kiki @aequarea - Tumblr Blog

— the Hunter's Association would like to invite you to attend an honorable conference about the future of hunter-tech, upsetting a nest of dragons missing their mother

ʕ ꈍᴥꈍʔ: happy valentine's! here's a beach episode!! i failed posting this on the last day of feb oops but i hope it's the thought that counts 𐔌՞ ܸ.ˬ.ܸ՞𐦯 hit a lot of walls writing this, but it was still incredibly fun nonetheless! enjoys! ❀-urs

important heads up for context of this story: lucian and kyros are (my headcanon) sylus's twin boys. 2 years in this one! ᡣ𐭩

sylus & his family | sylus x reader | fluff, hurt/comfort, family angst, suggestive themes, swearing, mc feeling like a bad mama, sylus being a menace, papa!sylus, mama!reader, bigbro!lukenkieran, bird!mephisto

When Sylus holds you, he never takes it for granted.

His hands will snake around your waist and creep over your back. His touch tender and kind.

One palm rests at the base of your skull, while the other pulls you impossibly close to his warmth, caged in a vice of power and affection you are happy to be ensnared in.

Just as he dislikes coming home now to a quiet house, he absolutely hates going to bed alone.

With you out on missions and meetings that warrant a statue of your visage in the heart of Linkon itself, he is left to suffer a cuddle-less, wife-less bed. Waking only when you slip beneath the covers and curl against his back like a cub in the throes of winter. He turns and holds you, of course, always, but when he wakes, you are gone again.

He’s reminded of the fact that you’d once go two weeks without seeing each other and feel nothing but a faint sense of longing and joyful anticipation of when you’d see each other again next. Now he feels as if he can’t take a full breath without a glimpse of you within a single day.

A favorable development.

Though when you come home and tell him that you’ll be away for the weekend for a mission, he feels as if the sky might fall from its hinges any moment.

He really isn’t one for assuming doomsday, especially when he is capable of being its harbinger. So it comes to a shock to him too that he spirals this time as he watches you pack a bag and string out your apologies.

“…on Valentine’s Day.” Is when he comes to, for you are now before him and winding your arms around his neck. He wastes no time pulling you to his lap and securing you with both hands on your hips.

“Hm?”

“You think I’m terrible.”

He scoffs. “No, of course not.” His fingers are magic against the knots at the top of your spine, pressing meticulously in gentle circles. “We can celebrate another time.”

His gentle ministrations do wonders for your tense shoulders, but nothing for your already guilt-ridden heart. You can’t help but pepper his face with kisses, light butterfly wings beating against his soft skin. “I’ve been away for too long.”

He purses his lips. Returns a peck. “No one holds that against you, my love.”

He’s right, but the realization makes your heart break more.

Sylus has said no ill word against you ever, not since you started taking overtime, not since you started falling asleep during conversations. Say it be work that beat you down, but even then the choking blame you put on yourself for not being able to balance things seizes your insides and weighs you down in the tar of your misery.

Even your children are forced to understand— though incapable of asking why, you see it in their eyes when they watch you leave how strange it is for mama to go. How sad it is mama cannot stay.

Before you know it, your nose is burning, and the pressure behind your eyes pushes hot tears forward. Painful comets racing down your cheeks, colliding with the quick pads of your husband’s thumb.

“Beloved…” he murmurs. Rarely does he show pity for you, but you hear it in his tone now. “Come now.”

“I’m just so tired...” the admission is coated in a sob; you are lucky is still intelligible nonetheless. For Sylus, he doesn’t need the clarity; he already understands.

“I know.” He holds you tighter, buries you deeper into his embrace. A pillar in the sea, bearing of the brunt of your crashing waves.

“I miss you.” You’re shaking. He hates it, wonders if holding on will keep you from collapsing any further. “I miss you, I miss my babies, I miss my house— I miss you.”

He has half a mind to destroy the association. For no political or moral gain aside from taking his wife home for the rest of the week. Fully aware of how irrational it may be, but willing— oh, so willing. Just say the word.

“I miss you too.” He says, whispered like a prayer against your skin. An accumulation of the times he’s said it before, balled up into this one now. Heavy. Aching. Painful. Raw. “I miss you so much.”

𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

Your husband is not in bed the next morning.

But your bags are already in the car, your carryon is arranged, your wallet stuffed and your breakfast is warm on the table. Waiting with two little babies in their high chairs, smushing bananas in their fingers and on their cheeks.

Their faces light up at the sight of you. Legs wiggling like wild worms in their onesies especially when you engulf them in kisses. You try to push aside the fear that they’ve grown in your absence and try to focus on the few hours you have before you have to leave again.

“Where’s papa?” You ask your littles, brushing back their hair from their sticky round cheeks. Their eyes shining as they stare at you like you hung each star in the sky by hand. And maybe that’s what you do, they think, when you’re off to work.

“Papa nana.” Lucian tells you, offering you a piece pureed by his own hand. “Papa nana. Mm nummy!”

“Papa… went out to get more bananas?” You deduce, taking your thumb and wiping the corners of his familiar upturned smirk.

“Papa went to chop more bananas.” Corrects said papa from behind, circling around the kitchen island to get to you. The plate of chopped fruit is placed before you and the original owner of the smirk presses his lips to your hair. “Good morning.”

His voice pleasantly reminds you of the night before, how his comforting words accompanied by his tender actions guided you through the storm of your distress and docked you safely and blissfully to shore.

Heat crawls up your neck and stains your cheeks before he can even notice.

