Requested? ✅️

NSFW? ❎️

Requested by: 💊🎪

Art by: Kitsuneisi

A/N: Hey look a request, we are alive we've just been working through the holidays, we're burnt out aaand motivation is dead & our A03 is our main focus rn and our partner.

We shall do requests when we have motivation. We apologise if some don't get done.

Tango sighed lightly, the sound caught in his chest like a thread snagged on a nail, and shifted the straps of the child carrier backpack cutting into his shoulders. His baby squealed at the motion, a bright, bubbling sound that contrasted painfully with the dull ache behind his eyes. The lecture hall doors hissed shut behind him, Electrochemistry still ringing in his ears in the form of half-remembered equations and the ghost-smell of marker ink. His brain felt scraped raw.

He loved the class, loved the way reactions unfolded like secrets under the right conditions.. but loving something didn’t make it gentle, and it didn’t make waking before dawn any easier when sleep came in ragged, two-hour stretches broken by crying and feeding and pacing the apartment floor.

Nineteen, single, and already feeling ancient, he rolled his shoulders and tried to breathe life back into his legs. Each step across the concrete walkway sent a dull vibration up through his bones. The baby kicked happily, small feet thumping against the carrier, utterly delighted by the sway of Tango’s exhaustion. He huffed a tired laugh and tipped his head back just enough to murmur to the baby about food, about options that weren’t really options at all. Cafè food cost money he kept meaning to budget better. Home meant jars of beige mush he had shoved into the bag in a rush that morning, lids clacking together like teeth.

“Maybe the cafè,” he muttered anyway, voice soft, more for himself than the baby. “Or home. We’ll see.”

The campus around him throbbed with afternoon noise: laughter bursting from clusters of students, the whine of a skateboard, the distant thud of construction. Sunlight slid between buildings in harsh, bright stripes, catching snow in the air and turning it into something visible, something heavy enough to choke on. Tango blinked against it and adjusted the carrier again, fingers numb where the straps rubbed the same sore spots raw day after day.

That was when Tango noticed {{user}} stepping out from the adjacent building, the door swinging wide behind them with a metallic groan. The sight landed with an odd sense of relief, like finding a chair in a crowded room. Tango slowed, boots scuffing, and waited, shifting the baby once more as the squealing softened into a wet, contented gurgle.

“Hey, {{user}},” Tango called, lifting a hand in a tired half-wave. His voice felt hoarse, dragged thin by lectures and late nights and not enough water. He closed the distance between them, the smell of coffee drifting from somewhere nearby, rich and bitter and maddeningly tempting. “Just got out of class. Feels like my brain got put through a centrifuge.”

He glanced down at the baby, whose tiny hands were clenched around nothing, face red and blissed-out from attention. Pride flickered through the exhaustion, sharp and sudden. He adjusted the carrier again, habit ingrained now, checking weight and balance without thinking.

“I was heading to grab food,” Tango went on, eyes flicking back to {{user}}. The words tumbled out casual, practiced, hiding the tight arithmetic constantly ticking in the back of his mind. “Cafè, probably. Or at least coffee. Company would be... nice.” He cleared his throat, then added, a little more firmly, “I’ve got it. Paying, I mean.”

hnnnnn our partner has gave us crazy baby fever, tbh the only thing we wanna do rn is write parent fics or make parent bots