lailani had approached him about going back home and he shrugged and accepted, wondered if this would release him from the only promise that he’d managed to make here, wondered if he’d miss the excuse. decided it didn’t change anything, not yet, but he certainly hadn’t expected her to ask him to linger after they arrived.
he was always prepared to stay somewhere, doubly so since the glitch, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed the tension, doesn’t know what to say, when to go, especially since she gives him a warning as they approach the front door.
his mouth is dry and he can’t respond, then there’s a person in the doorway, then two, and it feels like when fei first brought him to the lair but more because they know laila and she knows him and he goes for a weak smile, tries to pull his joking shell out but there’s a hand on him and he’s being pulled into the kitchen.
he doesn’t mind it, per se, but is incredibly aware of the point of contact, of the house swallowing him up and he looks back to check that laila is still with him, the touch burning with its direction and casual nature.
then he’s sat opposite another one and she’s looking at him like laila sometimes looks at him but even more present and their gazes feel so real and he feels so fucking seen that he doesn’t know what to do but drags his eyes away from the contact to wait laila relax and bustle and he sees the similarities sees the way that she fits right in the colour palette right and he wonders why she’d ever leave to go to the lair.
then the elderly lady is making a joke with his name and he doesn’t know if he likes that name in their mouths, would prefer another name, a new name, an old name, goes to ask them to change it, to not call him crazy or unreal when they feel like rocks sitting at the bottom of the river directing the current around them and he’s always been able to swim and now he’s drowning -
then her hand comes down on his and the contact sparks and her words reassure even as panic spikes in him that she knew what he was thinking, worrying about, then a hand pinching his cheek and he flinches away from the touch, hand drawing back to rest on his lap and he doesn’t know what to say.
he looks at laila, sends a look to her filled with panic and pleading and confusion and desire but he couldn’t begin to unpick it.
he swears that there’s a smile on her face even as he suffocates on pure oxygen.
then there’s food infront of him and whilst the lair has supplies he never bothers to cook and he never buys good food and that was definitely his stomach growling.
a blush creeps hot up the back of his neck, his ears, even as he fights to keep it from his face. he ducks his head down, mutters a “ thanks “ as he picks up a fork, twirls it in his fingers as he waits to see if anyone else will start.
“ you’re all - related then? “
Poor Mitch, floundering to keep his head above water. Lailani bumps his knee with hers, hopes the gesture is grounding when it’s probably just disruptive. He looks like he’s hesitating at the cliff’s edge so she takes her fork too, spearing a dumpling and using it to hide her smile. It keeps her from speaking, too, which gives too many other voices a chance to jump in.
“Yes,” Carmen says at precisely the same moment that Eliza tells him, “Not quite,” so Carmen waves a hand near her head with a very youthful eye roll. “We in this room are, yes. Eliza here is my youngest daughter and Lailani is her niece. The rest are family of assorted kinds. Is Maria related to us?”
“No, her family is from Colombia,” Eliza chimes in. “But Njeri married into the family, I think. Somehow. Or was that Nikki?”
“Nikki isn’t married, dear.”
“Thank God,” they say as they pass by the kitchen door, adding in their wake, “Most of us just come and go like hungry dogs.”
Lailani took their moment of back-and-forth to push another plate closer to Mitch. “Eat,” she insists, too quiet for this loud, colorful house. “We can roam around in the woods later.” There are too many people for him to get to know, and he’s already part of her family anyway. There’s plenty of time for that in the future, between his trips elsewhere to work off the frenetic magic sparking under his skin.
Her reassuring murmurs don’t go unnoticed. Eliza finally gives up on being the host and sits beside them, smiling so her round cheeks are rounder still. She almost brushes Lailani’s hair off her face, her hand stopping just inches away before retreating. “What brings you home, dear? Your friend looks perfectly shell-shocked, which means you did not warn him at all about us, did you?” She clucks her tongue but it’s playful, like she always is. Carmen laughs in that way of hers that says how could anyone be adequately warned about us?
“I missed being home,” is all Lailani says at first, stirring her tea with her finger so she can avoid looking directly at either of them. They can only know so much, and that has never been a problem - when Feiyan found her, they understood her life would always be a little beyond them. It was a good excuse not to explain the fear she’s starting to feel all the time, at The Lair or not. The vision she’d just had... Something was very wrong with the world for The World’s absence, and none of it was getting better.
Absently her free hand drifted up to Mitch’s hair despite not having his permission in the moment, despite the look on his face that was quite clearly a plea for her protection from the whirlwind of new, despite the fact that her family was right there watching her touch without asking.
Though, at least for the last point she has some sort of defense. “And Mitch is my brother, so I wanted to show him around.”
Carmen and Eliza share a look at that news, but they’ve always been all about taking things in stride. “We get so few brothers around here! Well good, I was thinking of doing stir fry for dinner so we’ll have the perfect amount of food to add you two in, and one of the rooms upstairs is actually empty for once so you’ll both have plenty of space for as long as you’re staying-”
They really would go on like that for ages if allowed, so as soon as Lailani sees Mitch eat more than two bites she slides her hand into his carefully and pulls him out of the kitchen, up a winding staircase, stopping twice to step over a cat and to pick up another cleverly disguising himself as carpet. “This is Carpet,” she says by way of introduction.
At last they’re in her old room and it’s quieter - not quiet, because once inside 3 Blue Robin Ave there’s no real escape from everyone - but quieter, which is the best she can offer. She does so with a sheepish shrug. “They’re a lot.” Yet she feels a little better already. It’s hard to feel magic crashing down around their ears when everyone int he house is so matter-of-fact about their strangeness. The Lair only has that quality some of the time.
He looks pale, or maybe just cold, or - more likely - completely overwhelmed, so she tugs her old comforter off the bed and wraps it around him like a downy cloak. “You should stay for dinner though, if you want. And as long as I’m here, if you want that too. I do.” She’s still not sure if saying it so openly makes him feel better or worse, but ever since the night they’d made their nest in the library window, she just knows honesty works for him. She ought to say exactly how she feels. It’s something very few others in her life have ever asked.
“You’re family now. Everyone here comes here when they want, and leaves when they want.” It’s an echo of what she said to him on nest night. She’s looking at him now, rare clarity in her gaze. “You’ll always have a place wherever I am.”
