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Before they had found out about Rin, Altan and Chaghan had enjoyed a fairly normal life.
In fact, better than normal. Nice. Content. Peaceful. Every so often, their friends from college would come over to their apartment and comment about how not-terrible the place looked (when they remembered to clean) and how they should get a dog (which Chaghan refused on principle, because he was allergic, and because they smelled). The most exciting things they’d get up to most nights involved arguing over which takeout place to order from, or hosting Qara for dinner with her seemingly endless rotation of new girlfriends. Not perfect, because they were still themselves at the end of the day, but close enough.
When Altan had gotten the phone call, it had been two days before their three-year anniversary and two years to the day he’d gotten clean.
He’d been so excited about having a baby cousin. Chaghan had seen the glimmer in his eyes and had desperately wished to share in his joy, if only for a moment.
Chaghan’s own family – apart from Qara, of course – had never been much to brag about. Whenever they tried to get back in touch, he felt nothing but a cold, pooling dread in his stomach. Luckily, they never tried all that hard.
The day had arrived. Chaghan had shelved his reservations. They’d dressed up like nice, respectable young men, and had made the trip across the country to go and meet Altan’s newfound family.
The connection had been instant. Rin was all of three years old – nearly four, as she insisted – and had Altan’s bronze skin and wild, dark hair, with a smattering of freckles across her round-cheeked face. She was cute. Chaghan could admit that, even though the idea of having children had never appealed to him. And Altan loved her. He doted on her every chance he got. Her mother, Altan’s long-lost aunt, had tentatively agreed to let Rin come visit for a weekend every month, and for every single one of those weekends, Altan had poured himself into the mould of the perfect cousin.
At first, Chaghan hadn’t been sure how much of it was pretense – it was never easy to tell with Altan, even for him. But after a while, the stiltedness had melted away. Altan stopped feverishly searching terms on the internet like, “Things that children like to talk about”, and “How do I make my cousin like me”, and had begun to actually relax. They would take Rin to the park and feed the ducks and let her splash in puddles. Altan developed a talent for pushing her to ungodly heights on the swingset, to Rin’s endless chaotic giggles, and Chaghan’s reluctant protests that you’re going to fling her into the stratosphere at this rate, so maybe slow down.
It was nice seeing him like this. Altan’s own childhood had hardly been easy. He’d only told Chaghan snippets of it, but it had been enough to paint a vivid, unpleasant picture: orphaned at four years old, bounced around between abusive foster parents and children’s homes that had treated him like a lab rat. He’d never expected to reconnect with his blood family, much less to have a relationship with any of them like this.
And sometimes, when Altan was playing with Rin in the scrappy concrete excuse of a courtyard at their apartment block, Chaghan thought he saw a glimpse of the child Altan had never really been allowed to be.
All of this was very nice in theory.
In reality, when Rin was their problem and their problem alone, it turned into a fucking disaster.
There was broccoli all over the carpet.
Chaghan took a deep, steadying breath, and met Rin’s eyes. “What did you do that for?”
“Don’t wanna,” Rin said, sing-song. She was too big to fit into a highchair, now, and had to be given an actual seat. She seemed to relish the amount of freedom they’d had to afford her over their cramped kitchen table. “It’s yucky.”
Their flimsy handheld vacuum wouldn’t survive an encounter with soggy particles of broccoli, so Chaghan had mustered every last bit of his patience and knelt down to pick it all up by hand. He’d just finished when Altan came in from the living room. Their eyes met, and a solemn understanding passed between them.
“Still at it, then?” Altan tousled Rin’s hair fondly. “I did tell you, she’s a stubborn little warrior.”
“She can’t just not eat vegetables,” Chaghan said, dusting his palms off into the trash can.
“Why not?”
“Because she’s a kid. Isn’t that what kids are supposed to do? Grow up strong, so they’re not like…” He waved a hand in Rin’s general direction. “This?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Small and irritating.”
Altan looked him up and down. “Didn’t work for you, clearly.”
“Thanks so much.”
“By the way, you have broccoli in your hair.”
