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Once Magnus blinks himself awake, it takes him a long while to realize why he’s actually awake in the first place. He looks at Taako next to him in the bed, and he’s still fast asleep on his back, Wyatt asleep on his chest. He lifts his head and finds Kravitz, too, asleep as well, curled up on his side, hands tucked up against his chest. He stares at them for a little while before realizing he had been woken up by a sound: someone’s crying.
Taako and Kravitz don’t move, so Magnus just drags himself out of bed and from their bedroom. He stops in the hall, listening, just to make sure he’s heading in the right direction, but he knows the sound well enough at this point to know that it’s Blaine.
Magnus shoulders open the door to the nursery and goes to Blaine immediately, lifting her up out of her crib and tucking her against his chest. She’s only the length of his arm from shoulder to wrist, so he holds her in one arm while he shuts the door with the other.
“What’s up, little dude?” Magnus asks, as Blaine continues sobbing. He already pretty much knows what’s up; while she’s awake, Blaine is the chillest little person in the world. When she’s asleep, she gets nightmares half the time, even night terrors sometimes, and Magnus counts himself as the best person to calm her down, since she adores him and he also has childcare proficiency.
A close second on the list of people who can calm Blaine down is Jules, who’s standing up in her own crib, gripping the bars to hold herself upright, watching the two of them closely. Magnus picks her up in the other arm and sits the both of them down with him in the rocking chair he’d made for Taako. Blaine keeps crying, inconsolable, but Jules reaches over, takes her hand and sits quietly.
“Hey, kiddo, I’m right here,” Magnus tells her. Blaine turns her face into his bare chest, still crying, so Magnus kicks the chair gently off the floor, letting it rock softly back and forth. He hums softly to her, something he’s heard Kravitz sing to them before that he’s never recognized, and she starts slowing down, her sobs quieting a little bit. He keeps going, and she turns her face against him so her cheek and her ear are pressed over his heart. Magnus reaches up, strokes his hand through her curly auburn hair.
He runs his thumb over the point of her ear, and she sniffles. He’s learned from Taako that elf ears are sensitive, and Blaine especially likes hers being touched. He keeps stroking up to the point of her ear, scratching his nails lightly through her hair, humming softly to her, and, eventually, she calms down to snuffling.
“There you go,” Magnus says. “You’re doing okay, see? Nothing bad going on here, not while your dad’s here.” He turns his face down and presses it into her hair, kisses the crown of her head. She sighs softly.
“Da,” she says quietly. Magnus nods, kisses the top of her head again.
“I know,” he replies. He watches her turn her hand over in Jules’, and Jules lays her head on Magnus’ chest, too, tips her head back to stare up at Magnus. Magnus grins at her. “Hey, what’s up, buttercup?”
Jules smiles back at him. Magnus kisses her forehead, then her nose, then her cheek, and she laughs. She reaches up and tugs on his beard, and he turns his head to nip at her hand. She starts laughing harder.
“Hey, keep it down, Julia, you’re gonna—” Magnus says, then stops, once he realizes what he’s said. Jules is still grinning at him, but Magnus isn’t, because he’s looking down at her face and thinking about Julia. He thinks about her all the time, but not usually like this, alone at night, after he accidentally calls his daughter by his dead wife’s name. Sometimes, remembering Julia just knocks him flat on his ass.
He thinks, mostly, that Julia would be happy for him. They always wanted to have kids of their own, but with everything going on in Raven’s Roost, the time was never right. He wishes it had been, sometimes, and sometimes he’s glad it never was, because he’s not sure what would’ve happened to him if he’d lost a child that day, too.
He wonders, briefly, if their children would’ve looked like Jules and Blaine do, then shakes off the thought, because they probably would’ve looked similar, what with the Burnsides genes and all, but they would be completely different kids. He wouldn’t give up his kids for anything at this point, not anything, which is a strange thought.
He wishes he had Wyatt with him for his little emotional meltdown, but Wyatt had his own meltdown before bed that night until Taako caved and brought him to bed with him. He shifts Jules to fit her better in his arm.
“You know, I think Julia would’ve loved you guys,” Magnus tells them. Blaine looks up at him, too, his two daughters staring at him while he talks. “You know, I thought I was gonna die, like, a long time ago. Kinda wanted to, but I didn’t, like— You know how it is. Well, maybe you don’t, since you’re, like, babies, and stuff. But I loved Julia more than anyone else in the world.” Magnus keeps rocking them, back and forth. “But, I guess, now, not so much, because I have more family to love now, too. Merle and Taako — oh, that’s your dad’s name, I don’t know if you know that — but they gave me a new family and something to live for and stuff. And now I’ve got you guys, too, and that’s pretty sweet.”
Jules yawns. Magnus yawns, too.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Magnus says, moving to stand up. “I shouldn’t be keeping you guys up.”
“Noooooo,” Jules says back, like she even knows what he’s saying. Actually, Magnus isn’t entirely sure how much she understands about what he’s saying.
“Yeah, actually, we probably should,” Magnus says anyways. He doesn’t move to get up this time, though. When he looks back down at Blaine, he notices that she’s asleep again, and, well, he doesn’t want to wake her up, or startle her, or anything like that. Jules pats at Magnus’ chest and yawns again. He rubs his hand over her back, then strokes her hair as he settles back into the rocking chair.
