John Jr hadn't needed to look at Kam to know that he was pleased with himself, that day. There was a lightness to his deep voice that gave him away. They sat together on the back porch of the little townhouse his sister and her husband had bought for their first home, nursing a couple of beers. He was only seventeen, not old enough to drink, but Vanessa had waved them both off with a smile so that she could prepare dinner. It was a special occasion, she said.
He glanced at Kam, eyebrow cocked, expression expectant. "Spit it out already, jesus."
"... I knocked up your sister." Kam's grin was slow to start on his lips, but when it finished it split his handsome face in two. His words hung in the air for a moment, stretching between them, hitting John Jr like a blast of sunshine after a cloudy day.
"No way!" John Jr could feel his own smile-- bright with joy, easily as big as Kam's, but not quite as smug. "I should kick your ******** a**, bro."
"We want you to be godfather," Kam said, chuckling softly around the mouth of his beer. He'd stretched out in his patio chair, smirked at John Jr as they both faced his back yard, and glowed with the subtle pride of a man who knew that he'd done well.
In the kitchen Vanessa hummed to herself. Her voice carried to them through the screen door, and John Jr recognized the tune of his favourite lullaby. The one that he had never heard their mother sing, but which Vanessa had made sure to share with him.
"What do you say, JJ? It'd mean a lot. To both of us."
"Man, are you joking? Of course I will! Vanessa, get out here so I can kiss you! I'm going to be an uncle!"
----
Three years had passed since the day that Jayden had come bawling into the world, tiny and wrinkled and soaked in his mother's blood. He was healthy and beautiful, weighing in at 8 lbs 4 oz, with eyes like molten gold and a mop of dark curly hair.
It was hard for JR to believe sometimes that the baby whose entire hand was once too small to wrap around his thumb could be the same one as the child who toddled in front of him now, picking dandelions where they grew around his mother's grave. He wore a birthday cap, pointed at the top and fastened with a string underneath his chubby baby chin.
JR sat with his back up against Vulcan's headstone, smiling softly at the birthday boy, who turned to him with an outstretched palm. His dandelions tumbled to the grass.
Vanessa was dead. Kam had been driven mad with grief, and Gehenna was lost to the Negaverse.
Jayden no longer asked after either of them.
"We should probably get back soon," JR said, forcing a brightness into his voice that he did not feel, "grandpa's going to be mad if we don't eat any birthday cake."
Tiny, uncoordinated, Jayden waved at the sky and babbled something at his uncle that made absolutely no sense but which he thought was very funny. He threw his little head back and laughed. The sound was light and full of joy, out of place on grounds otherwise marked by death.
Jayden toddled forward and then tripped over his uncle's foot, little face planting into the grass. Expecting tears, swearing under his breath, JR surged forwards with his arms outstretched and then relaxed when Jayden pushed himself up. He was built like a brick, strong and sturdy like his father.
"You look like her, you know," JR said, heart somehow both broken and mended by Jayden's easy laughter. "When you smile like that."
Shazari
