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In the humble opinion of one Hercules Mulligan, there was nothing quite like waking up next to your significant others. Especially if it was a weekend, and there was no need to stumble out of bed immediately. This particular weekend morning, he was the first awake, and was reminded of why he loved waking up so much. His boyfriends were asleep next to him. Soft light streamed into the room. Everything was quiet. Apart from a vague worry in the back of his mind, all was peaceful.
Wait. Peaceful?
Hercules sat up suddenly, finally able to place the source of his worry. On most mornings, there would be a lot more noise. Probably a small, fidgety child in the bed, trying to wake someone up. For some parents, silence was a welcome respite. Those parents clearly did not have a child named Philip, for whom silence was a sure sign of mischief. However, Hercules reflected, he did have one such child, and as the only one awake, it was his duty to reign in the mischief.
He slid out of bed, careful not to wake anyone else, and stepped into the hall. Running through a mental checklist of ‘Places Philip Might Be’, Hercules checked Philip’s room and the bathroom before finding his son. He was pretty sure that it said something that finding his son hanging out of a cabinet, holding a frying pan, didn’t even phase him.
“Philip,” he said. “What are you doing?”
To his credit, Philip didn’t even look up. “Makin’ cookies.”
Hercules picked him up out of the cupboard, and plucked the pan out of his hands, setting back in its spot. “I don’t suppose you have a recipe.”
“I know how to make cookies! There’s flour, and sugar, and eggs, and butter,” Philip said indignantly. “And blueberries.”
“Blueberries?”
“Well, they gotta be healthy. ‘Cause otherwise I can’t have ‘em for dinner.”
Hercules laughed. To Philip’s confused look, he only shook his head and said, “Well, I don’t suppose I can argue with that. Come on, let’s make some blueberry cookies.”
Philip gasped, and a grin split his face. “You’ll help?”
Returning the smile, Hercules replied, “Someone has to make sure you have the right pan.”
A little while later, three partially-asleep, slightly confused fathers were brought into the kitchen by the smell of baking. They were greeted by the sight of a madly-grinning Philip, a flour-covered Hercules, and a batch of blueberry cookies. For about a minute, they just stared, before they all spoke at once.
“Wow,” said Lafayette.
“Can I have one?” asked John.
“You are completely covered in flour,” observed Alex.
Hercules and Philip looked at each other, and shared a solemn nod. “You can’t have any right now,” said Philip, shocking three-fifths of the room. After all, this was a sweet-loving, impulsive child who rarely turned down any opportunity for immediate cookies.
Hercules answered the unasked question. “That way, we’ll still have some for dinner.”
John Laurens loved days like this more than almost anything else. No clouds in the sky, not too hot, and best of all, there were leaves on the trees again. A trip to the park was only natural. Clearly, some other parents had thought the same way, as the park was filled with children. It was a challenge to keep an eye on Philip, due to the sheer number of other kids, but John was managing. Well, he would have been managing better if his boyfriends weren’t so distracting. He did wriggle out of a four-way hug-tickle combo to check to make sure that Philip wasn’t getting into any trouble. It took a few moments, but John saw Philip talking to a couple of girls. He would have passed it off as nothing if he didn’t see one of the girls point, and Philip walking off determinedly.
“What’s he doing?” John murmured.
His question was soon answered as Philip approached another boy. At first, the other boy seemed dismissive, but after only about a minute, he turned to face Philip. While John couldn’t hear their conversation, it seemed to be escalating. Worried, John stood to go see what was happening. He was only about halfway there when the boys seemed to reach some sort of agreement. He relaxed for a moment, about to turn away, when both Philip and the other boy took up what appeared to be fighting stances. Now exponentially more concerned than before, John doubled his previous speed, reaching the boys in seemingly the nick of time.
“What is going on here?” he asked Philip. “What are you two doing?”
“I’m defending your honor,” responded Philip, completely serious. “George was sayin’ mean stuff about you guys, so I challenged him to duel.” In his eyes, this was clearly a logical course of action.
“Philip, you shouldn’t fight people. You might get really hurt.” In his own mind, John was terribly aware of the irony of this statement. Luckily for him, Philip did not know about John’s (mostly) past recklessness, and so was more likely to take him seriously.
“Yeah, but he said- “
“It doesn’t matter what he said. I don’t want you getting hurt.” Philip looked like he might still protest, especially due to the other boy – George, John reminded himself – still glaring at him. “Come on, let’s go get ice cream or something.”
Philip was hesitant, weighing his options, before he grabbed John’s hand. Philip turned to stick his tongue out at George as they walked away. “I want chocolate sauce on my ice cream. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, that’s okay.”
“Good.” Philip seemed oddly uncaring about this.
“Hey, is something still on your mind?”
Philip hesitated before answering. “George was being really mean. I shoulda done something about that.”
“I’m going to tell you a secret.” John crouched down so he could look Philip in the eye. “You did do something. You called him out on it. You don’t need to fight someone to prove them wrong.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, dude. Really.”
Philip smiled. “Cool.”
