Chapter Text
Day 17
Lexi treats Callum to an extremely cynical glare when he opens the door to Lola’s loud knocking. Her little face draws up into a suspicious frown as her eyebrows pinch together. He watches as she genuinely looks him up and down like she’s working out if his lanky frame could feed eight people, before something settles in her eyes and she nods to herself. The girl may still only be primary school age, but she had a special way of making all six feet of Callum feel like an ant. It was entirely Ben’s fault, honestly. She’d got her cynical distrust and judgmental stare from her Dad. Bless her.
“Hi.” Callum smiles gently at Lexi. With Ben’s growing strength came increased confidence, so now he was disappearing for a few hours every evening to go and visit his daughter. It was a relief to see him take everything with measured strides after the hellfire they’d both been through. The man had mellowed in arrogance and had finally stopped grasping onto the belief that he knows best. “I like your bag.”
Lexi’s Jurassic Park rucksack swings between Lola’s fingers. It’s dark red with forest green trimming and vinyl images of different dinosaurs plastered over the front panel. One of the bigger carnivores seems to be looking straight at Callum, so he swallows heavily.
“Daddy bought it for ya’, didn’t he?” Lola nudges the tiny blonde bombshell, who’s still staring up at him questioningly. She nods slowly without breaking eye contact, and it’s only from this distance that Callum notices her eyes. They’re exact replicas of Ben’s; it’s like peering into a mirror and coming face to face with a distant recollection.
“Yes,” Lexi murmurs. “A’like dinosaurs.”
“Understatement.” Lola rolls her eyes fondly and gently pushes her daughter through the space between Callum’s legs and the doorframe. “Obsessed, ain’t ya?”
Callum grins. “It’s so cool that you like dinosaurs and stuff.”
He’s pierced with another damning glare. “Mrs Parry said that I shouldn’t have a dinosaur bag, because dinosaurs are for boys.”
Lola sighs, sounding as pissed as Callum suddenly feels. “An’ I told ya’ not to listen to Mrs Parry because she doesn’t know what she’s talking about!”
“You always say to respect my elders.” Lexi throws her little hands in the air petulantly and shakes her blonde pigtails at her Mum’s hypocrisy.
“Yeah, well,” Lola flails and pulls Lexi’s coat from her arms whilst grimacing at Callum in a silent plea for help. In all honesty, Callum feels completely out of his depth and just stands stoic, blinking rapidly between the two headstrong women. “You should respect adults… unless they’re rude like Mrs Parry or,” she paws at the air like she’s desperately trying to find the right words. “Or Grandad Phil and- uh, just don’t listen to them, alright?”
Lexi purses her lips but nods obediently all the same. She gets shepherded into the kitchen where Ben’s chopping up vegetables for dinner. One look in his direction causes her eyebrows to shoot up into her hairline and the biggest smile to blossom out over her features. It was almost like she’d forgotten that her Dad was living here, and the realisation was the best thing Callum’s ever seen.
“Hi princess!” Ben catches her running jump after slamming the knife down on the chopping board. He’s careful to keep her knees firmly at either side of his rib cage; his chest may be healing but one knock could rupture the whole precarious structure and they’d be back to the beginning.
“Whatcha’ making?”
“You mean, what’s Callum making- Daddy’s just chopping.” Ben tickles her above her hips and she squirms in a laugh. “Spicy chicken with roasted veggies and sour cream.”
Unlike most normal children, Lexi seems delighted by the thought of peppers and mushrooms. Callum loves her, he really does. Although, he can’t work out if that’s because she’s adorable or because she’s an extension of Ben, and Callum is quickly learning to realise that he probably loves everything Ben Mitchell touches. That’s probably a problem within itself, but he has bigger fish to fry. His first port of call is to halt Lexi’s slow limpet squeeze around her father, who is starting to wince behind the eyes from the strain on his muscles.
“Hey, Lex.” Callum takes her bag from Lola and gestures to the bedrooms. “Why don’t we go and put your things in the spare room so your Daddy can finish making dinner?”
Luckily, she immediately takes the bait and jumps down. Ben nods at him discreetly with a grateful smile, and brings a hand up to his pectoral to gently massage the tension away. They’d mutually agreed that Ben would sleep in Callum’s bed for the night that Lexi was with them, so that she could have the spare room. Somewhere in the back of Callum’s mind, there was a twisted panic about the young girl sleeping in the bed that Paul used to call his. However, Ben didn’t seem concerned about it and he certainly wasn’t going to bring it up.
