“Chris, I can’t talk right now.” Nick Cvjetkovich said, as he pried his son off his leg for the third time that morning. “I have to get Dagan ready for school and I still have to get Raine up and dressed.”

“I know, I just wanted to say hi to Dagan before his first day.” Chris Irvine said, allowing the first tear to fall down his cheek.

“Alright, but you can’t keep him on the phone all morning.” Nick said, walking into Raine’s bedroom. “I still have to give him a bath.”

Nick handed the phone to Dagan and picked up Raine, who was wide awake already at six in the morning. “Hi daddy.” Dagan said, forgetting about his other father’s leg for the moment. “Where are you? When you comin’ home?”

“I’m in London, buddy. I’m comin’ home in about a week. How many days is that?” Chris said, trying not to let the tears show in his voice. He never imagined that it would hurt this bad to miss his son’s first day of school.

Dagan thought about it for a minute. “Three?” He said.

“Nope.” Chris said. “Try five.”

“Five?” Dagan said, sounding like it was a hundred.

Chris could tell that this conversation was going to end with both of them crying so he quickly changed it. “So are you excited about your first day of school?”

“Yeah!” Dagan practically screamed. “I’m wearin’ my new Spiderman shirt that daddy got me, and my new shoes that make me go really fast, and daddy’s gonna put my hair in a pony tail, and I got a new backpack with Scooby Doo on it, and I got new crayons, and stuff....”

Chris smiled, but he was still crying. “You sound like you’re gonna be stylin’ there Dagan.” Chris could just picture in his head how his son was going to look. The long black hair that he got from his daddy, who was known to the rest of the world as Sinn, pulled back in a neat pony tail. He knew the shirt he was going to be wearing, because he’d picked it up on his last tour. And the shoes, Nick picked out, and he always had really good taste when it came to stuff like that. So Chris knew that his son was going to the hit of Kindergarten. At least with the little girls.

“Dagan, get in here.” Nick yelled from the bathroom. “You still need a bath.”

Dagan walked into the bathroom, got undressed, and got into the tub of water that Nick had already ran for him. “I’m in the bathtub now.” Dagan said.

Nick dropped the towel he’d been drying Raine off with and whirled around. “Dagan Irving Cvjetkovich! Give me that phone.” Nick screamed, startling Dagan and causing him to drop Nick’s brand new cell phone in the tub.

Dagan picked his dad’s cell phone up out of the water and handed it to him. “Sorry.”

Nick amazingly kept his patience. “It’s okay. Are you alright?” Nick said, worried Dagan might have shocked himself.

“I’m okay.” Dagan said, looking around the bathroom. “Where’s Sissy?”

Nick whirled around again to find his daughter was no longer standing there. “Wash your body, I’ll be back to do your hair.” Nick said, walking out of the bathroom in search of his wet, naked daughter. It didn’t take him long to find her. He just followed the voices of her and his husband. He stepped into their bedroom and sure enough, there she was talking on the phone to Chris, who had called the house in a panic after losing all signal with Dagan. “He’s fine, Chris.” Nick said, hearing Chris asking Raine how her brother was. “But my phone isn’t.”

“We can replace the damn phone, Nick. We can’t replace Dagan.” Chris said in a very irritated tone. “He didn’t get shocked or anything did he?”

Nick was getting more irritable by the minute. “Raine, go check on Dagan for me.” Nick said, just wanting his daughter out of the room for a minute. She scurried off and Nick picked up the phone. “If you’re that damned concerned, try keeping your ass home for a more than a few nights at a time. And by the way, thanks for teaching Raine the word damn.”

Chris could feel the anger start to build. “You told me it was okay to take a break from wrestling and get Fozzy off the ground.” Chris said, with a little more venom in his voice than he should have had. “You said, you’d take care of the kids and the house while I did that. Don’t start bitching that I’m never home now.”

