Work Text:
Amy stood still, workbag in hand as she took it all in. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows of the living room. Dust motes, dancing on faint drafts and the breeze of subtle movements, spun through the space without consideration for who would have to clean up later. There was not a care to be found in the scissors on the coffee table, or the random smatterings of aluminium foil, or the ribbons. It was, by all accounts, the most silent of all parties Amy had just walked in on.
Shadow snorted quietly on the couch, eyes shut, while Gigi looked up from the strip of yellow paper in her hands and paled.
“Don’t wake him up,” Gigi hissed in a mock whisper.
“I’m not, I’m not.” Amy held up one hand as the other set her bag down quietly. “What are you doing?”
The little girl looked between her father and her mother with an expression of bewilderment, as though unsure of how to explain the very obvious.
There, on the couch next to her, Shadow lay asleep. One hand was thrown over the arm rest behind his head while the other lay across his chest. This was, by all accounts, standard. Amy had come home to this many times since they had adopted Gigi, the ultimate life form having found out the hard way that while they were indeed ultimate, they were still not immune to the natural exhaust that came with childcare.
Normally, Gigi would have been asleep in her own room at this time of day, or perhaps playing quietly so as to not wake her father and disrupt her own personal time. Now, however, Amy watched as her daughter looked back to her task at hand and slipped the strip of craft paper into Shadow’s quills, which were decorated in all manner of bits and pieces. There was a pattern to it- the orange ribbons starting in the center of the red stripes, morphing to yellow paper at the ends. As Amy took a step closer, she could see Gigi’s own feathers there in her partner’s dark features, trailing like comet tails after tiny aluminium stars that dazzled in the darkness of his quills.
“He looks stunning, sweetheart.” Amy said as she tapped her pocket where her cellphone sat. “Would you be okay if I took a picture of the two of you?”
Gigi perked up at that. “Once I’m done, yeah. Can I take some too?”
“Absolutely.”
Amy got two good photos of Gigi and Shadow before Gigi took over the camera, leaving Amy’s cellphone to be full of blurry close up shots including one prominently featuring the inside of Shadow’s nose.
“Beautiful,” Amy swiped through the photos, holding Gigi in her arms. “Absolutely beautiful.”
Gigi giggled, grinning as she flapped her hands with glee.
“Do you want help cleaning up?” Amy tucked her phone into her pocket, letting her hand rest on her hip.
Gigi shook her head, sweeping her arms over the coffee table to collect her mess before she stood. With little bits and pieces trailing behind her, she marched back off to her room to hide the evidence.
Amy waited until she heard the door close, then she turned to Shadow.
“Tell me,” she said, smiling, “how long has she been at this?”
A single eye cracked open, crinkling at the edge with his quiet smile. “About two hours.”
Amy knelt next to the couch, kissing the space between Shadow’s eyes. She moved to smooth the quills next to his muzzle, careful to not disturb her daughter’s work. “You pretended to be asleep for the entire time?”
“Can’t disrupt the artist.”
“Aah. No, I suppose not.”
Shadow hummed, content, before stretching with a yawn. “May I take a look at those photos?”
“Of course, when Gigi gets back.”
“Mm.” Shadow’s gaze turned towards the ceiling. “Fair. She probably wants to see my reaction.”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“I’m sure it’s a masterpiece.”
Amy listened to the rush of excited footsteps coming from down the hall, causing the smile that had settled on Shadow’s face to spread.
Yes, she thought, grinning so hard it hurt as Gigi came back into the room and threw herself on top of Shadow’s chest, this really was a masterpiece.