Redcrackle Oneshots | Carmen Sandiego

9. |🌙Bedtime ⭐️| Kid Fic/Fluff

Hi, anyone who is still here. I was going thru my old email account the other day and came across a draft for the first chapter of a kid fic i never got around to posting. Touched it up and here we are!! If yall have any requests, i would LOVE to hear them! Can't promise i will actually get to them but i recently rewatched the show and my love for it has reignited.

Word Count: 1,666

Summary; Carmen and Gray wrangle their kid into bed. Yes i named her sydney, fight me. There is some minor suggestive language near the end btw but nothing happens. Least not within the oneshot lol

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The evening was solemn in a subdued sort of way, quiet, aside from the distant thrum of traffic that was well fended off by the rows and rows of residential districts. The sky was hued with the last violets of dusk, and dim, rickety street lamps sparked one by one down the cobblestone paths as the inks of the after hours began to settle in.

Gray regarded the scene thoughtfully from his window, watching as the flow of people ebbed to nonexistence, the last bits of life dying down as families chose to turn in for the night. The atmosphere was unlike anything he'd grown up with as an orphan in Sydney, nor did it resemble the eerie placidity that had swept over the VILE dorms of his late teens. And in his twenties, the neighborhoods he'd occupied in brief stints between capers had never lost their life at night. Thrill, adrenaline, that was what had kept him going back then. Easy to forget you're entirely alone in the world when your legs are pumping and your heart is racing and you're running around with the wrong side of the law.

It was truly a wonder how much life had changed since then.

"Daddy, can you read it one more time?"

A smile tugged on the corner of Gray's lips, and he had to bite it down. In front of him was a small, churlish child, her arms tucked demurely under her chin in an attempt to feign faux-innocence. Skin a shade of light olive and unruly frizz escaping twin pigtails, Sydney Calloway-Sandiego was swaddled in soft pink covers without a stitch of sleepiness in her large, inquisitive honey brown eyes.

"No can-do, kiddo. It is officially..." He paused, glancing at the clock to confirm his suspicions. "...bedtime! Yep. No getting out of this one."

A sad, practiced pout drooped exaggeratedly on her lips. It did not do much to conceal the mischief lingering in her eyes. "Come on, daddy! Just 5 more minutes!"

"I will not fall for that for the 5th time in a row." Gray waggled a finger in front of her nose "Besides! You need to sleep so Daddy can sleep." Slipping into an old man's rasp, he added " 'Us old people don't have as much energy as youngsters like you, you know!' "

Little Sydney giggled at his efforts. "Daddy! You're not thaaaat old!"

"How do you know that?" Gray cocked a brow at her, feigning a conspiratorial look. "I could be....an immortal vampire! Dun Dun Dun!"

Instead of continuing her laughing fit. Sydney cocked her head to the side in confusion. "A Vam-fire?"

"Jesus. Don't tell me your mom's never told you about Vampires..." The child shook her head no in response, confirming Gray's fears. "My god. What's the point of having a human encyclopedia as a mother if she can't inform you of blood-sucking bat people with sparkly skin!!"

"I don't know about the sparkly skin part," Crooned a voice from behind the two. Gray turned to find his wife leaning against the doorframe. Hair cropped close to her chin in a manner both alike and unlike her school years, Carmen's days of leaping roof tops with her long tresses flowing behind were long past. She had settled comfortably into domesticity, still fit and healthy but with hips  having thickened with childbirth. The first hints of gray were beginning to peek through her cherry red roots, and her undeniable slate blue eyes had softened with time.