Work Text:
When was the last time you saw your son?
He shouldn’t have let it slip out, but it’s not the first time fear has shortened his temper. He’d been doing his fucking best, playing cleanup as usual, keeping an eye out for both Ben and Farah while Andreas charged ahead, swinging his sword with reckless abandon.
Andreas never let a minor inconvenience like teamwork slow down his kill count.
He can’t stop replaying it though, because he’d seen the resentful look in Andreas’ eye that answered his ribbing all too clearly.
The poor fucking kid. That meant that Andreas hadn’t portaled home in long enough that he knew Carmine and Stavros would worry.
No one answers his knock but he still has a key. The smell hits him first thing, like usual, the scent engraved in his memory from holidays past spent sharing a bunk with Andreas on this side of Eraklyon, up early with the chickens before the sun climbed over the mountainside, musk from the ancient rug that framed the hearth, Carmine’s cooking lingering in the stone kitchen. He draws a deep lungful, cocks his ear listening; there’s no one in the house. Paddock, then?
His suspicions are confirmed when he sights Carmine on a gingham blanket spread out over the summer grass, Rust the gelding grazing at the fence behind them. Sky, on his hands and knees with his favorite blue truck in his hands, blond hair and green shirt contrasting with the blanket.
At the motion Carmine turns her head, puts one hand up to shield from the sun. Her eyes light up for a fraction of a second and then dim, and his heart squeezes harder even as her face opens into a genuine smile.
Doesn’t matter. She’d thought he was Andreas at first. He hasn’t been here.
“Saul!” Her face drops again, familiar worry creeping across her brow. “Just you?”
Sky looks up at the noise, catches sight of Saul and lets out a happy cry, holding up his truck for Saul to see.
Saul hops the fence in one smooth motion and approaches the pair. “We’re fine. We’re safe,” he assures, reading her concern that he’s come with bad news. “Same for you?”
She arranges her legs beneath her long skirts, drawing her knees closer to her chest. “Of course. Those wards you had Farah rune in place went off once about a week ago but they held.”
Bored by Saul’s lack of reaction to his toy, Sky takes the opportunity to use his grandmother’s legs as a ramp to shuffle his truck up the incline. Carmine smiles up at Saul again, still warm but tinged with melancholy. “And you’re all safe? All of you?”
“Yes, no complaints.”
Saul kneels onto the gingham; awkward with the child but he doesn’t want Carmine to stain her neck looking up at him. “Sorry, I should have brought him a T-O-Y.” He spells out the word so he doesn’t falsely excite Sky. “I came straight from a mission.”
“It’s nice of you to drop by.”
“He’s getting so big.”
It’s his usual refrain, he knows she’s tired of hearing it, but he can’t help it. He can’t ever stop grappling with the fact that his life—his friends’ lives—are in constant, interminable stasis, a neverending treadmill of Burned One after Burned One attacks. And then here is Sky, a reminder that time hasn’t actually stopped.
“Wish he’d slow down,” Carmine says with a ruffle of his baby tresses. She glances up at Saul, worry once more darkening her expression. “Stavros wants him up and about, but I’d rather he learn to walk as late as possible.” She gives him a meaningful look. “The only thing one-year-olds know about barriers is how to cross them.”
He nods, sinking onto his heels. “Here, Sky, can I show you something?”
Saul holds a hand to the truck currently perched on Carmine’s knee. Sky looks at Saul’s hand, then back to the truck, considering heavily before deeming Saul worthy and passing over the toy.
He rolls the truck’s wheels towards the edge of the blanket. “Truck can only go on the blanket, right?” He pulls it back from the edge, then pushes it forward right to the lip a few times to demonstrate. “Trucks only on the blanket, right? Sky, in the paddock.”
Sky frowns, snatching the truck back from Saul’s grip. He studies the truck on the blanket, concentrating, and then aggressively scoots the truck over the edge and into the grass.
Carmine laughs. “Told you,” she says, and then redirects Sky. “Show me how you push the truck up the hill again!”
“Fu–dang,” Saul corrects himself from swearing in front of the toddler. “Got to keep working on that.”
Sky puts down the truck and clambers onto his knees, then leans his weight onto Carmine’s legs to hoist himself upright, staring around happily from his newfound height.
“Look at that,” Saul marvels. “I thought you said he wasn’t walking yet?”
“Oh he’s been doing this for two weeks now,” Carmine says, offering an arm out to Sky to steady his wobbly knees. “Still happy to sit back down and scooch when he wants to go anywhere, though. But any day now, I’m sure.”
Saul’s ears prick at the faint sound of footsteps over the grass and he glances to his right, towards the house. “Hello!” A deep male voice calls, and Saul blinks in surprise to see Andreas rounding the corner, his father Stavros’ arm slung around his neck in pride. “Look who’s home—oh, Saul!”
Saul rises to his feet, an edge of guilt gnawing on his gut at being found here by Andreas, but he pushes it down. He shouldn’t feel guilty for updating his mate’s parents that he wasn’t dead.
Andreas, for his part, looks just as pissed off as he did at their last conversation, surprised and spiteful that Saul beat him to his own home.
Sky takes a second to locate the source of the shout, and finally catching sight lets out a delighted shriek at the two approaching men. Saul takes a step back—as much as he shouldn’t feel guilty, he’s done his part, and Andreas is here to do his, meaning there’s no reason for him to stay. He’ll see him back at Alfea far too soon; he knows Andreas’ perfunctory visit timeline too well.
“Wait!” Carmine says, almost a yell but not quite, and holds her hands up to Andreas and Stavros, bidding them to halt. “He’s—”
Saul watches as Sky pushes off from Carmine’s knee, his small frame wavering from inexperience, and he can feel everyone in the paddock hold their breath.
Sky lets out another happy cry, takes a second to gaze cheerfully at Carmine to his left, Saul to his right, and Andreas and Stavros in front of him, pride at his new position written on his small face.
Then he takes a step. Saul’s jaw drops. Another step. Halting, unsteady, until he totters several steps in a row on his own, from the gingham blanket straight into Saul’s arms.
He crouches down to catch the boy before he falls, and over the clapping approval of Carmine’s gushing coos he looks up over Sky’s blonde head straight into Andreas’ shocked face.
Saul swallows, looks back down at Sky’s crooked baby teeth grin.
“Good job, kid,” he keeps his voice level, then turns the boy in his arms to face Andreas. “Walk to Daddy now.”