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One thing Cloud and Leon had never expected to have to deal with in their lives, were children arguing over construction paper. Honestly, what difference did it make? But here they were, both on the edge of a migraine because Sora wanted the yellow construction paper and Roxas wanted orange, and despite the fact that there was enough between them, sharing wasn’t happening.
“I need it!” Sora yelled.
“So do i!” Roxas hissed.
Oddly enough, it was Ventus that was the first to get fed up with their argument. “Stop. Stop. Stop.” He moved over to them, and gathered up all the art supplies that was kept in a couple of shoe boxes. “When you want something, come ask me for it and i’ll give you what you need for that part.”
“Ven.” Sora whined.”
“No.” Ventus said, packing everything away and taking the boxes with him to the other side of the room. Had they not been working on a project for school he might have put everything away just to make the arguing stop.
“That is your kid.” Cloud muttered, glancing at his husband. The two of them were in the kitchen, sitting at the table where they were often regulated since the kids tended to do their homework in the livingroom. It meant they could keep an eye on things without being in the fray. “You somehow gave birth to him because holy fuck, that is your kid.”
Leon snorted but didn’t deny it. He did have a short fuse on occasion but it wasn’t often something he saw in his children. More often than not, even when they were put out they…okay they weren’t exactly patient but they were easily distracted from what annoyed them.
Today was evidently not that day for Ventus, but Leon knew why. He had violin lessons that afternoon and even after a few weeks, was still extremely excited about them. It had been a hurdle for him to go without Vanitas who was not interested but he’d been practicing turning his nervousness into excitement.
The fact that he had to get through the morning and make sure his homework was done was just a new kind of stress he wasn’t used to and it upped his sensory problems. The biggest of those problems being Roxas and Sora being too loud.
“It’s a bit nice that they’re getting to the point where they can solve their own problems and don’t need to call for us over every little thing.”
Cloud rested his chin on his palm and smiled. “It’s also killing you.”
Leon felt his eye twitch. “Fuck you.” he mouth the words so they wouldn’t be so readily repeated but it wouldn’t be long before there was a house full of teenagers. His babies were growing up too fast.
“Oh, please.” Cloud purred, smirking as Leon heaved the sigh of a martyr and kicked him from under the table. The jokes would always remain and they were both planning to take off a random morning just to have some quality time together while the kids were at school.
“Ven…” Sora whined, “I need the yellow.”
Cloud snorted when Ven held out a single sheet of yellow construction paper for Sora to come get.
As far as Sunday’s went, things were peaceful. The kids knew if they got their homework done, or at least mostly done, the chances of them going to Aerith’s cafe for lunch were high. Vanitas wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity to see Naminé. He sat in the recliner with his textbook and notebook, headphones on as he worked diligently.
Ventus was on the floor with his back to the wall now as he guarded the art boxes from the twins. He’d done most of his homework the previous morning while the others were at Cloud’s studio and was now just going over flash cards Leon had helped him make for a history test later in the week.
Riku and Rei had a project of their own. After a few weeks, and an intervention from Vincent, the silver twins were finally told about the older lady that had written to them, wanting to say hello and apologize for never knowing about them. The boys had taken several days to digest the news and had since been writing letters to the grandmother. Asking questions and telling her about themselves.
It was new, and Cloud and Leon weren’t sure how deep their feelings ran on the matter but as long as they wanted to keep in contact with her, they could. Rei seemed a bit more receptive to the idea than Riku but Riku’s hesitation was more because of his own anxiety rather than a lack of interest.
Xion had decided that she too would have a grandma and was also writing to the woman. All of the kids had written her at least one letter of introduction. Leon thought doing it that way would endear Rei and Riku to the idea more but Xion hadn’t let go of it yet. It made perfect sense to her. Riku and Rei were her brothers and if this old lady was their grandma then she was Xion’s grandma too.
To Tara’s credit, she’d so far been responding to every letter sent to her, regardless of who wrote it. They didn’t know for sure, but they were getting the feeling that the older woman was having a blast with so many children writing her.
That had been another obstacle too, the ‘writing’. No matter how Cloud and Leon had tried, these were kids who were partially raised with tablets and they didn’t understand why they couldn’t just write the lady an e-mail. That is, until they actually got letters in the mailbox and that became the new exciting thing.
Leon was adamant that his kids would know how to write a handwritten letter and know where to put the stamp. So far, they seemed to like it.
Riku was even playing with the idea of learning Arendals, the prominent language in Arendelle. He’d even commented that Tara would likely be able to help him a bit.
That left Sora and Roxas to do their homework, both of them working on a project for the same class. It was a family tree, and given that they were twins, they were given permission to work on it together and that’s where the headache began.
Leon could understand their teacher seeing no reason for two students to do a project on the exact same thing, but it really was a pain in the ass. Lucky their family looked so damn complicated on paper.
Roxas was doing Leon’s side. There was a chart of Leon leading to Laguna and Raine. Laguna had been all too happy to send the boy pictures since Leon didn’t have many. He added Ellone and Irvine and their baby Vinera too. He then decided to go overboard by adding pictures of the friends Leon had grown up with in the orphanage since Leon had made an offhand comment about them being raised like siblings.
That left many questions over where to put Irvine since then he’d appear twice on their project board and Leon spent twenty minutes trying to convince the twins that Irvine was fine with the spot he had.
That didn’t mean Sora was having an easy time doing Cloud’s side either. There was Cloud and his brother Denzel along with a picture of their mother that Vincent had dug up from somewhere. Cloud swears the man even had her drivers license photo somewhere.