Chaghan made a defeated noise. Altan stepped over to him and combed his long, warm fingers through his hair, picking out a few little green stems. It felt so nice that Chaghan forgot to be annoyed for a moment. But only for a moment.
“I want dinosaurs,” said Rin.
Dinosaurs, in child-lexicon, meant the frozen turkey things they kept in the freezer for emergencies. Chaghan refused to think of this as an emergency.
“You’ve already eaten, Mai’rinnen,” Altan chided lightly. “When it’s dinner time, okay?”
“Kay. Can I play now?”
“Mhm. Just wait a minute, I’ll help you down.”
There was a scraping, clattering noise. Altan, thankfully, had lighting-fast reflexes and was able to get to the chair before Rin tipped it over while trying to climb down. She tottered out of the kitchen; he exhaled heavily, running a hand through his hair.
Chaghan patted his shoulder. “Small and irritating.”
“I see your point.” Altan leaned over the table and started to scoop up the rest of Rin’s mess. She seemed to enjoy scattering her food as far as possible away from the plate, like a miniature hurricane. “I’m telling you, just give up trying to feed her vegetables. I didn’t eat them at her age, and I turned out just fine.”
Chaghan hummed. “Fine is one word for it.”
“Fuck off.”
“Language.”
“She’s in the other room.” Altan straightened up and kissed him briefly on the corner of the mouth. “Alright, I have to go. You’ll be great. I love you.”
“Love you too.” Chaghan frowned. “Tell Tyr he’s a shit boss for making you show up at the weekend.”
“Will do.”
Altan nearly pulled away, but stepped back almost instantly to pull Chaghan into another kiss. This one was deeper, longer, the kind that still made his pulse race, even after three years. When he pulled away this time, Altan was smiling.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he whispered against Chaghan’s ear. “Promise.”
Chaghan shivered, clutching at Altan’s shoulders. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Altan shot him a wink, and stepped through the bead curtain into the hallway. Chaghan heard the jangle of his keys in the door before he remembered.
“Babe.”
Altan turned to look over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
Chaghan poked his head through the bead curtain and smiled. “You have broccoli in your hair.”
Spending the afternoon alone with Rin had not been on Chaghan’s agenda today.
If it wasn’t for Altan’s unexpected work emergency, it would never have come to this. Normally, whenever this kind of thing happened on a weekend, Altan pointedly ignored Tyr’s messages, but this time it apparently was a real emergency. Because he worked for a stage pyrotechnic company, and because whatever incident had just unfolded had probably involved some kind of hospitalization and/or bodily harm, it had seemed too risky to ignore this time. That, and Tyr had threatened to demote him if he didn’t show up.
Empty words. Nobody could handle fire like Altan could. But, because he liked his teenage coworker too much to leave Ramsa in it by himself, Altan had made the selfless decision to go.
Not selfless, Chaghan thought bitterly.
This was supposed to be a nice afternoon. Altan would keep Rin occupied, and Chaghan could finally get around to grading some of his students’ papers. Which, he supposed, was technically still working at the weekend, but damn it, it was work he enjoyed.
He couldn’t risk getting the papers out now for fear of Rin spilling apple juice all over them. She’d done that to a couple of stacks in the past. Chaghan had sworn, the second time, he’d seen intent glittering in those dark eyes right before she’d knocked her glass over and let the tide of juice wreak its wet havoc.
So he’d given up on his nice afternoon, and had resigned himself to watching Cocomelon until Rin either got bored or fell asleep.
She got bored far faster than he’d anticipated.
None of her toys seemed to interest her. It was pissing with rain outside, so the park wasn’t an option unless they wanted to get soaked, which Chaghan didn’t. He resorted to showing her videos of Qara’s birds on his phone, which succeeded in holding her attention for a short while. She prodded excitedly at the screen when the snowy owl came on, gliding effortlessly through the air and alighting on Qara’s outstretched, gloved arm.
“I like that one,” Rin said. “Pretty.”
Chaghan had to agree. “He’s my favourite, too.”
“He looks like you.”
