and wonder.
Illusion magic fills the air surrounding the freelancer. Their crying slows down as they observe what’s happening around them. The magic swirls and flows, conglomerating into one point until . .
Poof!
A yellow butterfly materializes in the air in front of them. Their crying stops out of a bit of surprise. Gavin makes quick work of having the butterfly dance through the room, even having it get close enough to the freelancer for them to reach out and try to touch it. His heart is so happy. His freelancer stopped crying! He made them smile! He’s never made a kid smile before. A grin forms on his face as he watches them be so happy. He has the butterfly float down and rest on their nose. Their eyes cross when they try to look at it and Gavin releases a soft chuckle at how cute they look.
“Mornin’ . . .” Damien says groggily, followed by a yawn. Gavin whips his head around towards the fire elemental. The butterfly disappears with a small poof that leaves freelancer blinking aggressively and sniffing like they’re about to sneeze a few times. Damien is standing at the entrance of the hallway stretching and yawning once more. He wipes the tiredness from his eyes. When he looks up his eyes dart between Gavin and the freelancer being held in his arms. Gavin stands there appearing as if he has something to hide or is guilty about something.
“. . . . Why do you have a baby?” Damien asks.
“This . . is . . freelancer . . .” Gavin holds them a little bit further out in front of him.
“. . How is that freelancer?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how it happened, or why, but when I came out here they were sleeping on the couch like freelancer said they would be last night, and of course they’re wearing their clothes, and when I felt their aura it felt exactly like freelancer’s.” Gavin explains.
Damien looks at them, brows furrowed, pondering what’s been said.
“So you’re saying freelancer’s somehow been turned into their young self . . ?” Damien inquires.
“Maybe.” Gavin replies.
Damien sighs. “I need coffee.”
“Here. You take them. I’ll make the coffee.” Gavin says holding out freelancer for Damien to take.
“Wh- no, you don’t need to-” Damien’s cut-off by Gavin pushing freelancer into his arms. Damien lets out a small noise as he looks at the small version of his partner. Their eyes are exactly the same, staring back at his own. They may not recognize him, but he can sure as hell recognize them. Their eyes, their nose, their lips, even their eyebrows and the way they move. All of the things he’s grown to love about his partner, just . . . smaller. His eyes move to freelancer’s hand as they extend it towards him.
“Wha-” Freelancer places a small hand on Damien’s cheek. He instantly melts at their touch. Feeling his warmth, freelancer retracts their hand and curl themself into his chest. He takes his hand that was supporting their side and places it on their back rubbing up and down with his thumb.
Damien’s never been good with kids, either. Most of the time they want nothing to do with him, and if they do, they’re quickly turned off by his bad attitude, or come to find that his heat is too much for them and makes them uncomfortable. So to have such a small child snuggling into him and embracing his warmth makes his heart swell with pride.
He’s taken out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder. He turns his head to see Gavin with a gentle smile on his lips. He leans in for a kiss, chaste and sweet. When he pulls away Gavin hands him a mug of coffee.
“Do you want me to take them?” Gavin asks sincerely.
“No it’s okay. I don’t mind.” There’s a certain softness in Damien’s voice that Gavin isn’t too familiar with. The incubus only smiles in response.
When Huxly and Lasko get up Damien and Gavin are on the couch finishing their coffee and lightly talking.
“Mornin’!” Huxley calls.
“Good morning.” Lasko chimes.
“Okay, little debriefing,” Gavin says without turning around to look at them. He lifts freelancer up above his head, “This is freelancer. We don’t know how or why they’re like this, but they’re really fucking adorable.”
Damien chuckles to himself and gets up to take their mugs into the kitchen.
“Uh, sorry . . . what?” Huxley asks, stunned.
“We think freelancer got turned into their young self somehow. And Gavin’s right, they’re really stinkin’ cute.” Damien pipes up from the kitchen.
Lasko stammers, flabbergasted. Gavin stands from the couch with freelancer in his arms and steps around out of the way of the couch. Lasko walks up to them and stares at freelancer. They stare right back at him and reach their arms out to him indicating they want to be held by him.
“O-oh um, a-alright,” Lasko says, taking them from Gavin’s arms. They gaze up at Lasko with those big blinking eyes. Their hand reaches up to his face, but instead of touching it they grab his glasses and pull them off of his face to look at.
“Wha- hah,” Lasko laughs as he watches freelancer examine his glasses.
“Oh! No, don’t do that.” Lasko exclaims when freelancer tries to put the corner of the frames in their mouth.
Hux laughs, “Here, let me take them.” Lasko gives freelancer over to Huxley and cleans his glasses with the bottom of his shirt.
Almost immediately after being picked up, freelancer rests their head on Huxley’s shoulder.
“Awwww,” they all coo.
Damien steps over next to Huxley and puts his finger up for freelancer to take. They grasp his finger with their small hand and bring it to their mouth. He doesn’t think his knuckle would make a very good snack, but freelancer decides otherwise.
“Guys, I think they might be hungry,” Damien giggles.
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