He does anyway, of course. He kisses you a few times more before asking you to sit and eat.

Lucian continues to offer you bananas. Kyros shows you how he can now count to three. You gather that the big twins have taught them a song, which they sing for you in their own glorious key.

Each bite of your breakfast felt like a march to the end of the road. And to your disappointment, the food is finished and Kyros has to go potty.

So you change him. You rarely do nowadays, and after breakfast, it’s the least you can do. You don’t mind, you like taking the time to talk to him— his speech quietly emerging at this age in clumsy popcorn imitations and patchwork grammar. He surprises you this time with it, while you’re busy fastening his diaper down, he asks. “Mama go bye?”

And how your heart breaks.

“Mama… has to go for a few days,” you admit regretfully.

“No, mama,” he frowns, bottom lip jutted out and wobbling. Already fearing the ache of your absence, the disappointment of waddling into a room and seeing you aren’t there. That much he understands, that much he abhors.

He demands. “Mama home.”

“Just a few days, my angel.” you don’t lie, but you feel as though you are. Like it doesn’t matter what you say. To him, it’s happened one time too many that he’s resorted to begging you to stay. “And then— and then I’ll be back.”

“No!” He squeaks, perching himself up on his knees. The fabric of your shirt twist through his little fingers. “No, pease! Mama!”

A bitterness coats your tongue and panic rises in your chest. Already you curse what work has whittled you down to, how it has dulled the edges of your solid conviction and diluted the line between recognizing want and need in your children.

With weakened knees, you cannot find it in yourself to de-escalate your son’s emotions— offer an explanation, an alternative. None of that come to light, except—

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” you whimper into his silver hair. Seeming darker and lacking its natural luster now. “Mama’s here.”

“No! No!” Kyros wails, already too lost in his sadness to hear your placating whispers. So seldomly does he throw his tantrums that you are at a loss with what to do, which makes you feel worse.

You have little time to panic before Sylus enters and offers his help. With tears in your eyes, you hand him the wailing Kyros and wrap your arms tightly around yourself. Attempting to shrink, to hold fast and keep it together. None of it is easy.

“Come here.” Says Sylus amidst him shushing the toddler, pulling you to his side too and tucking you under his arm. Adding another layer of bindings around your fracturing self. “It’s okay.”

In his other arm, Kyros is curled in on his bicep like a koala, Sylus’s hand wrapped securely on the back of his skull. Teeth chattering and chest bubbling with hiccups that make you worry for his breathing.

Sylus is both your tethers to this world as you threaten to collapse into the cosmos.

Once the tension dies down, Kyros demands to be returned to you, quietly burying himself in your arms. Hoping maybe the weight of him will anchor you down within the walls of the house. You regulate yourself by holding him close and murmuring in his hair. Counting, just as he showed you at the table, each breath together as your frustrations fade in the current.

“Mama will be back, okay?” it’s a relief when he nods without protest, though the dip in his brow and the sinking corners of his mouth tell you enough of what he truly feels.

They drive you to the airport. You sit between two carseats in the back, a pillowy fist wrapped around each of your ring fingers. Kyros continues to sniffle at you with watery eyes while Lucian names the different charms on your bracelet, saying “eat?” to ones that look like food. The way you sing no! makes him smile.

There is little fuss when the car stops and Sylus unloads your bags. Kyros doesn’t cry anymore, but Lucian whines at the loss of your hand on his belly. With a kiss each, you bid them a bitter goodbye before slipping out and into Sylus’s arms for a quick embrace.

Tara and Simone wait by the entrance, waving at you to hurry. You have half a mind to pretend like you don’t see them. Maybe slink back to the car, to your boys. Maybe even take the wheel and drive away yourself.

“Onychinus will give you paid time off,” Sylus’s lips press into your temple where you feel him smile. He sees the dimness in your gaze when you look up and he kisses your fluttering lashes. The weight of an object is placed in your grip— a mysterious red paper bag stapled shut at the top. “We value our employees families and personal lives, after all.”

That pulls a smile out of you, however faint it is, it’s success enough for him. “Consider it?”

“I will.” you say, accepting another kiss before parting ways once more.

You escape the tearful goodbye, or so you think. Tara just had to ask about the bag you received from your husband, curiosity getting the best of her. The bag goes pop! pop! as you pull against the staples.

You’re crying before you even realize it when she helps you take out the circular plushies from the bag— one red, one orange— “Tomatoes?”

You nod, a melting monster of snot and tears, as you reach for them and cradle them close.

Tara comforts with gentle understanding as the plane takes off. She wonders why you’re sobbing about Onychinus into your plushies, but chalks it up to the stress of the recent missions. Good on you to be focused despite everything else, she supposes.

𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

Sylus has no trouble cheering up his two sad sons.

He likes to take pride in the fact that he is now an expert in detecting their current state of emotions and helping them feel what they ought to feel. Right now, the clear answer to their sadness is obviously—

“Ey-pane!” shrieks Lucian on his arm, pointing at the aircraft they walk towards. “Ey-pane! Big ey-pane!”

Kyros has his face hidden from the sun in Sylus’s chest and his ears covered with both hands, but he peeks ever so slightly to see what his brother is so excited about. Once he gets it, he moves to more important things. “Papa, hooot!”

“I know, I know,” chuckles Sylus, ascending the stairs to the jet faster to get his whiny little dragons out of the sunshine.

Once set down, they are like tiny chicks in search for something to peck at. Pressing buttons on seats, poking screens and searching for in-flight sandwiches, their little giggles filling the cabin.