Nick sat there for a minute and thought about that. Chris was right. It was Nick that told him to tour with the band for a while, that it wasn’t fair to the rest of the band that they didn’t get to tour normally. “Look Chris, I’m sorry. I just didn’t think it would hurt so much having to let him go like this.” Nick said, finally admitting the real reason he’d been irritable with everyone the last week. “And I know it’s twice as hard for you since you can’t be here, but you have to understand that since you’re not here, I’m going through this all by myself.” Nick listened to Chris apologize for a minute and then had to interrupt him. “Angel, I gotta go. I think Raine jumped in the tub with Dagan. He’s screaming like a banshee.”

“Alright, call me if you need me. We’re just in rehearsal.” Chris said.

“I will.” Nick said, and hung up the phone, walking into the bathroom. Sure enough, Raine was in the tub with Dagan and Dagan was not happy about it. “Sissy, get out of the tub.” Nick said, holding out a towel. When she got out he wrapped it around her and told her to go to her room and wait for him. He washed Dagan’s hair and got him out of the tub. “Now go get dressed. I’m gonna get Sissy dressed and then I’ll come do your hair.”

That was pretty much the way the rest of the morning went. Chaos. Nick finally got Dagan dropped off for his first day. Of course he had to walk him in, kiss him good bye like he was going to sea, give the teacher his cell phone number (even though it wouldn’t work), and battle Raine the whole time. That battle got considerably more difficult when he went to leave. That’s when he realized it wasn’t just hard for him to leave Dagan at school. It was also hard on Raine. Which everyone in a four block radius was aware of.

When he finally got her in the car, that’s when it occurred to him that he hadn’t fed her anything all morning. He quickly drove to McDonalds hoping that it would calm Raine down. Wow! He was really wrong on that one. She didn’t want anything to do with him. He couldn’t even get her out of her car seat. He decided it would probably be best if he just went through the drive thru. Yeah great idea. He had to scream his order to the poor girl working the speaker, because Raine wouldn’t tone it down a few decibels, and when he got to the window, he realized that in the rush this morning he forgot his wallet. Embarrassed, he drove away from McDonalds and went home.

At home Raine finally let Nick take her out of her car seat and carry her into the house. He figured it was mainly because she was asleep. He put her down in him and Chris’s king size bed, placed some pillows around her, grabbed his wallet, shoved it into his back pocket and grabbed a hot pocket breakfast sandwich and almost literally threw it into the microwave. On the verge of tears he picked up the phone and called the only person that could possible make this all seem worth it. Chris.

When Chris picked up the phone, Nick could hear his band mates in the background grumbling. Something like ‘Chris turn the damn thing off.’ “Hello.” Chris said.

“Hey. Is this a bad time?” Nick said, praying to God that Chris would talk to him for just a few minutes. “I can call you back.”

“Are you crazy? It’s never a bad time when it’s you.” Chris said, and Nick could hear the smile in his voice. “What’s up? I mean besides me after hearing your voice.” Nick chuckled a little bit, trying to remember the last time him and Chris were together in that special way, as they said in front of the kids. The sad part of it was, he couldn’t. There had been a few quickies here and there, but nothing special, nothing loving. “You still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” Nick said, being ripped from his thoughts of Chris’s naked form laying on their bed. “Sorry. I was thinking about something.”

“As long as it was me, I’ll listen to you breath all day long.” Chris said. “So what’s up?”

Nick took a deep breath and exhaled quickly. “This has been the morning from hell.” He continued to explain everything that had happened, and by the time he was done, even Chris was tired.

“Damn, Damian.” Chris said, using his very unusual term of endearment for Nick. “Sound like one hell of a morning. Did you ever get Sis to eat anything?”

“Nope. She cried herself to sleep and that ‘s where she is now. In bed.” Nick said, running his free hand through his hair. “I don’t know what her problem is. It’s like she hates me or something.”

Chris thought about it for a minute. “She doesn’t hate you. She probably just doesn’t understand why you took bubby and left him in a strange place. You’ll be a hero when you go pick him up.”

