Don't Be...Dead

Bonus 3- The otter and the hedgehog

I'm going to upload the rest of this because I've got some other stuff I want to work on and I don't want to wait to post it. So here's part three (my absolute favorite part).

~Trisha

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"Daddy?" I turned back around to look at Sophie lying in bed.

"Yes?"

"I’m not tired," she said, suppressing a yawn. I sat down next to her on the bed and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead before pulling the covers around her.

"Go to sleep," I said.

"But I’m not tired!" Sophie insisted. "Hamish gets to stay up!"

"Hamish is older than you."

"Only by a year and a half!"

"Sleep."

"Tell me a story."

I sighed and thought for a moment. "Once upon a time-"

"No, not that one!"

"But you don’t even know what I was going to say!"

"Tell me a real story."

I sighed. "Okay... Once upon a time-"

"I said not that one!"

"This is a different story.  Once upon a time there was a hedgehog. The hedgehog was very lonely. One day he was walking along the river when he met an otter swimming in the water. ‘Come swim with me,’ the otter said. But the little hedgehog had tiny paws and couldn’t swim. He told the otter this and the otter let him climb on his belly as he swam. As they swam around the otter and the hedgehog began to talk and they both became friends.

One day when they were swimming they came across a narrow area of water. The otter went to swim through it but was stopped by a big water snake. ‘Your hedgehog looks tasty,’ said the big snake. ‘Let me eat him.’ The otter did not want to lose his new friend. Carefully he set the hedgehog on the nearby bank before going to face the snake. The snake and the otter fought for a long time. The hedgehog sat on the bank and watched, worried about his new friend. The snake dragged the otter under the surface of the water. The hedgehog waited for his friend to resurface, but he never did. The hedgehog grew worried. He considered swimming in after his new friend, but he couldn’t swim and he knew that if he tried and something happened to him the otter would be upset. He sat on the bank and waited for the otter, but after a while he sadly accepted that the otter must be dead. The hedgehog walked through the woods sadly, mourning the loss of his new friend. Often he would talk to the otter, only to turn and realize he was no longer there.

One day, while wandering the woods, the hedgehog thought he saw the otter. He went up to talk to him, overjoyed, then stopped, reminding himself that the otter-his otter was dead. The otter in front of him turned and smiled and the hedgehog found that it was indeed his otter. They hugged. ‘But how did you do it?’ the hedgehog asked. The otter explained how he had brilliantly tricked the snake. The friends recounted tales of what had happened while the other had been gone. They laughed and smiled and lived happily ever after.”

"How was that?" I asked Sophie, only to find her fast asleep. I smiled and pulled the covers tighter around her before going into the sitting room.

Sherlock had Hamish sitting on his lap when I walked out. They had some crap telly show on and Sherlock was trying to teach Hamish to deduce people. After a little bit of watching the pair, I interrupted. "Okay, that’s enough. Hamish has school tomorrow." Hamish scowled a bit as I said this. “But Daddy, I don’t like school. Can’t I just stay home and learn from Father?” I looked at Sherlock. "Fathers knowledge is...spotty at best." I saw Sherlock frown at me, but it was true. He didn’t even know the earth went around the sun. "What’s wrong with school?"

Hamish looked down at his feet. "The other kids make fun of me."

"Have you been deducing people again?"

"No, Father told me not to do it out loud." I cocked an eyebrow at Sherlock. Funny, he never cared about deducing people out loud. He shrugged.

"They think it’s weird that I have two Daddies and no Mommy." I stared at Sherlock. I had to admit, I was expecting this at some point, but I wasn’t ready for it.

"Hamish look here." The little boy looked up at Sherlock. "At one point you did have a mommy and a daddy. But they gave you to us."

"Didn’t they like me?"

Sherlock put a hand on the boys head and started running it through the boy’s curls which matched Sherlock’s. "I’m sure they loved you very much. They probably just couldn’t take care of you. But you have us, and Sophie too."

"But how come no one else in my class has two daddies?"

I looked over at my son. How do you explain this to someone so young? People our age didn’t properly understand it. "Most boys like girls. And most girls like boys. But there are some boys-like your Father and me-who like boys. And some girls like girls. There nothing wrong with it."

Hamish screwed his face up as he tried to process. "But if you still love each other...and there’s nothing wrong with it...why do people make fun of me for it?"

"Because we are different from most people. And people don’t like it when people are different. But don’t worry about what people think. Now, you should get yourself to bed."

Hamish nodded and jumped off Sherlock’s lap before turning to give him a hug. "Night Father." He turned and ran over to me. "Night Daddy." Hamish gave me a hug before running up the stairs.