Episode 45: Adoption Part 2 (Acheron)

Sleep draped itself over Ach like the heaviest blanket in the world. The stressful meeting last night and the fight between all the adults and Delphine, the fire and the interview and all that campaign stuff, coming home to a house full of sleeping little people who somehow all found excuses to join him within a half an hour of his arrival home…

He was dead.

He felt the shift in the bed when Spence finally joined him, after whatever he’d been doing.

“Ach,” he whispered.

Oh, no.

Ach loved Spence, he really did.

But Ach loved sleep too, and he’d already been up all night.

“It’s clock o’clock,” he complained.

That didn’t even make sense. He was too tired to care.

“Can we agree on a most kids we want within a decade number?” Spence asked. He ran his hand down Ach’s side and then embraced him from behind.

“What.” He muttered.

He stared at his pillow, grey-blue in the darkness.

Spence was insane. This was why Spence wanted to do security, so he could be up all night and people would see it as a good thing and not a detriment to his future.

“We should never outdo my mom,” Ach said into his pillow.

He rolled so he faced Spence. He loved to see his eyes, the subtleties and the depths. Sometimes they were the only hints of what Spence felt.

“How about we adopt two orphans tomorrow,” Spence said. He drew a trill of trellis-y vine things down Ach’s arm. “And we find a way to add maybe four baby you’s? And then quit until everyone is an adult.”

Ach’s brain trudged through the fog of sleep until it landed on the crux of Spence’s request. “You want the fire kids?”

Two orphans. Close to their other kids in age.

They’d just adopted two orphans.

At the rate of four orphans a week, fifty-two weeks a year not counting the harvest festival…they could have two hundred and eight adorable little orphans by this time next summer.

“And IVF,” Spence added.

And IVF. What had he said? Four Ach kids? So two hundred twelve kids. Plus the four Spence had with Talise.

Ach wanted to laugh, but it would wake kids.

“Okay,” he said instead. He knew they weren’t really going to adopt four kids a week. This was just a bizarre week.

He looked down at Spence’s chest, where the little black hairs coiled.

The blush crept, unwelcome, to his cheeks. He was glad it was dark.

“Pixies?” he asked, tentative.

If they had to find a random mom anyway, he wanted his kids to feel an instant connection with Uncle Nell.

The other option was Mallory. If Spence had Talise kids and Ach had Mallory kids, all their non-adopted kids would be double-related.

He just couldn’t imagine asking Mallory. She was still young and she had opinions about everything and Ach was a little scared of her.

Spence kissed him, eyes half-lidded. “Yeah, pixies.” He rested his head on the pillow next to Ach’s. “Night, Ach.”

“Night,” Ach said.

He watched Spence’s breathing until it steadied.

He was surrounded in a bed with all his favorite people, except Talise and Uncle Nell.

He wouldn’t have really wanted either of them here.

But everyone else…He loved his life, when he wasn’t afraid of it. He loved every minute of every day of the forever that sprawled out before them.

And he wasn’t going to sleep again.

Ach had a problem with sleep, where he either couldn’t not sleep, or couldn’t sleep. There were no in-betweens or maybes for him, just yes or no.

He got up and shut the door so he could turn on all the lights in the apartment. He picked up the building blocks and the train set and the treasure chest full of costumes. He cleaned the movie discs with isopropyl alcohol and cotton balls and sorted them into their cases.

He swept the floor, and then because there were smudges he mopped it so that it looked nice and shiney.

Princes weren’t supposed to do housework, but if his mom could garden to relax and if he could shovel manure out of Dancer’s stall as a tribute to his dad, then he could polish a living room floor if he wanted.

And do dishes.

He surveyed the kitchen. It wasn’t that bad, but it could be better. He did the dishes and ran the dishwasher. Wiped the counters down and then polished them with a sealant to keep them strong and undamaged.

He sat in a chair at the counter and looked out at the dining room, disappointed. It was so clean already.

He made lunches for the kids, since he was going to have to ask someone to watch them and he wanted it to be easy for Talise or whoever else watched them.

He did the dishes again, because he’d made some, and then he reorganized the refrigerator according to date he anticipated using the food.

Still no one was up.

Insomnia meant a clean house, but it made for lonely mornings sometimes.

When the kids finally woke, he made them pancakes with sliced strawberries and sugar on top. He made more for Spence a little after seven and brought it into the bedroom for him.

Fort went with and jumped up on the bed, bouncing and shouting, “Daddy!” over and over again.

Spence pulled him down onto the bed by his feet and slid him under the blanket, tickling him. “The bed monster is eating you!” he growled.

Fort giggled until he finally escaped and rolled, gasping, onto the floor.