“I hope you’re right.” Nick said. They finished their talk, which lasted way to long for Chris’s band mates liking, but that’s how Chris was. Family came first. Nick hung up the phone and retrieved the, almost forgotten about, hot pocket from the microwave. He went back into the living room and picked up Dagan’s baby book. He flipped through it, letting the memories calm him down. The first page always took his breath away. Dagan’s little hand and foot prints, all his birth information, but the one thing that really got him was the mother line. Him and Chris had marked that line out and put Father. That line read, Christopher Keith Irvine-Cvjetkovich. That’s what Chris’s name became the day they were married.

He flipped through the rest of the book, remembering things like Dagan’s first hair cut. That was a hell of a day. The barber shop will never, eeeever, be the same again. That was the first time Nick had ever threatened another man’s life and was serious about it. He told the man that if he took more than one inch off that kid’s hair, he’d kill him. The one thing Chris noticed about Nick right off the bat was his hair, so when Dagan came out with the jet black, poker straight hair, like Nick had, Chris fell in love instantly. To this day that boy’s hair has only been trimmed.

He continued his way through the book, and when he came to the last page, he broke down. That was the page that had been reserved, since the day Dagan was born, for his first day of school picture. The picture that Nick had forgotten to take. He sat there and cried like a baby. He just knew that he’d fucked this one up so bad, there was no fixing it.

“Dada tay?” Raine said, walking up and putting her little hand on his leg.

Nick looked down into her big blue eyes and immediately picked her up. “Daddy’s fine, Sissy.” Nick said, trying to stop crying and concentrate on his daughter. “You hungry?” She shook her head, putting her pacifier back in her mouth. Nick picked her up and took her into the kitchen, stripped her down to her diaper, and put her in her high chair. Spagettio’s was on the menu for lunch that day, and that was a naked eating day. After slightly heating them, he sat a small bowl in front of her, handed her a spoon and let the fun begin.

And fun it was. By the time they were done, both of them needed a bath. After taking Raine upstairs and giving her a bath, he put her in her play room, and took a shower for himself. When he got out of the shower he heard Raine talking. Figuring she was talking to Chris again, he took his time brushing his hair, and getting dressed. That’s when he heard her voice from the vicinity of his knees. “Dada, hone.” She said, holding the phone up to her father.

Nick looked down at her, smiled and took the phone. “Hey Angel.” Nick said, just knowing it was Chris.

“Mr. Cvjetkovich?” A female voice said.

Nick was shocked. He really had thought it was Chris. “Yes, this is him. You’ll have to excuse me, I thought you were my husband.” Nick said, offering an explanation of the Angel thing.

The woman was slightly taken aback. “Mr. Cvjetkovich, this is Ms. Rusher. I’m Dagan’s teacher.” The woman said, recovering well from hearing that Dagan had two fathers instead of your normal mother and father.

“Is there a problem?” Nick said, thinking of everything that could have gone wrong without him or Chris there for an entire day.

“Mr. Cvjetkovich, I think you need to come pick Dagan up. We had a slight mishap during crafts hour.” Ms. Rusher didn’t get another word in edgewise. Nick told her he’d be right there and hung up the phone, not even giving her a chance to explain. He quickly put Raine in the car and drove to the school, faster than he really should have. He had every horrible thought going through his head. Injuries, sickness, and any number of other things that could have happened. He walked into the school, with Raine on his hip. The teacher met him at the door. Nick figured that wasn’t a good sign. “Mr. Cvjetkovich, you need to calm down. You didn’t let me explain. Dagan’s fine.” Ms. Rusher said, stopping Nick in his tracks.

“If he’s fine, then why did I need to come get him?” Nick said, getting more confused and angry by the minute.

“We couldn’t get him to calm down after the incident. That’s why we called you.” Ms. Rusher said, ushering Nick and Raine into the principle’s office.

Nick walked in and saw his son in tears. “What happened buddy? You okay?” Nick said, walking up to his son. All Dagan could do was turn his head and show his dad. There was a section of hair missing from Dagan’s head. Right in the middle, right above his low lying pony tail holder. “What the hell?” Nick said, standing up and looking at the teacher. “What happened?”