Sora had been very funny, putting a question mark over Cloud’s father’s spot, but then added a picture of Prompto, not wanting to leave out their other uncle. Then, over the humorous question mark was a whole new set of parents because of Cid and Vincent.
It was looking like a mess but made perfect sense to Cloud and Leon. Leon had already thought about e-mailing their teacher just to let them know that the chaotic mess was accurate no matter how strange it looked.
They decorated each picture with borders and glitter and lines that corresponded to every generation. The thing was looking more like a spiderweb than a tree. Cloud was half convinced he needed to sneak into the class and actually listen to the twins present it but didn’t know yet how he’d work that out.
The top of their poster board read ‘ADOPTED- like Milk and Chocolate.’
Cloud and Leon had had no idea what that meant, and it was Roxas that explained that milk and chocolate were good by themselves but were better together like their mixed, adopted family.
It was frankly, adorable, and something only kids could come up with. The fact that they weren’t at all ashamed to admit they were adopted was also rather heartwarming. They felt secure in their family.
“Hey, what about our real family?” Sora asked. “Are we supposed to put them on here?”
“We don’t have pictures of them.” Roxas said, focusing on tracing his pencil letters with marker.
“We could draw ‘em, they just look like us right- Hey!” Sora hissed when Riku was suddenly standing over him. He had a pillow in hand from the sofa, the same pillow he’d just used to hit Sora in the back of the head.
“Don’t. Say. That.” Riku scowled hitting Sora again with the pillow.
“Riku.” Leon said, voice stern. It wasn’t often Riku was the one blatantly misbehaving when both of his fathers were sitting right there.
“Take it back!” Riku said, hitting Sora again.
“Riku!” Sora sounded more put out than hurt, shielding his head. “What?!”
“This IS your real family!” Riku growled, hitting Sora again and pausing to hit Roxas who hadn’t corrected his twin.
“Riku! You’re gonna make me mess up!” Roxas yelled.
“This is your real family!” Riku shouted back, getting the attention of every one of his siblings.
“Alright!” Leon was there, lifting Riku off his feet. Riku was nearly twelve and was getting far to big for Leon to just pick up but he did anyway. “Riku, it’s okay.”
“It’s not!” Riku yelled, inhaling so hard that his voice cracked. “This is our real family!”
“Okay, okay.” Leon turned Riku around so his son could wrap his arms and legs around him. Sora and Roxas didn’t have many feelings towards their birth parents just yet, but Riku evidently did about his own. It was possible that talking to his biological grandmother had dug up some deeper thoughts on the matter.
He was well aware of the fact that he and Reiku had been separated because of unfit parents. Rei had gone to the hospital and Riku to foster care. It made sense that Sora’s careless comment affected him more.
“But…” The tears had sprung up quickly, spilling down his cheeks. The panic took hold of him quickly and he was left to cling to Leon.
“Shh.” Leon muttered, carrying Riku from the room so they could decompress somewhere quiet. "It's okay. It's okay now." Rei was hesitant, looking back at his letter again and Vanitas just subtly put his headphones back on. Xion was the only one to move, taking her letter and crayons to sit beside Ventus for now.
They were all aware that emotions could vary and meltdowns happened.
Sora and Roxas however were left exchanging confused looks when they could hear Riku’s soft crying from a room away.
“So… What happened?” Sora asked slowly, wondering if he’d done something bad since he’d been the one to bear the brunt of Riku’s attack. He was biting his bottom lip, worry pulling at his face as he tried to look around the corner into the next room to see Riku but Leon had moved too far away. Neither twin liked upsetting Riku and it had been some time since either had seen him cry.
Cloud sighed softly and sat on the sofa beside them. “It’s okay, Riku just didn’t like your words.”
“My words?” Sora asked, pausing to take Roxas' hand as they both listened. Roxas took a turn, leaning to see if he could see Riku. They couldn't have gone far since they could still hear Riku's muffled sobs.
“Yeah.” Cloud ruffled his hair. “Maybe call your birth parents, your first family instead of your real family. To Riku that sounded like you thought that your first family is more real than this one.”
Both twins looked confused for a moment, attempting to puzzle out the problem even though it had been explained. They didn't understand what they'd done wrong, just that Riku was upset over it.
“But of course our family is real. It doesn’t mean the other one was fake.” Roxas mumbled, sounding a touch contrite.
“Just short.” Sora added.
Cloud smiled at them. “No, you’re right, but sometimes words matter. Your bio parents were your first family and now we’re your forever family. We love you just as much as they did.”
“Oh, we should add that to the board.” Sora said suddenly, turning to his twin.
“Yep!” Roxas said, pulling away from Sora and grabbing a pencil to haphazardly pick a spot to add that in.
Cloud chuckled, shaking his head just slightly. He was thankful these two were overall, so easy going. In their minds, they weren't going anywhere so the past didn’t matter. It was fine for now, and there was no telling how things would change as they got older.
Still, Cloud couldn’t find it in him to complain about this being such a safe place for the youngest set of twins. They’d work on their vocabulary and being mindful of their siblings' triggers. It was also good that Riku was letting out his emotions now opposed to bottling everything up.
“Ven, we need more paper.” Roxas said while Sora went to the door to peer into the next room, checking on Riku.
“One at a time.” Ventus said, holding out another sheet for them. Hopefully going to lunch would reset the day. This was another lesson learned and despite the drama, everyone had likely learned something. Riku was working out his feelings and Sora and Roxas were learning to be sensitive.
For fun, Cloud took a picture of their project with his phone and sent it to both Laguna and Cid. They were sure to get a kick out of it.