Lucas shifted Sebastian higher against his chest with one hand and thumbed absently at the soft curve of his tiny shoulder. The baby made a sleepy, squeaky noise and then went boneless again. The house was warm and quiet, the kind of sunset lull that belonged to families, not rules of the empires.
But Trevor still wasn’t ho.
Lucas frowned at the clock once. Just once. He didn’t worry. He just... noticed.
"Windstone," he called, not raising his voice above normal conversation level.
Windstone appeared from the hallway like he materialized there, hands behind his back, expression of cultured innocence. He always managed to look like he hadn’t been eavesdropping, despite definitely having been.
"Yes?" he said, his tone pleasantly neutral.
Lucas narrowed his eyes a fraction. "Where’s Trevor?"
Windstone inhaled like a man preparing a performance.
"Well, as it happens... Chef Emil has perfected the fried chicken breading. Truly outstanding work. The texture..."
"Windstone."
He paused.
Lucas raised one eyebrow, daring the butler to continue his tirade about breaded chicken technique.
Windstone sighed quietly, the sigh of a man who had survived wars, revolutions, and Trevor’s odd ti of adolescence where his fashion sense went south.
"He’ll be ho in under two minutes," he said. Then, because he cannot help himself, "I was going to lead into it more gently."
"I’m holding his child, not a detonator," Lucas said, deadpan.
Windstone looked at the baby, content, soft, tiny hand clutching Lucas’s sweater, and nodded gravely.
"Truly, the more dangerous of the two," he murmured.
Lucas’s mouth betrayed him and twitched in a smile.
But before Windstone could smugly claim victory, the door clicked open.
Trevor stepped inside like he hadn’t just flown across the country and killed a man who had once ruined two entire lifetis. Coat over one arm, dark hair slightly wind-ruffled, the good kind of tired he only ever carried after sothing final had happened.
He saw Lucas and Sebastian and stopped acting like the Marquis of anything and just was himself.
"There you are," Lucas said, voice soft in a way he only ever used for two people now, Trevor and the child asleep against him.
"There I am," Trevor echoed and crossed the space to sit beside him, close, knee to knee, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
He leaned in and pressed a warm, quiet kiss to Lucas’s temple. His scent was calm cedar again.
Lucas exhaled slowly. "You sll like airports and decisions I don’t like."
Trevor’s mouth curved. "I’ll shower."
Windstone cleared his throat loudly enough to remind them he was technically still there.
"So... shall I inform the kitchen to proceed with ’Operation Fry Sothing Horrible’?"
Lucas didn’t look up. "Yes."
Trevor added, casually, "Extra crispy."
Windstone nodded like he’d just received royal directives.
"And beverages?"
"Sothing cold," Lucas said.
"Sothing alcoholic," Trevor added.
Windstone inclined his head. "I will pretend I did not hear the second one."
Windstone exited with the dignity of a man who has put up with this exact nonsense for twenty years and fully intends to continue.
The door hadn’t even finished swinging shut before Trevor’s hand slid over Lucas’s, warm and steady, thumb brushing the small ridge of knuckles that still ached sotis from the labor of holding too much pain for too long.
Trevor exhaled as if a weight had been lifted from a burden he had been pretending not to bear.
"It’s over," he said. There was no other introduction, just the truth. "Benedict is dead."
Lucas blinked once. Not surprised. Just... absorbing.
Trevor continued, his voice low and steady, not for himself, but for the baby who slept between them.
"He won’t co back. He won’t touch you again. He won’t be a na in our house, or a shadow in a room, or sothing we have to plan around." Trevor’s thumb stroked the back of Lucas’s hand. "There’s no one left to try. No one left to use what was done to you."
Lucas took a full, deep breath that went all the way down and ca back up clean.
His shoulders loosened. His spine eased from a weight he forgot he was carrying.
Sebastian stirred lightly, as if sensing the air change.
Lucas looked at Trevor then. The man who had loved him across ruin and silence and blood and the parts of history that tried to eat both their lives. The man who had chosen him every ti.
And Lucas smiled.
"Good," Lucas murmured. "Then you don’t have any more excuses not to rest."
Trevor huffed a soft laugh, not quite trusting his voice.
Lucas shifted Sebastian just a little, so the baby’s cheek rested against Trevor’s wrist.
"And," Lucas added, his tone returning to its usual dry gravity, "the suffering is still here. Just under other forms."
Trevor stilled, panicking that he forgot sothing, trying his best to rember who it could be.
"You have to suffer with and try the chicken."
Trevor stared at him.
For a full second, it was unclear whether he was processing the sentence or recovering from the emotional whiplash from ’you’re safe now’ to ’eat fried poultry with , coward.’
Then his hand, still resting under Sebastian’s cheek, tightened just barely.
"...Lucas," he said slowly, "we have survived political coups, international religion-based conspiracies, at least two assassination attempts I am aware of, and the complete burning of an ancient institution..."
Lucas looked unimpressed.
"...and sohow this is where you choose violence."
Lucas raised his brows, calm, patient, and unmovable.
"I carried this child nine months," he reminded, voice smooth as glass. "And then I was cut open like a seasonal fruit. The least you can do is suffer the fried chicken experint with ."
Trevor stared at him.
Sebastian, asleep, drooled on Trevor’s wrist.
Trevor’s composure broke.
He laughed. Quiet at first, then fuller, tired, warm, and ho-shaped.
Lucas tried, tried, to maintain dignity. Lasted three seconds. Then he laughed too, soft and small and real, the sound of sothing inside him unclenching.
Windstone, who definitely had not left the area and was lurking at a respectable but eavesdropping distance, called from the hall:
"I knew this would be the correct emotional direction for the evening."
Lucas didn’t even look toward him. "Windstone, if that oil is not at the correct temperature..."
"It is a precise 178 degrees Celsius, young master. I will not have soggy breading in this household."
Trevor blinked. "...We don’t even have a deep fryer."
"We do now," Windstone said, and went to go supervise a kitchen brigade made of grown adults who were afraid of one elderly man with immaculate posture.
Trevor leaned his head to rest briefly against Lucas’s shoulder, careful of the baby, careful of the healing incision, careful in the way only soone who had once almost lost everything could be.
Lucas angled his head slightly, speaking into the quiet between them.
"You ca back before dinner."
Trevor’s voice ca softer than the room.
"I told you I would."
Lucas nodded once.
"...Welco ho," he said with all the warmth in the world.
Trevor kissed him just once more, slowly.
"I’m ho."
Sebastian stirred, wrinkled his tiny face, made a soft noise of complaint, then went limp again in absolute newborn indifference to dramatic life conclusions.
Lucas looked at Trevor, the faintest glint of mischief returning to his eyes.
"Prepare yourself," he said solemnly. "The chicken is probably terrible."
Trevor stood, carefully sliding his hand to support Sebastian as Lucas adjusted.
"That’s fine," he murmured.
His smile was small, real, and devastatingly gentle.
"I’ve survived worse."
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