Sylus knocks on the captains’ quarters and like a magic trick out pop the big twins. Their usual dark uniforms now replaced with big floral shirts over white tank tops and shorts.

The littles are reduced to quick, excited wheezy breaths as Luke bends down to scoop them up in his embrace. They start to chatter about in-flight cheese sandwiches so Sylus is able to escape to the helm and take his seat in the pilot’s chair.

“Does boss’ma know you’re doing this?” Kieran asks between preflight check offs.

Sylus didn’t often smile before his the little ones, even now Kieran is thrown off by the wolfish grin that graces his father’s face—both fearsome and, if even possible, endearing. “Don’t people expect gifts for Valentine’s Day?”

—

You’re sure they’ve done more for you than this.

But you’re inclined to think that after lending your years to the association fighting off monsters and being Linkon’s vigilant protector has only gained you a seat in the most boring and unnecessary conference about new age weaponry your husband probably has surpassed in improvements with his own technology by months.

Your colleagues are just as bored as you, despite having no same sentiments, so they do little to judge your grumpy disposition and lack of enthusiasm regarding such groundbreaking work.

Tara yawns on her seat beside you, leaning forward on the table and resting her head on her palm. “Thought we were at least going to test these things out if they wanted us all the way out here.”

You let out a noncommittal sound from your throat, between a groan and a grunt, that serves as your whole response, which Tara agrees with emitting a sound similar to your own.

Mercy is rationed in this conference, granted in breaks few and far between they feel accidental.

It is no balm to the irritated ego that it is set within the multipurpose-hall of a luxurious hotel— the inside is a sin of round tables with too-hard chairs doused in dull office white lights to keep the meeting straightforward and formal— pressed up against a golden shoreline and glistening waves that belonged to an entirely different world completely.

Standing on the balcony of your double suite, the sun thaws away the chill that has crawled onto your skin and into your bones when you sat there motionless listening to protocol synthesis and evol-weapon synchronization. The crick in your neck becomes unbearable the more you think about it.

The seaside view paints you a scene below of the beach moving in its unhurried pace. Of couples resting beneath the shade of comically large umbrellas, of children running with kites and buckets along the sand and into the water, of people with restful limbs and quiet minds enjoying the weekend with the people they love.

The sun burns now, actually. Sweat builds on your forehead and temples, sticky and wrong. There is a heat that presses and weighs down in your chest despite the beauty of what you see. You are in desperate need of respite.

Sylus’s number rings thrice before he picks up the phone.

“Sweetie?”

“Hi, I just called to check in.” You say, voice pitched uncharacteristically higher. Masquerading a joyful tone. “How are the kids?”

“They’re alright,” says Sylus. He doesn’t miss a beat when he asks, “Are you?”

You shouldn’t be surprised that you are practically a picture book to him laid bare no matter how hard you try. “I’m fine.”

“Mm.”

“Just… tired,” you confess. It hasn’t even been a day and you feel like you’ve spent a week’s worth of energy.

From this morning to now, finally being able to admit it to someone else, you feel the entire weight of it all crash onto your shoulders— harsh, distant, relentless as the surf. “It’s all so boring.”

Sylus chuckles, the sound crinkles slightly on the line. “What can I do to make you feel better?”

You hum. “Any suggestions?”

“An airstrike?”

You sputter. “No!”

His laugh is rich and refreshing. “Something smaller then? I can pull the fire alarm.”

It is you now who laughs, making your way back into the cool air conditioned embrace of your room. Too preoccupied to slide the door closed, the warm breeze follows you in. Cushions and quilts catch your indecision as you lie back on the bed, your two tomatoes roll mindlessly to your side. “Then all my things would be wet.”

“Then how about a drink?”

Knock, knock, knock.

“Sylus…” you hang off the side of the bed like you’ve been swallowed by it, scrambling excitedly to get up. It’s all too timed, too planned to be anything of a coincidence. Knowing your husband, he is very good with set-up, and is the very best with executions.

His warnings fly over your head in the haze of excitement as you throw your door open. And you almost fall into the arms of your guest.

But instead, you blink at the Tara holding two yellow drinks in his hand. Glasses sweating, ice dripping over fingers. She tilts her head at you in amusement. “Someone sent drinks up to our room!”

Your shoulders shake when you chuckle in embarrassment, making way for her to come in and picking up your phone from the ground. It says, “Courtesy of Onychinus.”

“Bastard.” You murmur back.

He grins on the other side. Unbeknownst to you, he is just sliding his keycard into the chaos of his own lodging, your four children having thought it fun to play catch the bird indoors.

He doesn’t give you time to hear before he’s rushing to say, “I love you. I’ll have someone pull the fire alarm soon.”

You’re thankful for Tara’s presence to lighten up the disappointment you feel in your gut when you sit with her and enjoy your complimentary drinks. He’s made sure to order your favorite, sweet and refreshingly perfect of a summer’s day.

And at the bottom, embedded in the glass, it reads: Happy Valentine’s Day.

𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

You aren’t suffering, per se, but you do want to peel the drapery apart in the function room and jump out the window by day two.

The way you passed out last night should be studied. You aren’t sure which exhausted you more, the travel over or having to upkeep the sheer will to live in the conference. Waking up to missed calls from your family on your phone only made you feel worse.

You didn’t expect things to turn around just before lunch. They’d said— the speaker had an urgent call from their research facility. Details can’t be disclosed right now, so we’ll have to postpone the conference.

Chairs scraped. The hall echoes idle mumbles bursting slowly into subtly relieved chatter. The empty stage suddenly felt so alluring you could get up and dance on it.

