Chapter Text
"It's not ideal, I know. Believe me, I tried everything to keep him out of it, but they're adamant that Sean needs to testify."
David Jacobs was not eavesdropping.
He was reading, and it absolutely was not his fault that Bryan and Jonathan assumed his earbuds were plugged into something.
David wore the earbuds so that people left him alone, not to discreetly listen in on conversations that weren't supposed to be involving him.
The fact that he was now more listening to the conversation than he was learning about poisonous plants from his book was completely coincidental. They were talking too loud. That was all.
David finally flipped his book closed and sat up, fully committing to definitely-not-eavesdropping.
Bryan sounded tired and frustrated, which made David angry. Couldn’t they have just a few weeks of peace, after everything that had happened? They couldn’t even celebrate the holidays in peace.
He resisted the urge to throw his book; it was a library book, and would also make a very conspicuous thudding noise that surely Bryan and Jonathan would hear.
Instead, David just sighed along with Bryan in the next room over.
“Any idea when it’s going to be?”
David sat completely still, wanting to hear.
“January, most likely. I’d break the news after the holidays are done, if I were you. Let him have that.”
The "him" in question was currently asleep, in spite of the fact that it was close to noon. Spot slept like a cat, meaning anytime, anywhere, but typically in short intervals interrupted by nightmares that made David want to cry.
David felt almost like he could see his father rubbing his eyes in exhausted thought, a gesture he’d been making entirely too often lately.
Spot’s arrival in their family had certainly mixed things up, but David couldn’t possibly blame him for it. Spot belonged with them, he was family.
Not for the first time, David felt a thick, boiling fury bubble up in the pit of his stomach. Spot could be an annoying little jerk sometimes, sure, but nobody deserved… that.
He'd come back home to them a mess, bruised and frightened, with the beginnings of infection forming around his mostly-healed surgical wound.
Spot’s “parents” had left their own child living in filth in their own home, and they’d hurt him.
David hated them.
But Spot had his family now. David and Sarah and Les and Bryan. They were his family, and they’d never let him suffer like that. They would make sure he ate, and took his medicine, and help (force him to) carefully pick lice nits out of his hair, and anything else, no matter how much Spot complained about it.
Spot was stubborn, sure, but David and the rest of the family could be stubborn too. Spot was just going to have to deal with the fact that they loved him, even if he wanted to go around whining about it.
“Well, I’ll call you if I have any updates.”
David quickly grabbed his book and opened it halfway through, pretending he hadn’t been listening in on Bryan and Jonathan’s conversation.
“Thanks for coming, Jonathan. Happy Holidays.”
“Happy Holidays, Bryan.”
The front door shut behind Jonathan, and David continued to “read” until his book was suddenly snatched away from above. If Bryan was the kind of person who was capable of looming, David would have said he looked over him, but Bryan did not loom, not in any way shape or form.
David fixed Bryan with the most innocent look he could muster, but of course, the man saw right through it. He knew his kids too well.
“Eavesdropping, David? Really?”
David looked away guiltily, but Bryan did sound a bit like he was trying not to laugh…
“Sorry,” David offered a mumbled apology.
“But it wasn’t totally my fault.”
“Care to explain how exactly?” Bryan sat on the couch beside him and gave David’s shoulder a gentle nudge.
“I was in here first! You could have gone and talked somewhere else!”
David found himself laughing as Bryan playfully smacked him upside the head with his book.
“You’ve got me on a technicality, kiddo. I thought I raised you better. Rude boy."
That dramatic declaration made David smile, now one hundred percent sure he wasn’t actually in any trouble for listening in on the technically-private conversation.
"Is everything okay?"
He couldn't help but ask, even though David wasn’t really supposed to know anything might not be okay.
Bryan nodded, but he looked tired all over again.
“It’s not the outcome we’d hoped for, but honestly, I was more or less expecting it. Sean’s going to have to see his…” the man hesitated before continuing. “He’ll have to see them one more time.”
Davdid didn’t miss the way his father danced around the word parents . Biologically, sure, the Conlons were Spot’s parents, but Bryan was the one he called Dad, not the creep who’d hurt him.
"Can I trust you not to tell him?"
Bryan's voice popped David out of his thought bubble and back into the real world.
"I'd like for his first year with us to at least have a happy ending."
David nodded. He wanted that too.
"I wonder how he'll feel about the whole "Celebrating Both Christmas and Hanukkah" thing."
That weirded some people out, David knew. But how could they not celebrate Christmas when most of the other foster kids their family had taken in around the holidays would have wanted to?
"The Christmas tree needed first aid; I fear what troubles the menorah might bring."
David was an expert at serious and dramatic declarations to lighten the fact that he was actually somewhat nervous.
What if Spot didn't like their traditions? Or he said something to upset Les? Spot wasn't exactly good at keeping his negative opinions to himself.
Spot didn't have experience with family traditions, much less their strange and wonderfully unique Jewish/Christian/Non-Religious blended type.
Oh, Bryan was talking still. Stupid dissociation, making David miss half a conversation.
"I just hope no cats go up in flames this year."