“What time do we have to be there?” Ach asked Spence. He passed him the plate of pancakes and a mug of the tea-like herbal mix he drank most mornings.

He sat up, shirtless.

“Eight.”

They’d need to go soon.

“Are you sure about this?” Spence asked.

No, he wasn’t. He very wasn’t. They already had two kids of their own plus Spence’s four.

“You’re not? You seemed sure last night…”

Maybe he’d been so insanely tired last night that he’d somehow thought having two more kids was a great idea, and now that he’d slept he’d figured out how to be sane again.

Ach felt a little pang of regret at the idea.

Oh, good, so he wanted the fire kids too. Why? He was only eighteen, he shouldn’t have eight kids.

Even he knew Sylem wasn’t a safe place for kids. Orphaned kids from a bad neighborhood were probably an eager target for the kind of people who sacrificed kids to keep up their own youth.

So.

Yeah, he wanted them.

“Syrup sheets,” Spence teased, like that was what they weren’t sure about. He got out of bed and started walking toward the kitchen.

Ach laughed. “What syrup?”

Spence set the plate on the counter and looked down at it. “Powdered sugar and mashed strawberry sheets,” he corrected. He kissed Ach. “These look delicious. Thank you. You didn’t sleep?”

Not that it showed anymore: An hour of awake kids had guaranteed that the apartment would be a mess by the time Spence woke up. For all anyone knew, Avh had read on the couch all night.

“I can sleep in the library and look busy,” Ach assured him.

Spence always worried and thought and thought and worried. Everyone thought Ach was the anxious one because it showed so much, but with Spence it sat and broiled beneath the surface.

Ach didn’t want him worried about his sleep.

“How do you look busy while sleeping?” Spence asked, a little incredulous.

Ach grinned. He put his hands on the counter and let his head lean forward like he was asleep. Then he jerked his head up, clasped his hands together, and stated, “Hail Maelchor.”

Spence laughed, hard, and Ach grinned even more.

“So what kept you up?” Spence asked. “Orphans or pixies?”

Ach blushed. “What?”

“Pixies, then?” Spence guessed correctly. “My mom said you would wake up over it.”

“It was her idea?” Ach tried to conceal his disappointment. He distracted himself with Ella, since she’d climbed the counter. “No climbing,” he told her. He lifted her down. “What do you need?”

“Ummmmm,” she said. “A bowl.”

He got her a whole stack of bowls because he couldn’t read her mind and she was at that age where bowl color mattered. He wanted to talk to Spence more.

“No,” Spence said. “We were talking about kids and it came up. I want them.” He let Ella pick a bowl color and handed the rest to Ach to put in the cupboard.

“Thank you,” Ella said with a little bow. She ran off to the living room on tiptoes.

“So,” Ach said, now that they were alone. “Those two, the boy and the girl…you think they’ll let us have them?”

If Sylem was anti-gay, they were probably against giving kids to gay couples too.

“We’ll see,” Spence said. He took another bite of pancake and strawberry. Then we can go to Alder and see about a pixie.”

A thrill coursed through Ach. Kids, kids that were his genetics. They’d be like him the way Ella and Emma were like Talise.

“Okay,” he agreed. He kissed Spence. He felt buzzy happy. He hoped these two Sylem kids would want them and like them, and benefit from being part of their family.

He crossed the living room to the far wall and knocked on the door there. “Talise?” he called.

He and Spence, and Talise and Niels, had separate apartments that joined in the area where their kids lived. It was a convenient setup – Talise’s idea, maybe one of her best.

He wondered if her new babies, her first with Niels, would live in the shared area or if Niels would be more possessive of them.

Ach didn’t think Talise would let him.

She opened the door. “Yeah? Hi.”

She was wearing some kind of pajamas that were probably made out of silk. They made her look like a girl and not like Talise. He hated them.

“We have to go to Sylem this morning,” he told her.

She slouched against the doorframe, her arms crossed. “Consider Orris and Olida entertained,” she said, grinning.

“Thanks. Everyone already ate.” He walked into the living room, and crossed back into his apartment.

Spence had just finished his plate.

“What do I wear?” Ach asked him. He took the plate from him and started washing dishes.

“You should wear…” Spence looked him over. “Can I dress you?”

Ach really needed to talk to Arkady so he could surprise Spence with some nice Spence-ish clothes. “Yes.” He blushed. “Something good.”

Spence headed for their bedroom, probably to the massive walk-in closet. Ach stayed in the kitchen and washed the rest of the breakfast dishes. If he kept the kitchen clean now, it wouldn’t be too messy when they got home.

