"Better watch out or he's going to pee on you again." I tell Cass as I watch him change his son again.
"How does something so small pee so much?!" He cries as his son begins to fuss from being unwrapped, wet and cold at their place.
I chuckle and go over to the stove that's heating up some water for a bottle. I dip a wash cloth in the warm water and wring it out, making sure it's not too hot. I walk over to him and place it over his little mans privates as Cass looks for a fresh diaper that'll fit a newborn. He finally calls down the hall to Elena asking where she put them and he rushes to grab them.
John is just looking at us both with a grin, my nonchalant attitude and Cass's new father hectic mind.
Cass starts to put on the diaper when his son begins to fuss and cry louder.
"What's the matter?" Cass asks as he looks him over making sure he didn't hurt him unknowingly.
"Watch out Cass." I shake my head and look away as his son begins to grunt.
"OH NO!" Cass shouts as baby poo covers the new diapers shooting out the sides.
The loud cry startles the baby making him cry harder and me and John are trying not laugh.
Elena comes walking in quickly with a slight waddle, "What's the matter?!"
She cries out looking at her son and see's what he has done. She holds her hand over her mouth and starts to giggle. I hand over the slightly warm wash cloth and go to dip some more in the water and turn the water off.
Once they have him cleaned up and changed again, I hand the bottle over to John and they hand the baby over.
"So am I ever going to find out what the babies name is? You've been holding out from me for months now." John impatiently asks, his curiosity getting the better of him.
Elena and Cass exchange amused glances before Cass speaks up.
"Well, it was hard to choose and we discussed it at length before deciding that we were going to name him after some one that was special to me. Elena had a name or two picked out of the selection available and we came to a decision."
He stops talking with a big shit-eating grin on his face, prolonging John's wait.
"Okay...?? What was the decision?" John urges him on drawing out the question sarcastically.
Cass let out a deep and short shout of laughter at Johns impatience and continues on.
"Well, you see I wanted to name him someone who was always there for me and would give me advice. Who really helped me grow up in a lot of ways."
"You named him Marcus after your father." John beams down at the baby in his arms, thinking he's figured it out.
"Well...." Cass draws out the word slowly as he gives John the expression that he was so close.
John looks at him exasperated, "Well tell me already then."
"Oh Caspian, just tell him already." Elena rolls her eyes as she shakes her head at his antics.
"Okay." Cass looks dramatically disappointed away at the floor before sighing.
"We named him, Johnathan Marco Ducade-Crain." Cass says proudly watching John's face.
John sits there a blank poker face as he looks at the baby still sucking slowly on the bottle. He looks at Elena, Cass and then me before returning his gaze to the baby in his arms.
His voice comes out low and brittle with his eyes closed, "Johnathan Marco...." but his eyebrows slowly rise as his eyes open twinkling with a mixture of emotions.
"Thank you." It's a croaky appreciative response but Cass simply goes over to him and rest a hand on his shoulder and nothing more needs to be said.
*BANG-BANG*
A loud, heavy handed, double knock is heard on the front door. We turn our attention to it as Turk opens the door with papers in hand and a bag.
"Hey." Turk grunts his deep guttural greeting.
Cass let's Thietian morph and Thietian steps forward to take the papers from Turk.
"Thank you Turk. Anything you want me to go over with a keener eye?" Thietian thumbs through some of the pages scanning for anything that might pop out at him.
"Yeah, the whole thing." Turk raises an eyebrow at him disdainfully.
"Oh Turk, you know he reads the whole thing and gives everything a thorough analysis." Elena speaks up defending Thietian and teasing Turk with a sarcastic pout. "I feel like the week was taken off to read reports instead of be with me."
She laughs and waves her hand slightly with a shake of her head, when Thietian looks her way. Turk grunts and shuffles a step closer to Elena.
"This is for the babe." He sets the bag down on a small side table and heads to the door.
"Good night and thank you!" Elena shouts at Turks back as he grunts in response.
"You're welcome." He says shutting the door behind him.
"I wonder what he got you..." I start as Elena picks up the bag.
"I'm not sure.. Turk doesn't seem like the kind who gives gifts a lot." Elena said sitting back down to open it up.
Thietian morphs and Cass sits down next to her as they open the bag.
Reaching into the bag, Elena removes a silken blanket with traditional Japanese elegant embroidery of mountains with bamboo forests on one side. A white soft looking fur on the other.