The teacher was not expecting this sort of reaction. Some mild anger yes, but the look on Nick’s face told her she wasn’t dealing with mild here. “We were having craft time and another student decided to play barber. He cut your sons hair, and that’s when your son turned around and punched the kid.” Ms Rusher said, noticing the look on Nick’s face had not deterred from it’s original state of anger. “To be honest, Mr. Cvjetkovich, we’re not used to seeing that level of violence in a Kindergartner.”

Nick told Dagan to take Raine into the hallway and wait for him there. Once they were safely out of the room, he turned his attention back to Ms. Rusher. “First of all, don’t tell me that my son is violent. He only did what his father and I taught him to do, and that is to protect himself. Second, the only reason you couldn’t get him to calm down, is the fact that since he was born he’s never had more than an inch taken off of his hair. I have long hair, his father has long hair, so he has long hair. It’s a feature of his that his father happens to love. So that’s why you couldn’t get him to calm down.” Nick said, almost in one breath.

“Mr. Cvjetkovich, just calm down.” Ms. Rusher said, trying to contain the situation. “I understand why he was so upset, but I’ve never seen a six year old throw a punch like that. Is his other father a professional boxer?” She said, actually curious about Dagan’s fathers professions.

Nick ran his finger’s through his hair. This was a very closely guarded secret with the two of them. They wanted their children to make friends for who they were, not that they had one super famous dad and another that would be that way one of these days. “Ms. Rusher, his other father and myself are professional wrestlers. We didn’t let anyone know, because we didn’t want kids being friends with him just to get to meet his dad. Are you familiar with wrestling at all?” Nick said, praying that she wasn’t.

“A little. I have a few nephews that watch it.” Ms. Rusher said.

“Well his other father is Chris Jericho.” Nick said, not to happy that the cat was out of the bag. “And that’s something that we would appreciate you keeping to yourself. Not for our sakes. We don’t care if people know that we’re gay or not, but for our kids. It’s hard enough that they have two daddies, but with one of them being a superstar. We think that’s a little much to put on their shoulders.”

“I understand.” Ms. Rusher said. “Your secret’s safe with me. Now you take Dagan home and get his hair straightened out and we’ll see him tomorrow in class.”

Nick agreed and apologized for his behavior. He collected his children and drove straight to the barber. After about half an hour in the barber chair, Dagan came home with a new shoulder length hair style. Not to bad, huh? Well, when he left the house that day it was down to the middle of his back. Nick took a picture of him with their digital camera and e-mailed it to Chris. He gave it a little time to get there then called Chris. “Check your e-mail, Angel.”

Chris checked his e-mail. “Am I on speaker phone?” Was the only thing Chris said, then.

“Nope.” Nick said, just waiting for the flood of curse words that were about to come from Chris.

“What the fuck happened to his head!? Where the hell did his hair go? I swear I leave you alone with them for a day and this is what happens? That’s it! I’m on my way home.” Chris said, madder than Nick had ever heard him before.

“Wait just a minute, sunshine. I didn’t do anything to his head. That haircut was courtesy of a classmate of his, but if that’s what it takes to get you home, I would have done it a long time ago.” Nick said, trying to hide his anger from the kids.

Chris was still staring at his son on the computer screen. “Don’t start that ‘come home’ bullshit again. Remember you’re the one that told me to go.”

Nick told the kids to go up to their play room. With the kids out of ear shot, Nick finally let loose. “Why the fuck do you keep throwing that in my face. I put my dreams on hold so you could go to Europe and fuck four other guys! So don’t keep acting like you didn’t want to go and I shoved you out the damn door!” Nick said.

Chris couldn’t believe his ears. Nick thought he was cheating on him. The only thing going through Chris’s mind at that point was a little fact he’d heard years ago. It’s usually the accuser that’s cheated. “Is that what you think? That’s it’s just some big fuck fest over here? Yeah, Nick, that’s why I call you every damn night. And you’re only there half the time. What’s up with that?” Chris said.