Chaghan wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. He cleared his throat, flicking through the other videos.
“This is the biggest one she has. It’s the size of you,” he said, holding the video of Qara’s massive eagle owl up for Rin to see. She squealed happily, kicking her feet.
When they’d gone through every bird video he had saved, twice, plus a few more on Qara’s Youtube channel, Rin finally got tired of screens and decided to start trying to pull the head off one of her stuffed animals. Chaghan didn’t have the heart to try to stop her. She finally seemed to be engaged with an activity, even if it was wanton destruction.
He decided to pull a hail mary, and opened his messages.
Qara. Are you free.
And/or could you be
I have a three year old here who really wants to meet your birds.
Qara responded almost immediately.
sorry c you know i have the race course thing today
Race course?
the pigeons
???
pigeons at the race course and i’m being paid to fly the falcons around and chase them off
you know my actual job??
We both know you only pretend to have one of those
ha ha asshole not everyone can be a professor
you’re 23 not 50 i’m telling you it’s unnatural
anyway where’s altan??
Busy. Work emergency.
ahhh did ramsa blow someone up?
I think so.
nice
anyway no sorry
try baji i think he’s good with kids
Chaghan pressed his fingertips into the inner corners of his eyes, trying to ward off his brewing headache. From the other side of the room, he heard a tearing noise, followed by Rin’s victorious laughter.
Okay fine. What about tonight?
he’s gonna be out all night?
Chaghan shuddered at the thought.
No. Probably not. But would be nice to see you anyway
Birds or no birds
sorry gf has a show tonight i can’t :(
Another one?
Wait which gf is this
venka!!!
>:(
Oh right. The horse rider. Who actually does that anymore
we did until the age of like 15 idiot
Not the point. Since when are you into rich girls anyway?
considering the size of your glass house i don’t think you should be throwing stones c
Altan’s not rich.
exactly
anyway i gotta go the falcon is getting blood everywhere ttyl good luck with child
Qara didn’t respond again after that.
His best option out of the window, Chaghan tossed his phone onto the sofa and settled back into the cushions with a groan.
Altan could not be home soon enough.
He realised with a jolt that he hadn’t heard anything from Rin in over five minutes, which was long enough to be suspicious.
Shit. Had that stuffed toy had stitched-on eyes, or plastic ones? Altan made a point to only ever buy her the embroidered kind – he knew exactly how much she enjoyed biting things – but Rin liked to bring her own toys from home when she visited.
Chaghan pulled himself to his feet.
So help me, child, you will not choke to death on my watch.
Thankfully, there was no choking to have to deal with. Rin had only half pulled the head off her toy, and had started pulling out its stuffing bit by bit. When Chaghan had questioned her on it, she’d only looked at him like he was stupid and continued her silent assault.
The afternoon continued in a stalemate. Rin had no interest in snacks, toys, or watching any more TV. Instead, she insisted on playing some kind of convoluted game involving the contents of their recycling bin, which Chaghan, for all his many skills, could not puzzle out the rules for. Their fridge magnets had her briefly enraptured, even if she did almost break a couple while pulling them off the fridge to inspect them.
At one point, Chaghan gave in to desperation and called Baji, only to learn he was also busy – on his third date of the week. Apparently, this one was going rather well. He did acquiesce to talking to Rin for a solid five minutes, though – according to him, his date loved kids, and him listening patiently to Rin babble about monsters was scoring him ‘points’. When he hung up, Rin wouldn’t stop asking questions about him for the rest of the afternoon, which Chaghan thought was just adding insult to injury.
At around 4:30, Chaghan heard his phone buzz from somewhere within the couch cushions.
He had a sinking feeling, but answered Altan’s call anyway.
“I’ll be home late,” Altan said on the other end of the line. Chaghan could swear he could hear the wail of a fire engine. “Tyr wasn’t kidding, it’s a fucking mess over here.”
“It’s a mess here,” Chaghan hissed back. “Don’t do this. I can’t handle her the way you can.”
“You know I’d be there if I could.” Altan sounded exhausted. “Look, I’m sorry, alright? I am. But you can get through this, I know you can.”
