Work Text:
The front door slams shut. “I’m home!”
Isa takes off his reading glasses and earmarks the page of the book he was reading. A guide on cooking tips and tricks for the new sous-vide machine he was gifted this past Christmas.
“Welcome home,” Isa says. Getting up from the lounge chair is much harder than it was 5 years ago. He laments for a moment that old age is creeping up on him, but a voice that sounds strangely like Lea’s teases him that 35 is not synonymous with the word ‘old’. “How was school?”
Xion throws herself on the sofa. “It was school, need I say more?”
Isa hides his chuckled behind a cough. “Picking things up from Lea, I see. I was always the one who liked to learn, but Lea always had a way of making sure that we did less learning and more tomfoolery.”
From where she hangs over the couch like a discarded blanket, Xion makes a face. “Ew, gross! I don’t want to hear about your after school ‘adventures’.”
In the kitchen, Isa pauses with his hand on the fridge door handle. The blush creeping up his neck is warm, and he’s sure his ears are turning red. “You know we didn’t start dating until college.”
There’s rustling from the other room. “Yeah, sure I do.” She’s a menace, Isa’s raised a menace. This is all Lea’s fault. “Speaking of Lea, when will he be home?”
As if he were a little red daemon summoned, the door opens again to a boisterous voice. “We’re back!”
“Roxas!” Xion shouts from the other room, on her feet in an instant and in Roxas’ face as soon as he walks through the door. “Welcome home!”
The door closes with another slam, because it can never be quiet with two rambunctious teens and Lea. The look on Lea’s face screams wounded animal as Xion and Roxas hug like they haven’t seen each other in a decade. “What, no love for me?”
Xion sticks out her tongue, head hung on Roxas’ shoulder as they squish themselves together. “Never any.”
“What makes you think you deserve any?” Roxas pipes up, all too happy to have his arms full of Xion.
In dramatic Lea fashion (now Isa knows where the kids get it from), Lea clutches his shirt above his heart and bends double. “Damn, right where it hurts.” He looks up at Isa, who has since closed the fridge door and is now leaning against it, amusement clear on his face. Lea’s eyes are pleading, like a puppy’s. “Isa, come on now, help me out here.”
Isa shrugs. “Well. Did you do anything to deserve any?”
Lea’s straightens and makes his way over, dropping his bag on the bench where everyone throws their stuff and Isa always yells at them to stop throwing their stuff. “I was at work. All day! Of course I deserve love.”
Xion and Roxas have moved back into the living room, probably to dig out the controllers to start up a game until Isa nags them to do their homework. Whenever Lea starts up his dramatics, they know the best thing to do is to ignore him.
Isa pushes off from the fridge to make his way over to Lea rummaging in his work bag for something or other. Isa leans in to wrap his arms around Lea’s waist from behind. He tucks his head in the crook of Lea’s neck to breath in the smells of the diner where Lea works. “Welcome home,” Isa whispers, the blush creeping its way back up his neck and further down his ears to flush his face now.
The sounds of the kids from the other room filter into the kitchen, laughter and rough-housing that didn’t exist 5 years ago. Isa can hardly remember the time before, when he would patiently wait for Lea’s return. Jobless and always confined to bed rest, there was little else he could do besides read from the time Lea went to work at 5am until the time he returned home at 5pm. He would never admit it, but those years were lonely ones.
Then it had all changed. A simple “I want kids” had ignited a long debate between the two of them that was more fighting than talking. Lea thought children would be good for Isa, who was good at looking after people and taking care of things. But Isa wasn’t a kid person, children had never liked him. But he was lonely, and the thought of expanding their little two person family made his heart warm in a way that made him feel full. Suddenly, Isa couldn’t look at their house without imagining the sounds of laughter and noise.
Roxas and Xion came into their life shortly after Isa agreed kids probably weren’t such a bad idea after all. Older kids were easier to handle, Lea had told him with a smile on his face. They were more independent, hadn’t reached teenhood yet, but weren’t babies who needed constant attention and coddling and required sleepless nights.
And so, one thing led to another, and thus Roxas and Xion made themselves at home. Where before Isa would get up with Lea in the early hours to make breakfast and coffee and catch the news, now he got up early to make the kids breakfast and pack their lunches and wake them up for school. It was a change in routine that startled Isa more than it did Lea, being the home body he was, but it wasn’t unwelcome. Never unwelcome, even with all the moodiness and drama, his family wasn’t one he’d change for the world.
Now, Lea turns in Isa’s arms to return the hug, kissing the corner of Isa’s mouth. “Glad to be home. Work was a nightmare!”
Isa hums and stands there, wrapped in warmth and feeling pleasantly sated. He knows he won’t be able to get back on his feet anytime soon, but something tells him he’ll never want to at this point. “Let’s take the kids out to dinner tonight,” he says.
He can’t see the strange look Lea gives him, as if asking what brought on such a sudden tender mood. “Hey, kids, Isa says we’re going out for Chinese!”
Before Isa can protest (“That’s not a healthy choice, Lea!”), Roxas and Xion answer back a resounding, “Fuck yeah!” which instead prompts a different kind of protest from Isa (“What did I say about cursing?”).
An insufferable family, yet it’s all his.