“Get some sleep,” Magnus says. He guides her head back down, and she laughs, softly, already half-asleep. She reaches for his hand, plays with his fingers between her own tiny hands, until he pulls free and starts stroking her hair again. “Hey, kiddo. Sleep. It’s good for you and all that shit. I’m trying to be a responsible dad, here.”
Jules is already falling asleep, so he just keeps rocking her, keeps stroking her hair, until she falls all the way asleep. He keeps rocking even after they’re both fast asleep, and then even when they’re both deeply asleep and just become dead weight on his lap. Eventually, he finds himself leaning his own head back, yawning, re-adjusting his grip on them so they don’t slip as he drifts off.
He wakes up to a hand on his shoulder, and it’s Kravitz standing in front of him when he blinks his eyes open. The light coming in through the windows makes it seem like it might be really, really early dawn, and he yawns.
“Hey,” Kravitz says. He holds out his hands. “Wanna get back to bed?”
Magnus nods drowsily. Kravitz lifts Blaine out of his grip and takes her back to her crib; she doesn’t wake up the whole way, not even when he sets her down, and he comes back for Jules. He brings Jules to her crib, too, and she sleeps right through it. He comes back one last time and holds out a hand, and Magnus takes it, using Kravitz’s leverage to heave himself up out of the rocking chair.
“Did Blaine have another night terror?” Kravitz asks. Magnus cracks his back, then shakes his head.
“No, just a nightmare,” Magnus says. “She was awake when I came in, just crying.”
“Thanks for taking her,” Kravitz says. Magnus slings his arm over Kravitz’s shoulder and guides him back towards their bedroom.
“Never a problem, buddy,” Magnus tells him. “She’s got a set of fucking lungs, though.”
“She’s very strong-willed,” Kravitz says, and Magnus laughs.
“That’s a nice way of saying it.” Magnus opens the bedroom door, but Kravitz stops. “Hey, man, you coming?”
“I’m gonna go start on breakfast,” Kravitz says. “I got all the rest I need for now.”
Magnus nods, then leans in, kissing Kravitz softly for a long, long moment. When he pulls back, he smiles at him.
“You’re pretty cool,” Magnus says, then kisses him again and turns to climb back into bed. He tugs the blanket up over himself and Taako, tucking the blanket just over Wyatt’s back. He kisses Wyatt’s forehead, then Taako’s cheek. Taako shifts, frowning a little in his sleep, his brow furrowing, and Magnus retreats, burrowing back into the blankets. He yawns and puts his arm over Taako, tucking the two of them into his side and settling back in.
He takes a second to look at Taako, really look at him. Taako rarely sleeps, so Magnus likes to look at him while he does, because it’s one of the few moments where he can just watch him without Taako hiding his face or kissing him or shooing him away. Taako always gets self-conscious when people look at him when he hasn’t cast Disguise Self, but Magnus doesn’t think the changes are all that bad. After Wonderland, his face changed somewhat, but he still has such an innate Taako-ness that means that his actual features don’t really affect how he looks as much. It's more that, how he acts affects how he looks, moreso than the features themselves, to Magnus.
Anyways, Magnus is happy just looking at him like this. He has shadows under his eyes, and more freckles than he did before Wonderland. His nose has a bump, like it’s been broken before, which Magnus knows it has been. This close up, he can see the silver scar on Taako’s forehead, and the other one on his cheek, glistening down to his chin, stitching together the marred blue skin. He’s still, objectively and literally, the most beautiful person Magnus has ever seen.
It doesn’t matter what he looks like, regardless. It matters to Taako, so that’s the only reason it matters to Magnus, but otherwise, it means nothing. He’s just happy to be around him, because Taako becomes a more amazing person every single day, and it’s pretty awesome just to be around him, sometimes. Sometimes he’s a handful, but sometimes Magnus is, too, so it’s a good trade-off.
Magnus is happy with him. He’s happy with his kids, and he’s happy with Kravitz, and he’s happy with Taako, and he’s happy with himself, most of all. He never thought things would go this way, but he’s happy they did.
“Take a fucking fantasy picture, it’ll last longer,” Taako murmurs, peeking at him through squinting eyes. Magnus smiles at him.
“Hey, handsome,” Magnus says. Taako twists to bury his face in his pillow, his hand holding Wyatt in place as he shifts.
“You woke me up, dickhead,” Taako says, voice muffled by the pillow. Magnus leans in and kisses him on the cheek.
“Go back to sleep,” Magnus says. Taako lifts Wyatt up gently and lays him down on the bed in between them, then rolls onto his side, curling up around Wyatt, forehead pressed to Magnus’. He yawns, twined like a drowsy cat around them.
“Shut up, you’re thinking too loud,” Taako tells him, closing his eyes. Magnus grins at him, even though he can’t see him.
“Goodnight, Taako,” Magnus says. Taako mumbles something incoherent back at him, brow furrowing, a little crease appearing between his eyebrows. Magnus reaches over Wyatt to rest his hand on Taako’s waist; Taako’s already back asleep, so he doesn’t say or do anything in return. He settles down and shuts his own eyes.