Home. You were going home.

The doors to your bedroom seemed to morph into the gates of heaven. Inside you’ll be able to pack, book an early flight and get out of he—

Your heart drops. At the sight of the empty hotel room, you can’t help but cry out. Because where— where are your things?!

Tara’s are in her corner, untouched, you realize when your scramble around pathetically. Losing all sense. Crawling on all fours on the carpet, checking each crevice and closet they could possibly be in— “Shit! Are you kidding me?”

Your ears ring, your head is spinning. What do you mean— your passport, your wallet, your shoes, your books and clothes— they’re all missing? That you were robbed in broad daylight? That there is yet another thing keeping you from going home?

It’s a wonder you do not scream when you reach for the phone. It clatters on its outdated plastic holder and dials up the front desk.

“S—“

“This is room M18, I’d like to report a theft. My bags, my valuables are all missing, and—and my passport, too. I hope this is all just a misunderstanding, I’ll be willing to cooperate in anyway that I can, but can you please, please just get here as soon as you can. I—“ your breath catches in your throat, and you get a grip of your slipping resolve. “Please, I need to go home.”

The world— oh, it has a vendetta against you. You can’t quite figure just what you’ve done so absolutely horrendous that would warrant such cruelty.

But there you are, flinching as the loud alarm blares from the hallway, drowning out the sound of the hotel’s response. Screams and thundering footsteps collide in the halls as people try to evacuate as quickly as possible.

The sprinklers go off.

Your hair is wet. The bed is now too.

But you can’t find it in yourself to hang up— let alone run.

“You should really evacuate, sweetie. Doesn’t the association teach you that much?”

Your eyes search for him before your brain even registers where his voice came from. In your hand, the phone stays on the line, and Sylus speaks to you again. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, and I thought the Hunter’s Association prides itself on urgency?”

The balcony door slides open.

Sylus steps into the room before you in all his materialized glory.

Taking captive each thought and drawing it to himself.

The water bounces off his clothes like there is an opposing force engulfing him, one that he extends to you when he reaches for your hand. “Beloved.”

Later. You’ll be mad at him later. You promise yourself that when you run to him and jump into his awaiting embrace. He buries his face in the crook of your neck and breathes in your scent. As if what separated you was as great as a war and here he is promising you victory.

“I hate you.” You murmur into his chest, nuzzling and charging up on his presence.

He chuckles deeply, placing a gentle kiss on your forehead. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

Sylus listens to Tara on the phone with you as you drive away from the hotel, your hand grasped firmly in his as he plays with your wedding band.

“Jenna says they’re moving the rest of the convention to another time since the function hall is all wet— but between you and me, thank goodness for that.” she whispers. “Apparently, the research issue was resolved and we were supposed to resume in the afternoon only if some kid hadn’t pulled the fire alarm. Honestly? Purr.”

Sylus snickers to your side and you pinch his rib.

“Anyway, I’ll see you back in Linkon! Oh, also— our bedroom was wet but none of my things are, how lucky is that?”

You laugh and give your husband a sidelong glance. “I’ll see you in Linkon, Tara.”

When you hang up, Sylus is the skipper receiver of your menacing glare. But it rolls off him like water off a duck. “We’re a little ways away from the beach house, you can take a nap.”

“You’re impossible.” You deflate, shoulders dropping finally from its perpetual tension as you slide down against the passenger’s seat.

His hand moves up to cup your jaw, thumb gliding over the plump of your cheek. He massages the joint in your mandible, sore from all the stress it’s gone through from your high-strung clenching. “I don’t take kindly to things that wedge themselves between me and my wife.”

“Huh,” you lean into his touch. “So you weren’t okay with me being away.”

“I never said I was.” he says, turning onto a road in the woods. His voice drops to burning wax, dripping off a candle. “If I recall correctly, I said I missed you and showed you exactly how much I—“

“Tsst!” you chide, flailing your arms around, hitting him on the shoulder. Your face burns hot and you’d be thankful if the floor swallowed you whole. “I get it.”

“I don’t think you do—“

“I do! I do, I really do.” you bury your face in his palm, kissing its center to placate his mischief. He finds it amusing, recognizing the technique to be an imitation of Lucian’s pacifying signature.

He’s held captive by your eyes, wide and appeasing in the afternoon light, brows swooping together to soften your giggles. He swallows down the onslaught of affection that lumps in his throat and forces himself to keep his eyes on the road as you tell him, “I love you.”

He wonders if a detour into the trees can be arranged.

He only realizes that he’s said that out loud when you shriek at him again. “Sylus!”

He wishes he can bottle up the laughter that bubbles out of you and bounces off the car upholstery and keep it in his glovebox forever.

𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

The beach house is so uncharacteristically elegant you’d think it was plucked straight from the N109 zone and planted in the middle of a private coast.

Its tinted oak walls are swallowed by the darkness as the sun dips into the horizon. The porch lights are little stars between glass windows, curtains drawn in from the inside. Concealing your second surprise within.

You’d have more time to drink in the details if it weren’t for your husband.

Sylus has abandoned his put-together self. His natural elegance replaced with this stumbling, lovestruck fool. Walking with a stride of a newly birthed giraffe, he bends his body down towards you, chasing kisses on your lips that threaten to run away.

“Forgive me,” he grounds out, blocking the entrance in his open reverence. His lips capture yours in another deep kiss, as if stopping in the woods wasn’t nearly enough. His hand comes around, ensnaring your waist in a sturdy hold, practically lifting you off the ground towards him. “I just…”

I’ve missed you. You’ve been gone for too long. I no longer know what it means to breathe without you.