“What’s up with that? Well, let me see Chris, between soccer, ballet, gymnastics, martial arts, football, t-ball, and indy shows, I wonder why I’m not home at night.” Nick said, offended that Chris would think he had time to fool around.

“Indy shows? I thought you gave up wrestling?” Chris said, surprised that Nick was still wrestling. “You said you’d stay home and take care of the kids. What the hell are you doing going to indy shows with my kids!?”

“Wait just a minute! Aren’t they OUR kids? I thought that’s what it said on their birth certificates. Or are they only our kids in the comfort of our home?” Nick said, stepping into the bathroom, noticing this argument was getting pretty loud. “And it’s not like you didn’t have them back stage at WWE shows. Oh, wait, I forgot. They were YOUR kids then, weren’t they. Yeah, you never did invite your husband to those shows.”

“You know why I never invited you. It’s different in the WWE. I couldn’t let everyone in the company know about us. I’d have been fired for real!” Chris said, knowing how much it hurt Nick to never be behind the scenes with him. “At least you knew they were taken care of back there. Who the hell looks after them during your indy shows?”

“Well it depends on who’s back there that night. They’ve hung out with Chris Hero, Cassidy Riley, Chase Stevens, Brian Kendrick, Shannon Moore, Jeff Hardy, you know whoever happens to be there.” Nick said, knowing half of those names were sending a dagger straight through Chris’s heart. “I know those guys are no Triple H, or JBL, but they’re good guys, and they love the kids.”

All he heard was silence and then a dial tone. Chris had hung up on him. He opened the bathroom door to find his kids sitting on the floor right outside the door. Raine was playing with a doll, but Dagan had a look of pure horror on his face. “Are you and daddy breaking up?” Dagan said, and Nick could hear the tears in his voice. “A kid at school told me that he lived with his daddy sometimes and his mommy the other times. He said it was a diborce, and that’s when your mommy and daddy don’t live together anymore. Is that gonna happen to you and daddy? Who would love me and sissy then? Who’d take care of us?”

Nick just sank down onto the floor and pulled the kids into his lap. With tears streaming down his cheeks he tried to explain. “Sometimes when grown ups get upset with each other, they yell and say things they shouldn’t. That’s what’s going on with me and daddy right now. We’re just upset with each other.” Nick said, making sure that he didn’t make any promises he couldn’t keep. The thought never entered his mind, that him and Chris might split up, until Dagan said what he said. He sent the kids up to their rooms and picked up the phone again. He left Chris a voice mail saying he was sorry and to call him back. That’s all he could do. Just take care of the kids and wait.

Nick then picked up the phone and called the next door neighbor and asked her if she would watch the kids for a while. The woman adored the kids and quickly agreed, even agreed to make them dinner. Nick dropped the kids at her house and then went out and bought him a new cell phone. He figured this was no time to be out of contact with Chris. He called Chris back then, and left him another voice mail, telling him he’d gotten a new cell phone and he could reach him there. Then Nick went for a long drive. Everything from that day was rumbling through his head. He wound up at the beach during sunset. He sat there and tried to picture life without Chris.

After 11 years together, he couldn’t. All the talks, and fights, and making up they’d done over the years played out in his head. The night Dagan was born, the morning Raine was born, the days they brought them both home, were all memories that cherished. He didn’t want to loose all of that. He picked up the phone and dialed a number by heart. FTD. He knew it by heart, because, before the kids and the crazy schedules, he’d send Chris flowers at least twice a week, sometimes more. He ordered a dozen, and paid extra to have them there by the time Chris got off stage that night. The card attached simply read ‘Call me.’

Nick waited another hour and a half there on the beach. Finally Chris called. “I’m sorry.” Nick said immediately after picking up the call. “I was out of line.”

“Damian, you weren’t the only one out of line. I should have never thought that you would cut Dagan’s hair.” Chris said, inhaling the fragrant bouquet again. “Why’d you send so many colors?”

