Chapter Text
Fuegolon’s boots pounded against the dark tile floor as he paced the hallway in short, jerky strides. The sound was soft and dulled; overpowered by the sounds billowing through the steam-shrouded nursery of his son.
He was getting worse. Fuegoleon didn’t need the nanny to tell him that. He was getting worse, fast. Leocadio’s cries had started as plaintive wails, and over the course of the night, dissolved into miserable whimpers. He’d drained himself of strength. His mana had swollen, filling the room, and now was so thick in the air that the toddler could hardly breathe.
This had happened before; every night for the last two weeks. The boy had tapped into his magic power so young that Fuegoleon had anticipated it. He remembered it happening to himself as a child. At the age of four, a tussle with his sister had led to a blast of fire that had burned both their eyebrows off-- his first use of his magic. She’d started training him immediately. Chaotic and discordant as her training was at six, it was training nonetheless, until Sister Theresa stepped in. But exercising a power that big at such a young age, a child was easily overextended. His mana outgrew him. And he spent many a night consumed in feverish heat, buffeted by the power of his own mana.
So when Leocadio manifested his first burst of steam at two, Fuegoleon knew this was a possibility. He’d prepared for it: tried to teach the baby meditation techniques, how to calm his own mana. He’d been very careful with his training. He’d gently instructed Nebra to do the same. And he thought he’d been careful enough. Nebra had been training with him for almost a year, and she’d always been careful. But a week ago, the little boy’s miserable wail broke through the walls of his room, and sent Fuegoleon’s heart plummeting.
His first instinct was to do what his parents had done: help him tough it out. Open the windows, turn on a fan, keep an ice pack nearby. Let him work it out of his system. That’s what he had done. And it’d worked. It wasn’t comfortable, and it led to many sleepless nights, but that’s what he had learned to do. But Leocadio’s magic wasn’t like his. Fuegoleon and Meoroleona’s magic was hot, intense, but dry. It didn’t cling to the body like steam did. It didn’t hang in the air. It didn’t fill your nose and lungs and drain your body of the will to fight.
Fuegoleon was terrified, and on top of that, livid at himself for letting it get this bad. He knew what his son’s magic was like. He should have recognized the difference. And now he could do nothing to help him-- not because he didn’t want to, not because he didn’t have ideas, but because he was exhausted, sleep-deprived, and worn out. His own mana was billowing from him in sporadic, wild waves, burning up the air around him and making him impossible to approach. His baby boy needed him and he couldn’t even be in the room.
The shape of silhouettes moving toward him down the hall pulled him abruptly out of his anxious hole. Sauntering down the hall, his shoulders straight despite his wrinkled pajamas, his face hard despite his tired eyes, was Nozel, guided by the servant that Fuegoleon had sent for him. With a flick of his wrist, Fuegoleon dismissed the servant, and he closed the distance between them in a few quick strides. “Nozel, he’s burning up. He can’t control his magic.”
The Silva’s sharp purple eyes slid to the baby’s doorway like a key sliding into a lock. He paused, missing just a step before continuing to the doorway. At the steam-addled entrance he stopped, squinting inside with a darkening expression. “How long has he been like this?”
Fuegoleon followed him and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “Since he was put to bed. He slept for… maybe two hours before he woke up like this.”
Like a ghost phasing through a wall, Nozel disappeared inside the room. Fuegoleon’s fists tightened against his arms as he stepped into the doorway and followed his slim form with his eyes. While he watched the other man lean over the nanny rocking their son, he realized, abruptly and with dull terror, that he didn’t actually know what he expected Nozel to do.
Nozel scooped the fretful toddler out of his nanny’s arms and shooed her off. The woman rose from the rocking chair, looking lost and nervous, but she obediently retreated to the door of the room. Fuegoleon did not miss the deep breath she took as she met the fresh, cool air. Swabbing her brow with her sleeve, she leaned against the opposite side of the door from Fuegoleon, watching what Nozel did with caring eyes.
He sat down and shifted his grip on the baby awkwardly. Leocadio was not in a position to make himself comfortable: eyes half-lidded, mouth open, skin slick and hot to the touch, he tried to fix on his father’s face as he drew in short, labored breaths. When he managed to form a word, it came out heavy, difficult. “Daddy?”
“I’m here, Dio,” Nozel murmured. “Hold still, alright?”
Leocadio didn’t answer. He laid prostrate in Nozel’s arms as the metal mage drew his hand over the baby’s bare chest. It stopped above his heart, fingers spreading wide to encompass his whole sternum, and mercury materialized in his palm. Like the branching paths of a river it spread, weaving across the surface of the boy’s pale skin. It wove along his arms, along his face and legs, even snaked in and out of his diaper, before extending into the air. A web of mercury delicately cloaked the room before a final band slithered out the open window.