Chaghan sighed. On the other end of the line, he heard muffled voices, as well as what sounded suspiciously like a police siren.
“What happened over there, anyway?”
“The usual,” Altan said breezily, which explained exactly nothing. “Listen, some pig is trying to flag me down so I’d better go talk to him.”
“Alright. Don’t get arrested. Again.”
He could hear Altan’s grin down the phone. “No promises.”
Chaghan hesitated. “She misses you.”
“Mm, I miss you too. Just get her through the routine and I’ll be back as soon as I can."
Chaghan was about to ask what exactly the routine entailed before Altan hung up on him.
He looked down from his phone to see Rin staring up at him, wide-eyed, her floppy, unstuffed animal hanging limp in her arms.
“No Altan?” she asked.
Chaghan swallowed an irate retort. She looked like she might cry. He stuffed the phone in his pocket, kneeling down to her eye level. “Not tonight. Sorry.”
Rin did start to cry, then: big, fat tears that slid down her round cheeks, small shoulders quivering. Chaghan felt panic rising in his chest. Awkwardly, he raised his hands and patted her shoulders. He didn’t expect her to launch herself at him, squeezing her arms tight around his chest. Gods, he thought breathlessly, she was strong for a three year old. Must run in the family.
This was… a surprise. He didn’t think Rin liked him very much. She had been so nervous around him when they’d first met – probably because of his hair, he’d realised, but also because he didn’t have the faintest clue what to do with children. He and Qara had been the youngest members of their extended family, and in general, he found small children loud, gross, and intolerable. He didn’t have Altan’s natural charisma, nor his determination to make people, however young, like him.
Chaghan was used to not being everyone’s cup of tea. He enjoyed it, in fact. If people didn’t like him, that was their problem; it only meant he didn’t have to waste time getting to know them.
But this was different. This mattered, because she was Altan’s family, and people that mattered to Altan automatically mattered to Chaghan. That was just how it worked.
So, Chaghan wrapped his arms around her tiny frame and held her until her sniffles subsided.
“I know,” he said quietly. “I miss him, too.”
Rin pulled back, her face blotchy, her eyes huge. “You do?”
“Of course.” He fumbled on the coffee table for a tissue, and wiped the worst of the snot and tears from her face. Gross, but manageable. “But you know what? We have something that he doesn’t.”
Rin blinked wetly at him. “What’s that?”
Chaghan smiled. “Dinosaurs.”
The routine involved getting a squirming Rin into the bathtub, and then, after she’d succeeded in soaking Chaghan from head to toe in sudsy water, wrangling her into pyjamas and then into bed.
They’d converted Chaghan’s old home office into Rin’s temporary bedroom, and if Chaghan was honest with himself, they could have done a better job. His old bookshelves were still up, crammed with thick, obscure mythology texts and old essays, and the walls were still a drab, unappealing shade of magnolia, but Rin didn’t seem to mind. On the weekends she visited, she settled quickly into the space, wasting no time strewing her toys around like the small hurricane she was. Tacking up a few brightly-coloured posters and tactically positioned string lights had helped. In their soft, multicoloured glow, the cramped little office actually looked somewhat cosy.
Rin settled down into her nest of blankets, fumbled around down the side of the bed, and pulled out a wide, thin book. She held it expectantly out to Chaghan. “Story time.”
Chaghan nodded dutifully. “Story time.”
He sat down in the old office chair, now repurposed with a brightly coloured blanket and too many overstuffed cushions, and braced himself. He’d heard Altan read her this story so many times – usually while he was trying to concentrate on something else – but had never actually paid attention to it. All he knew was that there were at least two characters, and that Altan had a very nice voice for reading aloud. His deep, even timbre had even started to make Chaghan himself drift off, a couple of times.
The plot, as he had expected, was rather vapid. A princess had been tasked with ridding her kingdom of a mischievous dragon. Chaghan could already sense where this was going – she would find a way to befriend it somehow, and they would all live happily ever after. He stifled a sigh. Nobody valued good writing anymore.