“Well that’s something you probably didn’t know about me.” Nick said, surprised that after all these years there was actually something Chris didn’t know. “I know the meaning of all the colors of roses. The red ones mean love, like the way I love you. The white ones mean humility, like how humble I felt after we got off the phone. The pink ones mean happiness, like how happy you make me. The yellow ones mean a promise of a new beginning, like the new beginning we’ll have when you get home. The coral ones mean desire, and that one should be pretty self explanatory. And the lavender ones mean enchantment, because the mere sound of your voice enchants me.”

They talked for a little while longer and then Nick went home, picked up his now sleeping children, took them home and went to bed himself.

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When Nick woke up the next morning, he was shocked that the kids hadn’t woke him up. That’s when the terror set in. He smelled things cooking downstairs. The kids couldn’t reach the stove! That’s when he remembered he hadn’t set the security alarm the night before. He jumped out of bed, grabbed the ball bat from the closet, checked the kids rooms, and headed downstairs.... quickly. When he entered the kitchen, he dropped the bat, and almost started to cry. “Hey Damian, we didn’t wake you up did we?” Chris said, standing in front of the stove cooking breakfast. “I kept Dagan home from school today so we could have a family day, and later on they’re gonna go over to Uncle Jay and Uncle Matt’s house and spend the night with Madison.”

Nick walked up to Chris, spun him around and kissed him, passionately. The kids giggled, and that was a good thing, because it wouldn’t have taken that kiss long to turn into something else. The four of them had a wonderful day. They ate breakfast as a family, had a cookout for lunch, went to the park and had dinner with Jay, Matt, and their four year old daughter, Madison. After dinner Nick and Chris helped clean up and then headed home.

The door had barely shut before Chris found himself pressed against it by Nick. Their lips met in a scorching kiss. The kind of kiss that promises passion beyond either of their wildest dreams. Their tongues fought for supremacy, searching out every crevasse of the other’s mouth. They both reveled in the taste of each other. A taste both of them had done without for far to long.

They fumbled with cloths while they headed towards the stairs, neither willing to give up contact with the other. They had done this on several occasions, so it was no surprise to either of them, that were both completely divested of their cloths by the time they reached the stairs. The surprise came when Nick gently pushed Chris down on the stairs and gave him another passionate kiss. He began kissing and licking his way down Chris’s body, stopping and taking one of Chris’s nipples into his mouth teasing it with his tongue, feeling it harden. He nipped at it, causing the blood to come to the surface of Chris’s flesh. Nick moved on to the other one, loving the sounds of Chris moaning his name. After lavishing the other one with the same tender affection, he continued his journey down his husbands body. Stopping here and there to re-acquaint himself with the man that was writhing beneath him.

Nick finally came to the part of Chris that his body had been seeking. He wrapped his mouth around the very head of Chris’s cock and let his senses get familiar with the taste and smell of Chris again. Nick felt Chris’s fingers run through his hair and gently start to push him down. That’s all the incentive that Nick needed. He tried to go slow, and make it last, but they hadn’t seen each other in so long that it was almost impossible. The pace quickened, every moan from Chris’s mouth, spurring Nick along. It didn’t take long before Chris was erupting in Nick’s mouth.

After drinking in all Chris had to offer, Nick tenderly picked Chris up from the stairs and carried him to their bedroom. He laid him gently on the bed and had to stand there for a moment, admiring the form that lay before him. Chris’s hair sprayed out on the pillows, his bare form still slightly quivering in the wake of his orgasm with a thin layer of sweat covering it, his blue eyes looking at Nick dripping with desire. Nick walked to the end of the bed, and crawled up between Chris’s legs, which instinctively wrapped around his waist. Their lips met again for another kiss before Nick reached over and pulled a bottle out of the nightstand. The scent of peaches filled the room as Nick rubbed the lube on his own throbbing cock.

He slid easily into Chris’s body, and found the rhythm that he knew drove Chris crazy even easier. Their bodies melted together, each of them almost falling into a drunk like state from the feel of the other. The only sounds that were heard were moans of pleasure and vows of love. This time they took their time. It wasn’t another quickie because one of them or the kids had to be somewhere. They had all night, and they intended on using it.