And you’d have been happy to go inside, spend the entire night with him if that is what it took, but it’s the way he stretched the seconds that concern you. As if you were about to walk into an unchangeable fate. So you hold his face, kiss him back with as much fervor as you piece it together.

His breath is warm and ragged on your lips as he allows you to speak, “The kids are here, aren’t they?”

He beams at your cleverness, corners of his mouth stretching into a charming smile that he presses once more onto your own. “There’s always a chance that they’re asl—“

Thud! “Papaa?”

Through the wood, a little voice calls out, almost loud enough to make the door rattle. “Home, papa?”

Sylus squeezes his eyes shut as you fall into him, giggling at your son’s inhuman ability to sense when his father is within range. If he were a terrible father, he would not have replied. “Lucian, is that you?”

A moment to process the question.

“Yes, I Woosian!” The thundering on the door increases as the little fist upon it starts knocking. Happy to have confirmed that his intuition was correct and papa is behind the door. “Papa, in! In!”

The white flag of defeat flies in the air for now to make way for the excited voice awaiting inside the house. He kisses the top of your head, tender as a promise, and gets the door for the both of you.

And as expected, the shrill delight that lights up your son’s face is compares to nothing else in the world. He hops, surprised, as he screams. “Mama! Mama home!”

You bend down to catch him before he knocks a tooth off into your knees. His hair a cool breath of snow you bury your face in. The sweet smell of him is enough to put your once raging soul at rest as it flows into your lungs in steady streams of breath. “Oh, Lucian!”

He’s still happily wriggling in your arms when you hear the rapid and heavy thud-thud-thud-thud of feet on the wooden floor. Anticipation electrifies your soul.

Soon, Kyros rounds the corner, huffing and puffing as he pumps his tiny legs fast to get to you, and you almost cry at the sight.

“Mama,” his voice is rough when he collides with you, burying himself impossibly deep into a hug and clinging to your clothes as if you’d fade with any less force. “Mama home.”

It dawns on you that despite not being in your own house on the outskirts of Linkon, the children still call it home— more specifically, they are calling you home.

And it takes everything in you not to break in their small embrace. “Mama home.”

𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

“Oh! Hot!” Lucian squeaks with each little step. Waddling left and right like a penguin, lifting his knees high and then gently setting them down in the sand. His little fingers wrapped around your one. “Oh! Hot!”

“Do you need a lift, angel?” You inquire. One of your steps is three for him, and you can see Sylus and the others getting smaller in the distance.

But your little sand crab insists on walking on his own. “I okay, mama.”

You offer him a little smile and look towards the rest of your family. Luke’s and Kieran’s now tiny silhouettes work together to spread out the blanket and open the large beach umbrella. Sylus transitions Kyros from his shoulders into his arms, turning to wave at you.

You mirror their waves, large, swooping arcs in the sky. While Lucian keeps his eyes on his vinyl clog-clad feet, still commentating each unique step in the sand. “Oh! Hot!”

You tilt your head a little closer to his frame, making sure the shadow of your wide hat covers him entirely, as he so vehemently rejected his own sun hat. To add on to your failed attempts at protecting his sensitive skin from the dangerous sun, he just had to insist on dressing like papa.

You can’t help but worry. “Is your belly cold, baby?”

Lucian pauses his waddling and glances down on his exposed tummy through his unbuttoned floral shirt. All pudge and round, he pats it gently. “It okay.”

You nod again. Taking another two steps. At this rate, you’ll probably get to the blanket by noon.

“Oh! Hot!”

“Woo-siii-aan!” Kyros screams from afar, hands cupped around his mouth to amplify the sound. His voice is already small, but his pitch pinches that specific way that tells you he’s just that little bit annoyed. “Fast-ou!”

Lucian squeaks back, “I comin’!”

He turns back to you. “Mama, sand in my wippurs?”

You crouch down now, pushing him to your knee so he can sit, you take one foot and shake it out. “Because there are holes in them.”

“It broken?” He frowns, taking the shoe from you and looking into it. You giggle, finding him endlessly amusing.

“No, angel, they’re made like that. They’re easy to clean like this.” You shake the other. He sits fully on your knee. “See? Shake, shake.”

Once you place the clogs back on his feet, he has the realization that he doesn’t want sand coming into his broken-not-broken shoes anymore, and clings to your neck. “Mama, can carry?”

You breathe out a sigh of relief and wrap him up in your embrace as you take him up with you to a stand. They practically celebrate from afar at the sight— you spot Sylus’s head tilt back in relief too.

Once you arrive at your picnic blanket, you set Lucian down beside his brother. Kyros sits in the cradle of Sylus’s criss-crossed legs, floating just above the earth. Not a grain of sand on his skin.

“What a walk.” Sylus says, voice lilting in amusement, pulling you down beside him. He reaches up to swipe your forehead, wiping away sweat and strings of hair that had stuck to your cheeks.

“You wouldn’t believe.” You huff.

A sharp chill touches your shoulder makes you flinch. When you turn your head, Kieran is there with a wide grin, sticking an ice cold drink to your skin. You roll your eyes at him but take it anyway.

The stretch you feel in your muscles begin in the squeeze of your shoulders, radiating down the cords of your back and arms, so tightly woven together than you are briefly concerned if you’ll be able to lean back on your palms. You settle in the position over time.