He grabbed two plates of leftovers and sprinkled sugar over the top before he carried them out to Niels and Talise in the living room.

Talise was in the middle of promising the kids a zoo trip. The kids were in the middle of arguing about walruses and banana chips.

Ach was excited about going out with Spence. Just them, for the whole morning.

Spence walked into the room in a grey sweater over a plaid button-up shirt, with black jeans. He looked sharp and casual at the same time. And so distracting. Ach’s eyes traced the curve of his body in his pants.

“On the bed?” Spence said.

Ach went to their bedroom and found the clothes Spence had laid out. They coordinated colors with Spence’s outfit, but still had argyle and a nice tight collar that buttoned all the way up to the top.

When he emerged, dressed, Spence and Niels were just discussing how long they’d be gone. The word hours came up and Ach blushed again, happy.

Hours, just him and Spence.

Niels passed his plate back to Ach as soon as he fully walked into the room. “Thanks for breakfast,” he said. He looked at Talise and then at Ach and Spence. “Before you go…” He took a deep breath. “Last night, your dad stayed in my mom’s room.”

“Why?” Ach joked. “She barely knows anything about the kingdom.”

He didn’t understand people sometimes. Niels’ mom was a waste of his dad’s time, when it came to ruling. He’d seen them having tea a lot in the garden, which baffled him too. She didn’t even know anything about the Dells and she wasn’t from here.

He wondered what they’d talked about all night.

“They’re,” Spence stammered. “Wait. They split?”

“You missed the meeting,” Niels said in a dark tone. He moved his eyebrows up and down, ominous.

Ach had forgotten to tell Spence about the meeting, about what the headmistress had said to his parents. Maybe Giana had told his dad some tactics for dealing with horrible people.

“We’ll be back,” Spence told Talise and Niels. He put his hand on Ach’s lower back and guided him from the apartment.

“What did they split?” Ach asked him. Maybe they’d redistributed responsibilities. Or decided to arrange their apartment differently.

“Your mom and dad are divorcing, I think,” Spence said.

“Oh,” he said. Splitting themselves, then. And his dad had gone to Giana for consolation, for comfort, for… “Oh,” he said again.

He hated when it took him forever to realize what everyone else seemed to understand intrinsically.

“Talk to me, please?” Spence asked. He sounded distressed.

Ach hoped he wasn’t worried about him. It wasn’t as though this was a surprise.

“Principal Watters yesterday, at the meeting, was kind of mean to Uncle Nell.” That wasn’t all of it though. He wished he could remember what she’d said, specifically, to cause all that tension. She seemed to be very good at causing tension and knowing just what to say. “And my dad,” he added.

“And?” Spence asked.

“And?” There was more? “And I guess maybe they had a fight after. He’s still my dad.”

Spence used his body to pin him against the conference room wall. He was gentle, but intent.

To anyone else, Ach knew, it would seem forceful, rough, maybe even abusive. But Spence knew that it helped him focus, to have nothing to look at but Spence, nothing to think about but what they were discussing.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. He kissed him before he waited for Ach to reply.

“Worried. I hope they’re okay.” He loved them both fiercely, and he wanted them to be somewhere emotionally where they could be content like he was with Spence. If they didn’t have that with each other, then they were better off somewhere else.

He had trouble imagining Niels’ mom being that place for his dad either, though.

“So you’re okay if they split?” Spence clarified.

“My mom had at least four kids with Uncle Konrad. Maybe six.” Ach shouldn’t have said that. Spence had four with Talise, and Ach didn’t want him to think that bothered him. It was in the past, from before he and Spence even dated. What happened with his mom and Meldrick was different.

Not that it could have been helped either. His mom had been fixing the gancanagh curse.

Four kids, for the price of saving the gancanagh, didn’t seem like too much.

But it had cost his mom her marriage, too. His dad had Giana; who did his mom have?

Hopefully, Uncle Konrad would keep dating her, in some kind of magic way that didn’t hurt Uncle Nell.

It was a complex mess.

“Six?” Spence asked.

Ach kissed him. His face was too close to resist, and Ach was drunk on no sleep.

“You mean the current pregnancy?” Spence asked.

He thought back to Principal Watters at the meeting last night. “She kind of said no one knew whose they were,” he explained.

Spence pressed his palms against the wall on either side of Ach’s head, his face inches from Ach’s. “Why don’t you ask Vermillion?” he suggested.

Ach didn’t want to ask Vermillion. He wanted to kiss Spence and find an empty guest room and stay in all day.

The fastest way to get alone time with Spence was to get through the rest of the day until the kids were in bed again.

He closed his eyes and sent Vermillion an image of his mom, and then an image of a generic dragon egg, with a question attached.