Lafayette did not love errands. However, he did love having company on said errands, even if the company was a rather grumpy child. The reluctance of Philip didn't deter him, though, and he remained cheerful on the walk to the store.
“It’s too hot. An’ my feet hurt. Do I have to go to the store? I don’t wanna, I’m tired.”
To be fair, the constant complaints were getting a little irritating. But Lafayette wasn’t one to let this ruin his day, and so it took only a few moments to devise a cunning – if he did say so himself – plan.
“Philip,” he said. “I don’t suppose that you would want to ride on my back.”
This immediately got his attention. “Yes, yes, yes!”
“Well, if you insist,” was the teasing response. After about a minute of careful maneuvers and barely-avoided disasters, Philip was positioned on Lafayette’s back, and ready to go. He definitely wasn’t complaining anymore, which was the best part.
“Onward!” he cried.
After that, the walk to the store was much faster. They found themselves within the shaded roof of the shop mercifully soon, able to gain respite from the heat. Philip slid down, and made a fluid transition to lying entirely on the floor. “Too hot, can’t move” was his only reason when asked.
“I carried you here, think about how I feel,” said Lafayette in response. Too that, Philip could only sigh, and pull himself off of the ground. “So, do you remember what we need?”
“Chocolate,” was the cheeky answer.
“Well, obviously. We do still have to get groceries, however. How about we both go looking for them, and whoever finds more, faster gets to choose what kind?”
At the prospect of both winning a competition and actually getting chocolate, Philip visibly brightened, and nearly sprinted off into the shelves.
“And he says he’s too tired,” muttered Lafayette to himself, albeit with a smile, before setting off to find his own share.
Not too much time later, the two stood at the register with an interesting assortment of groceries. Included among them were a sponge, cheese sticks, no fewer than three different brands of cut carrots, and both Fruit Loops and Raisin Bran. A careful assessment could tell you that neither of the shoppers had any idea of what they were actually looking for, and instead went on impulse. Regardless, what they had was what they brought home, with the important addition of several different bars of chocolate.
“I still think I should have gotten to choose,” said Lafayette.
“Nope! We totally tied!”
“If you insist. Now, what do you say we don’t tell your other dads about the chocolate, and just have it ourselves?”
“Really?” Philip had a look on his face halfway between elation and disbelief.
“Well, they weren’t the ones who went out shopping, were they? I think we deserve this.” With that decree, the two set off to eat their hard-won prize.
Some people don't enjoy work, which baffled Alexander Hamilton. He loved his work. Even when he was taking breaks every few minutes to make sure his son wasn't getting bored. A bored Philip usually meant trouble. Of course, he didn't expect to look up and see, in place of his son, a couple of pens and glaringly empty air. Alex cursed quietly and hurriedly stood up. The office may not have been dangerous, per se, but a child could get into quite a bit of trouble if they wanted to. In Alex’s personal experience, they usually wanted to.
While it didn't take long to find Philip - only a couple minutes- it was a very stressful few minutes. So when Alex saw him sitting peacefully in the break room, free from any sort of harm that might have come to him in his time alone.
“Philip! There you are!” Alex rushed over to him. “You can't just go off without telling me, I was worried!”
“Shhhhhh!” Philip held a finger to his lips and half-glared at Alex, startling him.
“Sorry, what?”
“I'm working! Don't interrupt me when I'm working!” Philip clearly knew exactly who he was mimicking, as he punctuated this with a slightly smug grin.
“I deserve that, don't I. Well, I'll bite. What are you working on?”
“I'm writin’ an essay. It’s on some very important stuff.”
With that, Philip returned to his ‘very important’ essay. Alex looked over his shoulder and attempted to decipher the scrawl. However, he found himself unable to read the messy writing, and resigned himself to the highly ironic situation. He figured that he might as well get some more work done, too. How often does a parent get to write essays next to their child, after all?
Over dinner, among the usual chatter between four parents, Philip raised his voice. “I did some work today,” he said, clearly proud of this fact. “And I wrote an essay, and I wanna share it with you!”
“Alex, was this your idea?”
“Nope. He came up with it all by himself.”
“Wow.”
“Well, go ahead, Philip.”
“One moment!” Philip practically leapt up from his chair, and sprinted away, presumably to retrieve the essay in question from wherever he had put it. He returned only moments later, clutching two slightly crumpled pieces of paper. “Here!” he exclaimed, slamming them down on the table with a massive smile. John reached out to take them, hesitating for a moment before Philip nodded. Flattening them out, he squinted at the writing.
“’A List of Reasons Why My Dads Are the Best,’” he read aloud. “Wait, you wrote it about us?”
“Yeah!” Philip was practically bouncing with excitement. “Essays are s‘posed to be about stuff that’s really important, and you’re really important, so I wrote it about you!”
A few moments later, he found himself in a massive, 5-person hug. Philip couldn’t quite tell whose arms were where, or who was ruffling his hair affectionately, or who said, “We love you too,” or who was practically picking him up off the ground, but it didn’t really matter.
Philip loved hugs like these.