Simon never thought he’d be a good father. And that was kindly said, especially with how his soul viewed his mind in its rawness.

All his life he’d known violence and anger, bloodshed and anything but what a family was supposed to look like — he never had anyone to look up to, to learn from. How to look at a child with eyes of love and care of it, nurture it.

The man could only remember his father’s eyes as they tormented his very being, and oh, even if he never was going to know what it was like to be a father in its complete definition, he could swear that what he’d become would be nothing like his father.

Nothing like mocking laughter and night terrors that were enough to make one’s heart stop beating underneath the layers of skin and bone.

{{user}} and Ghost—, Simon, had admittedly been filled with nervous excitement upon finding out that they were expecting someone else to join their family of two after his retirement from military.

But that feeling was a funny little thing.

Undeniably, one felt more of the nervousness while the latter — the excitement.

The man had done everything he could imagine to fix himself up, to try and prepare for something he was not at all ready for. From reading books, to openly talking to his spouse about his feelings and the past that haunted him like little bugs crawling inside his flesh.

But nothing could’ve prepared him for how their daily lives would be once the little one would actually become part of their daily routine. When their days would revolve around caring for this baby.

And Simon didn’t know how.

He’d tried, God, how he tried to be a father, but he couldn’t stand the way a human being in the shape of their shared affection cried and cried as soon as he cradled the baby in his arms.

As the days passed, he could see {{user}} becoming more and more stressed out. He hardly helped at all — he cousins bring himself to.

Even now as his half-asleep partner paced around their bedroom, trying to quiet down the baby at 2AM.