"Oh wow! This is so beautiful!" Elena remarks looking at the embroidery.
She sets it to the side and reaches back in to put out some skillfully, hand carved, painted, wooden toys. There's a bear, a koi fish, and a chubby little boy dressed in little silken clothes in the traditional Japanese style.
"Oh my... look at these, they're so well made!" Elena remarked handing them to Cass.
When he was done looking them over he handed them off to pass around. We all loved the craftsmanship and detail that was so well done. The blanket, the toys, each a work of art, and still something a child could play and use. Even the clothes of the little boy had fine details of embroidered designs all throughout.
"These all seem to be hand made, but extremely well. Do you think Turk made these?" Elena asked looking at each one of us, who knew Turk better than her.
I was looking at the wooden toys noticing the little details of silk fabric that were stretched over the fins of the koi and held in place with small, even placed, wooden dowels. The pearly sheen of a few scales through out the body that were artfully done. The attention to small detail amazed me and I noticed the smallest little mark down by the koi's tail fin and saw it was a kanji mark of sorts.
"Well, I'm not sure what this mark means, but I think he did in fact make these." I tap my finger where the mark is and hand it back over.
Since none of us know how to read Japanese characters, we're stumped.
John suddenly brightens up, "Hey let's take a picture and ask Akiyama. She should be able to tell us."
"Good thinking!" Cass hands over the bear, which we found had the best and largest of the carved marks.
We send it and sit back waiting and continue taking turns holding the little guy, taking care once he had fallen asleep to lay him in his bassinet to sleep. We're all enjoying ourselves when Alex and Natalie show up with their little ones, who are walking now. They've brought dinner with them that just needs to be reheated and take a seat with us as the twins run hobble around on unsteady feet, but curious about everything.
When we got a message back from Akiyama she told us it was an old form of Kanji, that means mountain guardian. She asked what was the symbol on, so we sent her a picture of the toys together.
A minute later she gives us a call back. I put her on speaker so she can tell us all at once about what they are.
"Those are Kintaro figurines or the Golden Boy from Japanese legend. They would normally give those on Children's Day in Japan, but they're popular regardless. He was supposed to be blessed with exceptional strength and was friends with the creatures of the mountains where he lived. He ends up becoming a great samurai eventually. You should look up the stories and check them out if you want to know more."
"Thank you Akiyama, we appreciate your help. Enjoy your evening." John ends the call and we are quiet thinking to ourselves for a moment.
Cass is the first one to speak, "Thietian said just invite Turk over already for dinner and ask him yourselves."
Elena sits up, "You're right Thietian. Cass can you hand me your phone?"
...
Before dinner is done reheating, we have Turk sitting back enjoying himself playing with the curious twins.
I'm actually awestruck with how careful, patient, and well he interacts with them. I've seen him rip the arms off a person, be covered and dripping in gore while laughing in the enemies faces. To sit here and see him playing with toddlers, making silly faces and laughing with them. It blows me away.
It turns out Turk really is the maker of the dolls, not only carving them, but the clothing and the painting is all done by him. After dinner he played with the twins, showing them the golden boy and retelling the stories to them using the dolls to keep their attention. Turk tired them out and so Alex and Natalia left with them to put them to bed.
"Turk, I never would have pegged you as a someone who loves interacting with children. It's almost like you are a totally different person around them. I was surprised to say the least." I couldn't contain my surprise any more and was hoping he'd divulge some more about himself.
He shifted in his seat to look at me, side-eyed, before letting out an indignant breathy humph.
"Of course I'm great with kids. How could they resist this handsome, friendly face?" He stared at me so intently with a grin on his face, most would have found terrifying, but I could see the humor in his eyes.
"Huh ha!"
His deep quick laugh made everyone else chuckle with us as he grasped his drink and took a sip.
"I know it's hard to imagine, but I am an uncle and great uncle to over two dozen nieces and nephews. I have four sisters and five brothers which gives me a lot of experience." He raised his hands nonchalantly before taking another sip and then downs the rest of his glass.
"Thank you all for having me over for dinner, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have to get back to work though." Turk stood and went and put his cup in the sink. When he came back Elena was standing there with baby John in her arms outstretched.
"Are you going to hold him before you leave?"
Turk takes little Johnny in his big hands and cradles him close.
"Thank goodness he is cute and looks like you Elena, instead of his namesake." Turk says with a smile before handing him back to her.
That got a good laugh from everyone.