Fuegoleon watched, transfixed, as the gentle streams of mercury redirected the flow of the toddler’s magic. It guided it out of the room, soothing its brash, heavy flow. It lulled the magic power biting at the baby’s skin to quiet. It cooled Leocadio and eased his fretful moans.
The steam in the air cooled, settling to a thin dew. The air cleared. Leocadio’s breathing eased. He blinked sleepily up at his father as Nozel began a slow, gentle rock. The chair gave off a soft cree, cree. A peace settled over the room.
Fuegoleon allowed himself his first deep breath of the night. He leaned his weight into his shoulder as he watched Leocadio’s little body relax. The toddler’s lips moved, working to form the words he wanted to say, and with some effort, through a breathy plea, he murmured, “Don’t go, Daddy.”
“I am not going anywhere,” Nozel murmured. He shifted, drawing the boy closer, and as Leocadio’s head found his shoulder, he stroked his short golden hair. “I will stay here as long as you need me. Alright?”
Leocadio nestled against him as if he’d found the place he was always meant to be. His eyes slid closed, and in minutes, he was sound asleep.
Fuegoleon felt something fierce, powerful, and quiet twist in his chest. He had never seen Nozel like this, and something inside of him never wanted to see any other part of him again.
Nozel’s gaze shifted to him. The hardness had left his expression, leaving something else that Fuegoleon had only ever seen on a few very special occasions. Moving with a precision and care that did not disturb his son, he lifted his hand and beckoned Fuegoleon into the room.
All of the tension returned to the crimson lion’s body. He straightened, rigid, and stared at him, anxiety biting at his chest. His mana was still boiling on his skin. He was still too hot. To step into the room would be to undo everything that Nozel had just done.
But his rival’s gaze was insistent. He chased the softness out of his face with a hard edge, and another, sharper, flick of his wrist.
Fuegoleon stepped tentatively into the room. Eyes on his son, he crossed the space one step at a time, watching for a reaction, for a shift or a whine that would necessitate his retreat. But it didn’t come. And he’d been looking for it so hard that he didn’t notice Nozel grab his hand, until he’d closed his long slender fingers entirely around it.
Fuegoleon’s eyes jerked to it as mercury climbed his wrist. Slow, lackadaisical streams of cool metal wove along his skin, snaking up his arm and then branching to move up, down, and around. He grew still, trying not to squirm at the soft tickle of the magic moving along the surface of his body. It was all-encompassing; it moved without reservation, finding its way under every layer of his clothes, along his scalp, between his toes. And the more it covered, the more Fuegoleon felt himself relax. It cooled his skin; it eased his tense muscles; it tamed his mana. The soft flow of the mercury was relaxing in a way he couldn’t put his finger on; the opposite of a soak in a hot bath, but just as soothing.
The heat simmered off the surface of his skin. It receded into his body. He felt cool, comfortable, relaxed, in a way he hadn’t felt in days. As the last of his hot breath hissed through his nostrils, Nozel looked away, back at Leocadio, who hadn’t so much as twitched. But their hands remained curled together.
That strange, twisting comfort sprung up in Fuegoleon’s chest again. He shifted a step behind the rocking chair and brought his caught hand to Nozel’s shoulder. To, what he realized was his overwhelming relief, Nozel didn’t let go of it. Keeping time with the gentle cree of the rocking chair, he watched his son sleep in his father’s arms. That feeling in his chest was building, demanding something that he could not pinpoint. Hoping that it would guide him, he squeezed Nozel’s hand, leaned over him, and pressed his forehead to his temple. “Thank you.”
Nozel let out a hum of acknowledgement; easy, reflexive, like he’d been waiting to respond all along.
The comfort twisted tighter.
Fuegoleon wanted to pull both of them into his arms. That was what this feeling wanted, he realized. To have the both of them with him, always. To never let them go. To keep them his, unconditionally, irrevocably, and give them every part of himself as they gave him theirs.
He recognized those feelings for Leocadio. He’d always had them, since the moment he laid eyes on him sixteen months ago. But Nozel. This was different. This was new. Not entirely unfamiliar, because he’d felt it through Noelo. For Leebon.
He checked, frantically, for any sign of Noelo’s consciousness, mentally poking the elf with a stick. But this wasn’t Noelo’s reaction. The elf had been comfortably asleep, dormant in his consciousness, since the sun went down. These feelings felt very much like ones that he would have, but this was all Fuegoleon. These feelings were entirely his.
He was sure that his heart would have started pounding if he wasn’t being soothed by Nozel’s spell. As it was, the mental gymnastics he was doing didn’t touch his body. This all remained firmly seated in his head: these deep, passionate feelings for his best friend and rival that, he thought, maybe he’d experienced before, in small doses, at times where he could easily neglect them. And the panic that rose up with them.
Because--
and he knew this, deeply, in the very core of his soul
--they were pretty gay.