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Roderich woke up when their alarm went off, but since he wasn't the one that needed to get up before the children did, he rolled around and went back to sleep as Antonio complained under his breath about his back and shuffled in zig-zag into the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, however, he woke up again because the second beeping of the alarm warned him that he needed to help his husband drag their little sleepy bears out of their beds and stuff breakfast into them.
However, the house was calm. There was no screaming or whines. Neither could he smell the coffee and eggs from downstairs. And the in-suite light was on.
"Toni?" He wondered, still sounding asleep. He palmed on the bedside table until he found his glasses, putting them on.
"In here!"
"What are you doing? You are going to be late." He mumbled, dragging his feet into the bathroom and wincing against the lightbulb’s aggression on his eyes.
Antonio was already in his pants and socks, but the upper part of his body was still naked and he had stopped mid-shaving, apparently, to inspect the side of his head, as he was leaning towards the mirror, critically picking on the hair on his temples.
"Have you seen them?" He asked, flicking Roderich a quick glance through the mirror.
"Hm- what?"
Antonio turned to face him, pointing at his temple. Roderich squinted to see what he was referring to, but had to cup his jaw, turning his face to the right. "The white hair, you mean?"
"Yeah. I haven't seen these before. I just noticed now. Have they been there for a long time?" He turned to face his reflection in the mirror again, hands gripping the edge of the counter. Roderich yawned and leant against his back, resting his chin on his husband's shoulder and looking at their reflection as well.
"I don't know" He answered honestly. "A couple of weeks, probably, maybe more."
Antonio made a pout. "Why haven't you told me?"
Roderich shrugged. "I didn't think it was necessary. Have you really not noticed them before?"
Antonio shook his head, then tugged at a white curl on his own chest. "There are several more here too."
"Those have been there for longer."
"Yeah, I just always heard they appeared first. I thought I still had a couple of years."
Roderich wound his arms around his husband's middle, leaving one over that soft underbelly spot that Antonio resented so much, and bringing another to gently scratch up and down Toni's chest.
"What's really bothering you so much?"
Antonio sighed "I'm getting old."
Roderich shook his head, smiling softly at his beloved's ridiculous occurrences. "It's just the stress, darling. You have two pre-teen demons at home and then go every day to work with more kids."
"I'm a PE teacher. All I do the entire day is walk around in tracksuits blowing into my whistle, and trot in circles around the schoolyard, behind dozens of teens, screaming about how they are lazy asses and need to step up their game. That's not stressful."
"But it's demanding."
"So? I'm barely forty and I've already got white hair."
Roderich snorted. "You are forty-four and people usually get them way before that."
"You don't have any yet."
"I'm five years younger than you, and would you want me to have it?" He arched an eyebrow. Antonio seemed to hesitate, opening and closing his mouth a bit.
"Maybe? So people wouldn't be asking what are you doing with an old man."
Roderich shook his head. "I think what they will be asking is what that weedy, myopic nerd doing with that handsome silver fox."
"Silver fox, heh? I think I'm not quite there yet." But he was smiling, turning around to give Roderich a soft peck on the lips.
He scrunched up his nose when he got the half-dried remains of shaving cream on his cheek. "Sit down. I'm going to finish this."
Antonio obediently flopped down the toilet lid seat and closed his eyes. Roderich carefully wiped his face off the remains of the dried-up stuff and spread a fresh layer of shaving cream over his face, starting to run the razor in precise, slow swipes.
"How quiet." Antonio mumbled after a minute.
"Hm."
"What do you wanna bet that they turned off the alarm and went back to sleep?"
Roderich chuckled. "I never bet against safe guesses. I think at this point you are all going to be missing first period."
"I only have to check the equipment first period. But Feli got Geography, he can't afford to miss a class."
"It's wednesday, darling. He has art."
Antonio frowned. "Right. Roma got Geo. Not much better."
Roderich hummed, unable to hold back a smile. He put away the razor, leaning down to kiss his husband's forehead.
"There you go. Now finish up here, I'm going to go wake them up."
"See you in hell, brave soldier."
Roderich laughed, shrugging his shoulders immediately afterwards. "If our brats eat me for breakfast please call my client and tell him I hate the product, I hate their ad idea, and that I'm glad I'm dead so I don't have to compose that jingle anymore. And please donate everything in my music room to a charity for stray cats."
"That makes no sense. Cats can't play the cello."
"And you are not old. Now let us both go back to making perfect sense and act like responsible parents, getting our children to school at least for second period."
"Okay, okay." Antonio grinned, catching his hand to bring it to his lips. "I love you, do I still tell you that?"
"Not often enough." Roderich smiled. "But I love you too and I don't either, so I guess it's fair game."
"Yeah." Antonio smiled at him with all the tenderness in the world.
Before Roderich exited the room he noticed that the crow's feet in the corners of his spouse's eyes looked deeper than the last time he paid any attention to them. However, he said nothing, biting on the quirk of his lip as he stepped into the corridor, heart swelling with a sudden burst of affection that he had first felt on a rainy date afternoon fifteen years ago, and that had remained his constant companion ever since.