Askbox Roulette! (one for xen and one for sai)
Xenon: One question answered honestly
Siren: Kiss (anywhere on the body)
There were days he really missed a lot of the plants that had been lost during the Elf Wars.
It’d taken a few extra hours to finish the meal, given that a lot of the prep had to wait for Xenon and Siren’s arrival, but Xander made do by serving dinner in small courses, turning what had been a three-course meal into a five-course meal filled with as much conversation as there was food.
Perhaps more, given how the three had seemed to click.
His eyes had gone a little wide when he managed to pull it out of Siren that she and Rei were dating, and he’d set the peach cobbler he’d made—or one of them, anyway, as he saved the others for the family to enjoy—down on the table before moving over to press a soft kiss against her forehead. “I wish you the best of luck and all the patience in the world,” he said in response to her confused look.
She’d left not long after dessert, leaving Xander and Xenon to their conversation, and the two had taken their cobbler and mugs of coffee up to the roof deck of the Tower, the pair looking out over Neo Arcadia.
"I have to ask," Xenon said after a long silence had stretched between them, "given that I’ve finally been able to see and hear about some of what happened to your world," and he’d seen what the world looked like beyond the western border of the Eden Dome, less than a kilometer from the Tower.
Xander was silent as he looked to his alternate.
"You mentioned your children during dinner," Xenon continued, "and I know from what was said that only two of them are regularly home," what with the details Xander had provided about Toushou and Fairy’s schedules and patrols. "Do you ever regret bringing them into this?"
The unit seemed much smaller in the wake of that question, his mug set on the nearby table as he moved to the railing that ran along the eastern edge of the deck, leaning heavily on it, his disposition suddenly much more reserved.
"If I crossed a line there, you don’t have to—"
"You didn’t," Xander assured. "And to be honest, I don’t feel bad for bringing them into this world. I knew what I was getting into by building them, by planning for them to lead the military and civilian police branches, and I knew that it was an unfair burden to place on them, even if I knew I was doing it to keep the full weight of military responsibility from settling on the Arcadian Council.” He sighed, shaking his head. “What I do feel guilty for is that my four children are alive and well while my brother and his wife live every day missing their daughter and not knowing if or when she’ll ever be home and whole again.”
