Xenogears, "Their Fairy-Tale Love" (Jessie/Racquel+Billy)

[sincere]

Jessie is somewhat miffed to think that Billy loves his babysitter more than he loves his parents. So he is going to tell a story. The best story he can think of.
Contains Solaris-era Black Blanche family hijinx, and general questionable parenting skills. Also contains goofiness. Warning: I wrote this late at night. Written for the fic_promptly prompt for any fandom, "lies we tell our children".


.their fairy-tale love.
Jessie announced grimly, "That boy loves Sigurd more than his own parents."

Racquel didn't turn around but he could hear her rolling her eyes. "Maybe if you paid a little more attention to him he'd be happy when you were around, too." She stroked Billy's hair soothingly, but he was still crying too hard to pay attention to anything that was said.

"I swear, the moment he leaves the damn house the kid is off!" He was tempted to be offended about it.

"You could stop calling him 'the kid' or 'that boy', too, that might help," she observed.

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" Jessie threw his hands up in the air, making a grand show of his complete lack of ideas. "I'm a busy man, Racquel, I don't spend a lot of time around babies! I've got people to shoot!"

Racquel finally turned around, a scowl touching her features, and shoved Billy at him. "Should've made some better choices if you weren't interested in dealing with babies, or in this case, toddlers, hotshot." She flipped a hand at him and suggested reasonably, "Tell him a story or something."

Jessie awkwardly shifted Billy in his arms and looked down at his son's little face, puffy and red and peering back up at him with teary hope, as if he'd forgotten that he was in the middle of enacting his plan to keep crying until Sig returned.

He supposed a story couldn't hurt, but stories weren't his specialty. Although he'd never have said it aloud, he did have something of a soft spot for those tender moments between Racquel and their son -- and he loved watching the two of them together, standing back and seeing the way his dagger-woman softened and the strange angel that had accidentally come from them glowed back at her. The result was that he didn't do a lot of baby book reading and the boy had developed an unhealthy attachment to the babysitter.

So Jessie carefully carried him toward his bedroom, saying exaggeratedly, "Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young lady who attended a fine school where brats with good blood were turned into soldiers. She met a handsome prince there, and although she pretended not to want to get her hands around his gun, when he crept in her window at night she was mighty friendly--"

"Jesiah Blanche."

He couldn't quite tell if she was going to eviscerate him or start laughing, so he erred on the side of caution. "It's not like he understands," he said, a cursory protest.

"Do too!" Billy piped up, lying. Or he'd better have been lying. Sigurd would've had a lot of explaining to do otherwise.

"Alright, fine. Since you two are conspiring against me." Jessie set him down on his bed, and racked his brain for something to say, conscious of those tremendously blue eyes on him. His mind was blank. "...I'm coming up blank. Help me out here."

Racquel had leaned back against the doorframe to watch, but she obligingly stepped in to save him. "You have to be quicker on your feet," she said, amused. "What he meant to say, Billy, is that the young lady wanted to meet the handsome prince, but she knew that he would have to marry a princess, and so they could never be together. She kept her feelings inside, intending to keep them secret forever. What she didn't know was that the prince wanted to be with her, too! So he arranged for her to meet him one night, ready to tell her all of his feelings for her so that she would understand how much he wanted them to have a future together."

The whitewashed version of their history was tolerable enough -- as baby book stories went -- but it rubbed Jessie the wrong way. He was hardly a pristine fairy-tale character and he wasn't about to listen to a story about his perfect wife and his perfect son and some imaginary perfect husband. "Is this story not going to go into how they messed up the birth control and his daddy threatened to disown him if he didn't make it right?" he asked.

Racquel heaved a sigh. "No, Jessie."

She had the patience of a saint. He prodded, "What about how the handsome prince ends up face-down in a sewage treatment plant with a knife in his ribs?"

She smiled at him, that sweet smile that took his breath away that seemed to belong uniquely to her and Billy. "I'm thinking on it."

Billy grabbed her sleeve and tugged. "What happened?"

Racquel turned the smile back to him, softening to give him that look that Jessie loved so much on her. After a beat of quick thinking, she opened her mouth and said some more nonsense.

"Well -- when he saw her, the prince poured his heart out, telling her how he felt, and she reminded him that he was honor-bound to marry a princess. But the prince refused to be put off. He said to her, 'If we love each other, there will be a way. We shall find out for ourselves if we were meant to be together. Let us wish to be blessed with a child, and if we are, then we will know that our love will last for all of time.' The two of them clasped their hands together and prayed, and sure enough -- a beautiful baby boy appeared in the cradle of their arms."

"So that's how babies are made," Jessie said thoughtfully. This time Racquel 'accidentally' jerked back and her shoulder jammed into his jaw hard. Jessie bit back swearing as she apologized earnestly. It felt like his face was about to split open. He reminded himself that sweet smiles and sainthood aside, if the dagger-woman was starting to be edgy, he should keep his damn mouth shut.

Billy watched, a tiny frown on his features, and said plaintively over them, "This is not a good story."

It really wasn't.