“There we go.” Callum deposits the fabric dinosaurs onto the fresh sheets and watches with a bemused expression as Lexi sticks her hand into the bag to pull out something. A homemade card appears in a flourish of gold glitter and sticky felt flowers. “What’s that, then?”
Lexi ignores him for a moment in favour of brushing the fallen glitter from her leggings. Then, she turns on him with a genuine smile and offers up the art project. He takes it, confused, and turns it upside down to read the wobbly writing on the front. A huge ball of aching surprise lodges in his throat. It takes a moment for the jagged letters to join up in his vision, but he soon realises what the card is meant to say. Oh, fuck.
“Thank you for having me, Callum.” Lexi sounds out for him and follows the wording with the pad of her tiny index finger. There’s a crayon picture of three stick people at the bottom right corner; one of them has bright yellow hair, one of the stick people towers above the rest and the last one has a huge grey rectangle across its chest. “It’s a thank you card for letting me stay tonight. Mummy’s gotta’ work.” She tells him seriously, complete with a severe nod. Callum can’t help but snort in a laugh at the purity of this whirlwind child.
“A’love it.” He says, and opens it to read the scrawl in pink pen across the inside which pretty much just repeats the front of the card. “Ya’ very welcome to stay here, Lexi. An’ this lovely card is a very kind thing to do.”
“I made it all by myself.”
“I bet ya’ did.” Callum holds his hand out to her nervously, and is pleasantly shocked when she takes it.
“And,” Lexi stops right in the doorway so she’s still out of earshot of where her parents are discussing her upcoming school play. “Thank you for looking after Daddy too. It’s nice for someone t’care when you’re poorly.”
Callum can only blink at her in quick succession to dispel the oncoming tears of joy threatening to erupt from his eyes. He’s been accepted. She trusts him, because Ben trusts him. Suddenly, Callum Highway gets a sneak peek at what he wants his golden future to look like, and quite honestly it’s completely this. This; here and now. Ben by his side and Lexi in their hearts and Lola at the edge of frame, grinning and making sarcastic comments but not getting too involved. The epitome of dysfunctional familial beauty.
“I like looking after him.” He shrugs. “I like him. An’, I like you.”
Lexi tips her blonde head up to grin at him, all missing teeth and softened eyes. It was like looking at a different child to the one that gave him an unsubtle second-glance at the front door. He weirdly adores both.
“Cal?” Ben shatters the peace with his raised voice. “Where’s the chicken?”
Callum keeps his eye contact with Lexi and rolls his eyes backwards into his head, completely overzealous. She lets out a shocked little laugh that Callum grins at. “Where do ya’ think? In the fridge!”
“I’m looking in the blood- ah, bloomin’ fridge!”
“For the love of god.” Callum says exasperatedly and carefully leads Lexi into the kitchen. Their joined hands slip apart so that Lexi can run to her Mum’s lap, but they stay entwined long enough for Lola to blink at them in gentle surprise. Ben’s got his hands splayed at the fridge like it’s personally offended him. He jumps when Callum appears behind him to squeeze his hip. “Oh I wonder, what could this huge bowl filled with marinated chicken and covered in clingfilm possibly be on this bottom shelf here?”
Ben turns around to smack his ribs in easy teasing. “Shuddup. You didn’t tell me to look that far down.”
“It’s not a black hole, Ben. The fridge doesn’t keep going forever.” He gets a deadpan reply, but luckily Callum moves out of the way of the next incoming swat.
Ben shakes his head at Lexi’s amused giggles from the table and grabs the chicken to shove it in the oven. His cooking capabilities didn’t come to much, but depositing meat onto a prepared roasting tray was something even Callum could trust him with.
Lola on the other hand-
“Don’t trust him with that chicken, for tha’ love of god.” She dangerously jabs her finger in Ben’s direction accusingly. “He tried to make me a roast once and I got food poisoning.”
Ben meeps in offence. “Hey, there was no proof that tha’was me.”
Lola just arches her eyebrows and turns to Callum to act as jury.
“Um,” he starts. “If you didn’t cook the meat right…”
“Oh, thanks.” Ben throws a tea-towel over his shoulder with a loud thwap. “Gang up on me why don’t you, yeah, gang up on the cripple.”
“Oh get over yourself.” Lola scrunches her nose up and then blows him a kiss. “It was pink.”