Vermillion sent him an image of Ach’s mom’s dragon, Apa, snuggled against two bright pink dragon eggs while Dancer stood guard near their stall door.

Pink.

The only one with a pink dragon was Uncle Nell.

Vermillion confirmed that loudly with an image of Uncle Nell.

Ach realized his body had tensed, within the shell of Spence’s arms. He blushed, because Spence would want an answer.

“Whose are they?” Spence asked.

He managed, a whisper, “Uncle Nell’s.”

Spence laughed and pushed off the wall. He tugged Ach’s hand and pulled him into a hug. “Let’s go see some orphans about a house,” he said.

They transported to some kind of urban street with marble buildings along it. Spence started up the steps of one with corinthian columns that supported the weight of the front of the building.

“What’s more unsettling?” he asked. “Divorced parents, or Nell siblings?”

“Nell siblings will be cool,” Ach admitted. If anything, he was disappointed that his mom was having pixies before him. “But how I got Nell siblings…”

Uncle Nell was his safe spot.

People who slept with his mom and weren’t his dad, weren’t his safe spot.

Spence knocked on one of the doors within the giant marble foyer of the giant marble building. Someone – an overweight man with shiny red cheeks, who looked tireder than he should for his age, answered the door.

Ach felt bad for him. He always felt guilt about mortals in general, but this guy seemed like he probably wasn’t that healthy.

He looked at Spence. “Oh,” he said. “I know what you want. I don’t think it’s legal.”

It would be legal by the end of the day, if it wasn’t already, knowing Spence’s family.

“It is,” Spence insisted. “I can have my uncle Caz stop by if you want a signed waiver.”

The director led them inside, even though he kept protesting. “Two men? Where’s the motherly influence?”

Ach blushed, one of the deepest blushes he’d done in a long time. Hed cleaned the house all morning, made breakfast for all the kids, done the dishes.

By conventional standards, he was such a girl.

“Do a three-year-old and a six-year-old need someone to nurse them?” Spence countered.

The director led them into a marble office full of paintings done and signed by children. It was the first evidence that this place had anything to do with kids.

“I don’t need your uncle down here,” the director muttered. He sat, and urged them to sit too, so they did. Ach held Spence’s hand.

The director noted the hand-holding, but he didn’t say anything bad.

Instead he said, “I wasn’t sure who I’d see first, you or Forrester.” He slid two packets of paper across his desk – one toward Spence and one toward Ach. Then he made a phone call and asked someone to bring the kids from the fire down to the office with all their stuff.

“Forrester is looking for tools,” Spence told him. “We love kids and we want them to have a home they are loved in.”

Now, Ach understood.

Spence must have realized that his rival would try to adopt them. That was why they hadn’t taken a few days to think about it.

Ach smiled, proud of Spence. He had such a good heart.

The director held his hands up, claiming innocence and zero involvement. “I give homes, I don’t ask questions. This was strictly first-come, first-served.”

Spence had already filled his forms out. He slid them across the table back toward the director. “That’s it?” he asked.

Ach scrambled and filled in his form. He rushed the A in his name and wished he could just start over.

But if timing mattered, timing mattered.

“We’ll do a home visit every month for a year,” the director told them. “If they’re doing well, you’ll finalize it with your uncle.”

A year, of having complete strangers in their lives.

Ach sighed. It was probably maybe worth it.

Someone walked into the room. Ach recognized the two kids right away – the boy with the dark curly hair and the younger girl with straight red hair.

“This is Cadence, but she goes by Cady,” the worker told them. She lifted the girl up and set her on Ach’s lap. “And this is Fitzhugh, but he goes by Hugh.” She pressed the little boy’s hand into Spence’s, but the boy jerked it back right away.

“Hi,” Spence said. “I’m Spence.”

Ach started working his fingers through the little girl’s hair. It was a chaos of tangles, and no one had given either kid a bath since the fire so they both smelled like ugly smoke.

“We have to go with them?” the boy protested.

“Do as you’re told or you’ll end up back here,” the director warned the boy. He smiled. “And we don’t want that, do we?”

“No, sir,” the boy said. He was more subdued, but he shot Ach a surly look under his shaded brows.

“Do you need anything else?” Spence asked the director.

The director stood up. “Thank you for not bringing the media with you,” he said. “You may want to leave out the back way; Forrester is here with three news vans.”

Ach wondered if Forrester would adopt random orphans just for the sake of doing it or if he’d had his heart set on the two from the fire.

It didn’t matter. Ach stood, with the little girl in his arms and Spence and the boy by his side.

What mattered was that these kids were theirs.

Time to take them home.

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