Sweet Little Birds (BxB Romance, Completed)

Pride Bonus Chapter: Pancakes, Hot Dogs, and Ketchup

To celebrate Pride Month, I decided to take requests from readers for bonus chapters for my stories. I posted about it on my message board but if anyone reading this has a request, feel free to drop a suggestion in a comment on this chapter!  (I will try to get to any requests that aren't something I intend to cover in spinoffs/sequels or that don't fit my vision for the character although I may have to extend Pride Month a bit to get to them all)

This is a bonus chapter written based on the following request from itsmeimthevampire :

I'd love to see ANY bonus scenes of Robin and Ty. Maybe a time skip to the future where they have kids and are making pancakes for a big family breakfast or something.

***

Fiddling with his tie while he strolled down the stairs, Robin could hear laughter from the kitchen: just laughter, no screaming. Any morning without screaming was a good morning. However, the morning wasn't over yet. With a couple of four-year-olds around, screaming was always an imminent possibility.

"Daddy!" the two boys by the table exclaimed in unison when Robin entered the kitchen. "Dada is making pancakes."

"Or something like it at least," Tyler mumbled from the stovetop, struggling to detach a circle of batter from the supposedly non-stick pan. Looking at his work, he concluded: "This one looks more like a stegosaurus..."

"I want it!" Owen immediately piped up, waving his plate toward his dada. The stegosaurus pancake—which looked nothing like the dinosaur in question so the comparison may have been a ruse on Tyler's part to encourage the boys to eat—landed elegantly next to a pair of sausages and a pool of red sauce.

"Are you boys having pancakes with hotdogs and ketchup?" Robin sat down at the short end of the kitchen table.

Shuffling half a hot dog and a quarter of the stegosaurus in his mouth, all dripping in red liquid, Owen nodded happily.

"Dada said we could!" Alex, his twin brother, informed Robin with a huge ketchup-stained grin.

"That's what they wanted, and who am I to object?" Tyler explained with a shrug. "It's carbs, protein, and vegetables!"

Robin wasn't sure ketchup counted as a vegetable but he agreed. There were more important battles as a parent than pancake toppings. As long as the boys ate with good appetites and weren't screaming, everything was swell in the Caster-Erie household.

"You can have them without ketchup though," Tyler assured Robin, putting a plate with pancakes topped with blueberry jam—his favorite—on the table. A light kiss landed on his cheek. "Should I help you with that tie?"

Robin nodded, although the question baffled him a bit. "You know how to tie a tie?" he asked while Tyler straightened out the ends of the fabric. "I don't think I've ever seen you in one. You wore shorts at our wedding!"

Not that Robin had minded the shorts, which had been paired with a matching pale blue linen blazer. He'd barely noticed what Tyler wore anyway as his head had been in the clouds, in disbelief about the fact that the wondrous Tyler Caster was about to be his forever. That was five years ago now, and Robin hadn't quite landed yet. Sometimes he had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. He had a husband. He had kids. He had a family.

Tyler shrugged. He was, of course, wearing shorts at that very moment. Luckily his job as a PE teacher made such attire acceptable. "I think it was Lance who taught me," he said. "He had to wear one for some military banquet when he first enlisted. So I helped him practice tying it over and over." Finalizing an elegant knot, Tyler placed a peck on Robin's forehead. "There! You're all set, Robby. Surely the committee can't deny you that grant when you look this handsome."