Callum’s eyes widen and he instantly brandishes an orange spatula at Ben. “Step away from the chicken, Ben.”
The reply is quick and snarky: “Bite me.”
There’s a light laugh from Lexi that Callum sort-of melts at. Her eyes sparkle with delight at the steady banter between her parents and the guy she knows means a lot to her Dad. He means as much as Uncle Jay does to Mummy, is what Lola told her when Ben had first moved into the flat, so clearly this tall, kind-eyed stranger was important.
“Lexi,” Callum grabs her attention by turning the neon utensil on her. “What do you think? Should your Dad be allowed to continue cooking?”
The young girl pauses for a heartbeat. “No.” She then shakes her head very carefully. “He should stop and have cuddles with me in case he gets hurt again and he can’t.”
Silence falls. Ben looks at Lola with rather large and horrified eyes, but the mother of his child brings no solace. Her own wide eyes blink back blankly, clearly with no idea as to why her daughter would say something so grave.
“Well.” Ben forces his voice into action, gallantly ignoring how rough and splitting it sounds. “Whatever the princess wants, the princess shall have.”
“You two go on through to the TV and I’ll get everything under way.” Callum places his hand flat between Ben’s shoulder blades and nods at the bowl of spicy-smelling chicken. Ben smiles at him gratefully, yet slightly shaky and knocked. Lexi runs up to him when he holds his arms out and jumps into them, but for once Ben doesn’t brace himself for the pain of his stitches being kicked. It aches but he lets it, because it reminds him that he could’ve lost this. Fuck, the mirage isn’t even worth dwelling on.
“I better go.” Lola says regretfully and leans forward to wrap her arms around her daughter’s back so that Lexi is firmly squished between them. She sighs happily into the wild blonde before pressing a kiss against the girl’s temple. “Be good for Daddy and Callum and I’ll see ya’ tomorrow bedtime, ‘kay?”
Lexi beams into Ben’s chest. “A-okay. Love you Mummy.”
The sentiment is returned and then Lola disappears in a haze of cigarette smoke and Gucci perfume. Callum and Ben are left in the stillness of the kitchen with neither of them really knowing what to say. It’s not the same tension as the day of Utter Fucking Mayhem when Ben ripped his stitches, but a cloud of discomfort settles on the counter tops.
Callum’s quick in his attempt to disperse it. “Go on, you two. Go and see if there are any dinosaur shows available on Netflix.”
Ben, appreciating the distraction, laughs. “She’s probably watched them all, haven’t ya’ kid?”
“I don’t doubt that.” Callum replies with a wink when Lexi nods vigorously. He watches as Ben waddles into the next room with his girl still firmly wrapped around his hips. The domesticity of it shouldn’t feel as pure as it does. It aches Callum. His heart clenches at the need for such a belonging. Ben Mitchell; that absolute fucking whirlwind has thrown all the pieces of his life in the air and now he can’t wait to see where they all land.
The dinner is easy to shove in the oven, so he finds himself entering the lounge with a blanket off the back of a kitchen chair folded in his arms about ten minutes later. Ben’s reclined across the sofa with Lexi curled up on his stomach like a cat. Her pretty eyes droop against her fair skin, clearly trying to fend off sleep. Ben tilts his head up when he senses Callum’s presence and sends him a soft, content smile. It gets returned tenfold, because Callum’s insides are exploding in golden fireworks.
How the fuck has he managed this? When he offered to house Ben during his recovery post-shooting, it didn’t even cross his mind that it would be anything but polite and full of boundaries. They hadn’t even been for that bloody drink and Callum was already planning his future with the irritating, handsome and obnoxious little shit digging his toes into the sofa cushions in front of him.
“What you smiling at?”
The question catches him off guard.
“You.” The answer slides easily from his tongue.
Ben does a cute little double-take, and then his smile grows into an encompassing grin. Lexi snuffles into his hoodie like a mini radiator and his hands immediately go to her back to soothe her again. Callum’s fucked. He’s gonna marry the man. He will.
“Yeah?”
“Always.” Callum says, as honestly as he can verbalise. It’s always been Ben.
“I like you a lot.”
Each snippet of exhalation tastes like stars.
Callum blushes and chuckles. “Thank god for that. I’would be awkward if the guy I’m falling for didn’t wanna pursue anything.”
His man is looking at him like he’s hung the moon in the sky.
“You’re lucky then.” Comes the reply, as sweet as honey. “Because I’m pretty head over fuckin’ heels for you, Callum Highway.”