Seagulls flit and flutter overhead, squawking a distant melody against the percussion of crashing waves. The air blows fresh, warm wind on your sun-kissed skin. Grains of sand stick to your toes and thighs. And for the first time in a long time, your breath returns to you by the lungfuls.

There are apologies to be made at the tip of your tongue. Endless strings of sorrow and regret you think your family deserves from you, now blanketing your tired soul, even in the aftermath of the battle won.

Sylus teases you about being a workaholic, bringing up retirement as a thoughtful alternative to the aching feet he would rub and the heavy shoulders he would kiss.

You have more than enough to sustain you—but he never pushed. Not with that, not with Onychinus, not with anything at all. And that only fuels the fire that he deserves the most repentance of all.

You swallow down the anxiety building in your throat because you shouldn’t be feeling this way still having passed through the light at the end of the tunnel. That it is in this betrayal that makes all your sorries null and void— to be here and not all at once. It is an implosion that wreaks havoc, and in its ashes: the harrowing thought of being a bad mother.

Sylus has a knack for that, as he’s made well aware of by your youngest son.

So when he turns to you, eyes blank as you stare at the clouds, he knows exactly where you are and the kind of stars that are imploding in your mind at that moment. He places the pin in the grenade with a single touch.

Muffled conversations come to focus as you are tethered back, meeting his brief gaze. Soft and forgiving. So moving that now you must do anything else but think.

You hear Sylus talking to Kyros about getting down, Lucian asking about his plastic sand toys and Kieran shuffling to get up from the blanket to join Luke in the water.

Like clockwork, instinct leads your attention to movement. “Pause.”

Kieran freezes midway his squat to get up. You lift your shades over your head and inspect his cheeks. “Sunscreen.”

“I already put—“

“Again,” you make no room for argument. The sunscreen is plucked from the beach bag from its place beside the plastic bucket of shovels and molds, that is handed to Lucian who immediately stops pestering his father with a little “yay!”

Kieran rivals Kyros’s poutiness and yet he slumps before you like a child. Whining with no real weight, “Why do I have to and Luke doesn’t?”

You click your tongue, smearing the cream under his eyes and on the bridge of his nose. He shifts slightly, but you press a finger to both dips of his cheekbones. “You go tell him to come back here so he can put on another layer too.”

Kieran huffs again and turns to Sylus for backup. “Boss—“

“You’ll listen if you know what’s good for you.” is all Sylus spares him, barely even turning to look as he continues to appeal to a different toddler.

“Kier, it’s not that bad.”

“But it gets all streaky,” his voice drops to a murmur. “And I don’t need your help. It’s embarrassing…”

“To who?” your voice pitches in amusement. You turn his chin to the rest of the beach, emptiness stretching for miles you wonder if the beach house is the only property Sylus bought. Shaking your head in exasperation you swipe the final line of sunscreen over the tips of his ears. “Besides, you have the streaks because you don’t put it on right.”

Your fingers skim over his scars more gently than the rest of his skin. Smoothening over them with feather-like force, without needing his instruction.

Kieran sits there for a moment, eyes closed and body rigid. Processing the emotions running through his body like a toddler. Feeling… new. He’s never had to put sunscreen on in the N109 zone, let alone having someone else do it for him with the intention of care. Of knowing.

Secretly, he likes it. Sure, of course he does.

He doesn’t remember much of his mother, nor has he really tried. Both he and his brother were raised to be weapons with no time to mourn what they do not know of. So when you act this way… kind, concerned, caring, he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

But he swallows it all anyway, pushing past the difficult angst that has built up in his throat and makes his voice crack like a teenager’s. “Okay, okay— can I go?”

You beam at the state of him: head immobilized, eyes straining to the side, watching Luke hoot and holler as he does donuts on the jet ski.

Blissfully unaware of the turning tides within him as you think, who would have ever thought he had the capacity to match your two and a half year old with his behavior?

“Call Luke!” is as much as you get out before he’s bolting off to the call of the sea.

Turning to Sylus, you point to Kieran incredulously. “Did you see all of that?”

He hums. Sylus seems to be seeing through more than one person today. He’s terribly intrigued by the fires being lit and put out all in one breath in his family’s minds, transparent on their faces.

Meanwhile, he’s been catering to a little kitten up a tree who doesn’t seem to want to be saved.

“Mm, he’s stubborn.” Sylus groans, straightening his back. A sigh deep from the cave of his chest deflates him as he pokes on his cranky toddler’s cheek. “Like this one.”

“Not! Not ‘tubon!” Kyros harrumphs, kicking his little legs out to the sides. Careful not to come in contact with the ground.

“Oh?” Being preoccupied with Kieran, you hadn’t even noticed your husband participating in a silent argument with your son. “What’s the matter here?”

“He—“ Sylus pinches Kyros’s cheek. His hand is promptly swatted away. “—doesn’t want to get dirty.”

“What, the sand?”

“Icky yuck!” Kyros gags, turning his head away from you and crowding himself closer to Sylus’s torso.

“Oh, Kyros, but look at Lucian,” you try, glancing at his twin brother who was having the time of his life digging a shallow hole between his legs. Simultaneously taking away and filling the void up again with a tiny mountain. The joy isn’t in progress, you suppose. “He’s digging a hole!”

“Makin’ cake!” he corrects, muffled.

Chewing.

“He’s making a ca—oh no!”

“Lucian,” Sylus titters, light and charming, leaning forward to dust away the sand on his cheeks, while you ask him to spit the sand he ingested out into your cupped palm.

“Blegh! Not cake!” Lucian sputters.

