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“Sometimes,” Sebastian intoned, “what we want and what we need aren’t exactly the same thing.” Then he opened the door.
The blue room was quite gorgeous. Its walls were painted a robin’s-shell hue, and its furniture upholstered with fabric a few shades darker to create interest and draw the eye. Some of Perry’s most treasured paintings from the 1800s hung on its walls in elaborate, gilded frames, but today they weren’t the most valuable things in the room, for in its armchairs and on its couches sat five handsome young men, all of them with dark hair and eyes of varying shades of purple.
Sebastian and Perry’s first clutch.
Perry clasped his hands to his mouth as tears formed in his eyes. “Oh. I… I don’t… boys?”
Kian was the first to step forward. He hurried to Perry and hugged him hard. “Papa. I’ve missed you so much.”
The other four pushed in for their hugs as well, even Arsaces and Sargon, who lived in Aurora.
Perry burst into tears, frightening the younger boys, but Sebastian squatted down to their height to reassure them. “They’re happy tears, boys. Everything is fine, I promise.”
It was not exactly the truth, but it would do. The boys need not concern themselves with matters beyond their control. To them, their brothers’ visit wasn’t anything beyond a happy coincidence, and Sebastian would do all he could to make sure it stayed that way. They did not need to know that their brothers had come to help keep them safe.
Amidst a flurry of hugs, a small voice piped up loud enough to be heard by all. “Are we going to the playground or not? Because you said we were.” It was, of course, Cornelius, who took all things so seriously.
Perry laughed, but it sounded a bit watery. “Yes, my darlings. Go grab your coats and let’s go.”
17
Perry
Present Day
The Drake family filled the playground nearly to capacity. Between eight boys and their five adult shadows, the jungle gym was overrun. It was a blessing the children hadn’t decided to bicker over the swings. Originally there had been six of them, but after a squabble last year, there were only five.
Five, and one sad, melted rubber blob.
The children did sometimes like to stand on it and swing upright, but with their older brothers present, they gave it a wide berth. Perry had scolded them within an inch of their lives after the incident had occurred, but there was no shame quite like the disapproval of an older sibling, and the boys did so idolize their adult brothers.
“Papa!” Octavius called from the very top of the jungle gym, near the largest slide. He bounced up so his feet were slotted between the balusters of the security railing surrounding the slide’s platform and waved high over his head so Perry would see. “Papa, look, I’m going to fly down the slide! I’m going to go so fast, I’ll be a blur. Watch me!”
Osric, who’d followed him all the way to the top of the jungle gym, leaned down to whisper something in Octavius’s ear that made the boy clap both hands over his mouth.
After a moment of intense dread, he popped back up and cried, “By fly, I just meant I’ll go really fast! Not anything else! Everyone knows boys can’t fly.”
With that said, Octavius flung himself down the slide in an apparent attempt to escape rebuke for his indiscretions.
He was, indeed, quite the blur.
Osric sighed and followed him down much more slowly. Even with his legs folded to his chest and his hips angled slightly to the side, he was too large to make the journey without getting stuck multiple times. Of all the older boys, he resembled Sebastian the most. Perry was very proud of him. Being so large was no easy thing. In this day and age, where eating people was slightly more frowned upon, sustaining such musculature was a near impossible feat.
While Perry watched the children play and the older boys shepherd them, Sebastian came back from scouting the perimeter to sit beside him on the park bench. Once he was seated, he tucked Perry protectively beneath his arm. “Is it everything you dreamed it would be?”
“No. It’s even more wonderful.” Perry snuggled closer to Sebastian and rested his head on his chest. “I haven’t a clue how you arranged for the older boys to come home, but it’s made me uncommonly happy. Do you know if they’ll stay for long? I miss them so. If I could, I’d keep them here with us forever.”
“I’ve asked them to stay for a time.” While Sebastian spoke, his eyes were on the playground, ever watching the children. “Some will need to come and go, but with any luck, we should have at least a few of them with us on any given day.”
“For how long?”
“For however long it takes.”
While Sebastian spoke plainly enough, Perry was attuned to him more than most, and he heard the pain behind his words. And try as he might to cover up his emotions with impartiality, hints of what Sebastian felt trickled into their bond. It made it far too obvious what he implied.
Sebastian was preparing himself for the death of his brother.
It wasn’t something Perry cared to think about, but it was a possibility he had no choice but to confront.