Kyros’s petulant rejection transforms into a boisterous laugh at his brother’s misery, despite reaching forward to mirror Sylus’s gentle caresses. “Ah-no! Woosian!”

You turn to rinse your hand with a bottle of water and zoom out. Seeing your boys through another lens for a moment.

Time slows. Sylus’s laugh gets louder. Lucian doesn’t understand why the sand on his cheeks get worse when he tries to wipe it clean with his sandier fingers, Kyros is giggling too at his brother’s funny misfortune and how his papa’s hiccuping belly seems to jostle him around on his seat.

Your heart swells, aches with every second. Knowing you can never frame it or recreate it ever again. Sentimentality chokes you with flowers, and you feel your cheeks heat from more than just the sun.

This is what you had been missing out on for weeks on end. This is the seed once planted now in stages of growth.

And right in the center oof it all is your husband, bright and sturdy and strong. Holding up the fort. Keeping you all afloat. Taking up the load you cannot bear and lifting it himself.

And for once, you do not see your mistakes or your shortcomings.

All you see is him.

“Beloved, we’d like some, please.” Sylus says, pulling you out of your framing thoughts and back into the portrait itself.

You blink a few times.

He tilts his head.

You smile.

His fingers brush against yours when he takes the bottle from your outstretched hand.

He pours water onto Lucian’s crusted cheeks. Round and plump treasures reveal themselves beneath the dusted surface.

Kyros helps wipe it away with the short sleeve of his shirt. Unconsciously setting his one foot on the sand to reach; his hands also already sandy themselves. You stifle a giggle.

“All better,” Sylus announces, presenting to you Lucian’s clean cheeks glistening like butter buns in the sunlight. He can’t help but lean down to bite on them with sheathed teeth.

Kyros does the same, traveling the short distance over the sand, leaning into the cheek with a dramatic “Om!” to his head.

“Ah!” Lucian giggles, falling over, grabbing the first thing his hands latch onto—Kyros—and bringing it down with him.

Laughter joins the chorus of birds and waves. Sung by all four in your little circle.

Kyros rolls over into the sand laughing so hard his eyes can barely open. Lucian shakes his hair out like a puppy, fueling the fires of amusement.

Your own stomach hurts from the joy.

And from the corner of your eye, you catch Sylus—waves to ripples laughter shaking his shoulders and reverent eyes coming back to you.

He wonders how you could rival the blinding sun with your light. Wonders how you, beautiful and radiant, allowed him to have this— all of this.

Relishes the beautiful look on your face, the relaxed curve of your posture, the cant of your giggles. Knows deeply how much you needed this, how important it was for you to get away from work, to come home.

You look back. Give him a genuine smile. One that can’t help but scream how you are endlessly grateful for him and swears his heart stops.

With the littles flopping over each other on the sand, chanting “not cake! not cake!”, rewinding the joke from the start, you take the chance to lean towards your husband and gift him a kiss.

He hums into it, and naturally dips his head to taste more of you. Never getting enough. He asks for a reason through pecks, unwilling to part for you for something so confusing and yet so trivial all at once.

But you don’t give him one. Not verbally. Instead, you devour him like a stranded sailor would land until he says enough—if he ever will.

A disgruntled “eugh,” interrupts you and you pull away from Sylus to acknowledge the shadow that has descended upon you. Sylus groans and drops his head onto your shoulder.

A damp Luke falls to his knees before you like a knight. He spares the little ones a loving glance before he addresses you, unable to hide the misery from his voice.

“Kieran said I had to come here.” he grumbles, flicking his glasses off. Behind him, his twin seems to taunt him with wild roars of the speeding jet ski as revenge. “Where’s the sunscreen?”

You watch him as he applies it haphazardly, slapping it on like war paint. Globs of white in the edges of his hairline and on his brows. “How’s it look?”

You have the decency to lie. “Fine.”

Sylus does not. “Like a clown.”

Luke scowls at him, and Sylus scowls back. He won’t let go of him interrupting you two so easily.

“Why doesn’t Kieran’s have the… the white streaky stuff?” he pouts, violently rubbing the cream onto his face like a wash rather than a cream.

You wince, catching his wrists. “Because I put it on for him.”

He pauses. Rolls the thought in his head like a pearl for a little while, and then hands the bottle to you. “Can you?”

“Of course,” you say and try to salvage his attempt.

Unlike his brother, Luke talks more than he likes to think. “Did Kieran act weird about this too?”

“I think so,” you say thoughtfully, remembering the perplexing look on this same-but-different face minutes ago. You tried not to let it get to you.

“Mm…” Luke hums, otherwise perfectly still. You’re not sure if he thinks when he blurts, “We never had a mother.”

As one does with the information, your fingers turn frostbitten underneath the heat of the sun. He catches on quickly to your response, eyes widening to a worrying size as he taps your knee. “Wait, sorry—I’m not finished.”

So you give him the opportunity to explain himself as you contain the sob that waits just below your heart to emerge.

“No one’s really done this kind of… thing with us.” he says. Shapes are drawn in the sand, beyond the blanket that currently contained all of you. “If there was, neither of us remember. Wiped or just simply forgotten, I don’t care.”

Lucian wanders over now, quietly, barely a whisper in the heavy tension between you two and sits in the nest of your criss-crossed legs. He doesn’t even react when you squish his face with the excess sunscreen on your hands aside from a yelp.

Luke watches fondly. “Never thought we’d experience it, so we didn’t need it. But now…”

“Mama…” Lucian whines now, layers of sunscreen on his cheeks and forehead. Kyros crawls onto your lap as well, squeezing himself beside Lucian as if to tune in and perhaps share the moment as well. He also gets excess sunscreen.

Luke smiles at you, at them. His eyes shift briefly to Sylus who listens too, and to his brother in the distance.

“It’s nice, you know.” he admits, catching a stray glob of white off of the tip of Lucian’s hair. “Having someone to watch out for us, taking care of us. Having you.”

Your breath catches.

“So thank you,” he nods, shy suddenly, after it all. He looks down, clears his throat, and throws his shades back on over his eyes. “For taking us in… me and my brother.”

You don’t have the good graces in you to allow him dignity in the face of embarrassment when you lean over and hug him. Steady, strong. It takes a while for his wet sleeves to wrap around you, but when they do, he is loath to let go.

And like a tidal wave, you are nearly knocked over by another force crashing into you. Showering you all in droplets and sand, the littles giggle in their little canopy as Kieran joins the hug. To his brother, he grunts, “Move!”

And it makes you laugh. They make you laugh. Your boys, your sons. Scrambling over one another to secure a space within your bubble that now you do not mind sharing.

Overturning the lies you have believed. Being antidotes to the poison you have swallowed all those weeks you have been away. Clearing the tunnel, being the light that shines at the end of it after guiding you through.

Sylus places a hand on your shoulder. He catches your eye and gives you a warm smile.

With your heart bursting, you start to believe that Onychinus does value family.

In fact, they have become it.

𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 𓇢𓆸 ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

The sun shines for no one else this day but you.

Tomorrow, you will worry about sunburns and sandy ears. Maybe a little will start sneezing, or a big will be washing their hair for the third time and still be complaining about sand. Mephisto might even have water damage the way he’s dipping in and out of the waves the way he is.

But, tomorrow will worry of itself.

For now—

“Lucian, watch out!” You yell as a wave comes for him and his papa. He’s screaming, a delightful pitch, and wiggling happily as he dangles by the armpits.

Sylus raises him up high as the wave breaks against his back. Soon he’s signing more and screaming “Again!”

You cannot move. Buckets of sand dumped over your legs, the weight of it is enough to immobilize. Luke and Kieran are running back and forth from the water to harden the dust like concrete. Kyros stays by your waist and presses shells into your forming tail.

“Many, mama?” he asks you. You turn away from your book to his sand covered cheeks and his shade-stained eyes.

“That’s eleven now, sweetie.”

“Elele.” he pokes more shells into the sand. “Want more?”

“Yes please, baby.”

He huffs, determined, gives you an, “ah-key!” and scuttles away to the bucket Kieran had filled with shells.

Lucian is shouting, “Kee-ro, come, come!”

Kyros is an obedient brother, waddle-jogging belly first towards the shoreline where Sylus awaits, sat in the sand.

“This way, angel.” Kyros is planted to his right.

His feet are buried in the sand, like Lucian’s are to his left. Sylus’s arms brace on their backs and the water disperses in a loud hiss, knocking into their bellies and chests with enough force to knock them back.

“Kee-ro, hads up!” Lucian models, raising his arms in the air just as another onslaught crashes into them like a gentle flood of foam. Kyros has never been louder, giggling, screaming as if tickled.

You’re recording from behind when a wave disperses a little too close and eats them up in the impact. They are uprooted and scattered.

You gasp.

When it recedes, Sylus is rolling back with the sea with two wet little toddlers hanging onto his arms.

You rush to them. Finding two blinking babies absolutely dumbfounded by what just happened.

Sylus worries if they’re shaken or even afraid now. Kyros puts that all to rest when his tongue curls to a cough that morphs into what you’d imagine to be the laughter of an angelfish. Hiccuping, bubbling. “Again! Again!”

“Papa!” Lucian rejoices too, loud. Needing to be to make sure he is heard. “Again!”

Sylus sighs. Relief cancels out worry. He’s only glad that you accept his apologetic look with a fondness, rolling your eyes and pushing him back to the tide. This time, you sit with them.

The sun sets on your day. Bidding goodbye with the gentlest parade of golden hues, mixing to a moody purple and then cooling to a speckled blue.

Slow.

Slow enough to usher the cold of the tide, chilling the children’s toes enough that they ask to go home. Slow enough that the moon shines bright only when you stand in the balcony, a warm drink in your hand and a blanket over your shoulders.

Slow enough to allow this of you. This reflection of what has been and what will be. This respite of having endured and having released. This quiet you do not take for granted.

One you hold like a vice, and yet like a fluttering dove; like the heart of a child, and like how your husband holds you.

He holds you. The weight of him resting on your shoulders—the only weight you will never mind— the warmth of him against the length of your back, the comfort of him settling like wax in your bones.

“… Valentine’s Day.”

“Huh?”

He kisses the crown of your head, your cheek, your neck. “I said, just in time for Valentine’s Day.”

This time you hear him. This time, you turn and smile. “Happy Valentine’s Day, beloved.”

His eyes—glowing like burning coal, a dragon’s breath, a lover’s devotion—twinkle ever so brightly beneath the star-spackled sky. Where he’d say each light is a life he’d live, a life he’d choose with you.

He leans in to kiss you, having missed you so. You kiss him too, having missed him more than he’ll the ever understand.

This time, when lips part, it is not a goodbye.

This time, you have nowhere else to be.

This time, you stay.

✧˚ ⋆｡ read more with the little twins here || more sylus thoughts ✧˚ ⋆｡

thank you so much for reading! ( っ´ `)っ

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