“Do the voices,” Rin interrupted.
Chaghan blinked at her. “What?”
“Altan always does the voices. The dragon and princess don’t sound the same.” She pouted.
“Well, maybe they do this time. Maybe the dragon and the princess were actually the same person all along.”
Rin frowned. “That’s stupid.”
“You think dragons can’t be princesses?”
She seemed to think for a moment, then shook her head. “No. Do the voices properly.”
Chaghan wanted to put his head in his hands and scream.
He did not. Very patiently, he flicked back through the pages and started again from the beginning, trying to pitch his voice down to somewhat match Altan’s smooth, calming tone. He tried to guess what kind of voice Altan would put on for each character. A bright, prim voice for the princess. A low growl for the dragon.
Rin didn’t complain again after that. Chaghan glanced up when he was halfway through the book and found her eyelids drooping.
Out of principle, he kept going. He got right to the end of the book, in fact.
To Chaghan’s shock, there actually was a plot twist. It turned out that the dragon had once been a prince himself, cursed by a river god and shunned by his family to wander the waterways, always lonely, never quite finding anywhere to belong.
When the princess got to know him, the dragon had revealed his curse to her. Together, they had found the spell to break it, calming the rivers which had raged through the kingdom. On the final page, the princess and the newly human prince held hands atop a bright red cliff, looking out to sea together.
A little trite, Chaghan thought, but sweet enough. It was a story for little kids, after all. That kind of neat, happy ending rarely occurred in real life.
He looked up to find that Rin was fast asleep, already snoring into her pillow. She’d wound the blankets so tight around herself that he didn’t even need to tuck her in.
Something about her slack, sleeping face, combined with the way she’d cocooned herself in her blanket as if she could never be warm enough, reminded him, with a pang of affection, of Altan.
Chaghan didn’t often let himself wonder what Altan had been like as a child. Probably rather similar to Rin, he imagined – all messy hair, big, intelligent eyes, and stubborn curiosity. His stomach churned. He hated to imagine Rin, as sweet and tiny as she was now, in any kind of pain. Altan had only been a little older than her when his nightmare had started. It wasn’t hard to see why he’d fallen so hard and fast into the arms of addiction.
For a moment, when they’d gotten the news, a part of Chaghan had been wary. There had been no reason to expect Altan would be any good with kids. He’d never once thought Altan might hurt her, gods forbid, but he’d hardly had a wealth of positive influences in his life. The closest Altan had to a father figure was Tyr, which Chaghan had to admit was wildly inappropriate. Not even his school teachers had been uncomplicated sources of good.
Chaghan had watched Altan introduce himself to Rin, kneeling down so they were at eye level and holding out a hand as if she might shake it, and had desperately wished, for Altan’s sake, that nothing would go wrong.
He thanked every god that might exist that, this time, at least, it had gone right.
Chaghan settled back into the chair, and let his eyes drift closed.
He woke to a warm, gentle hand shaking his shoulder.
Chaghan sat up straight with a sharp, reflexive intake of breath. Altan’s face came into view, tired but smiling.
“Relax,” he said. “She’s still asleep. No fires to put out for now.”
Chaghan exhaled, sagging back into the chair. “Thank the gods.” He put a hand over Altan’s on his shoulder, blinking blearily up at him. “Everything go okay?”
Altan shrugged. “As okay as it could. I think Ramsa’s going to be on mop duty for a while, though.”
Chaghan snorted.
They said nothing for a moment, content to watch Rin’s small, sleeping form, her chest rising and falling gently under the blankets.
“So,” Altan murmured, “didn’t think you had a parental side.”
“Ugh. Don’t say that.”
Altan grinned. “Sorry. You know I’m just teasing you. Can’t afford a kid on either of our salaries, anyway.”
“No,” Chaghan sighed. “Guess we’ll just have to settle for a part-time one.”
Altan’s smile shifted into something warm and soft. He leaned down, pressing a kiss to Chaghan’s forehead.
“Come on,” he said, tugging Chaghan’s hand. “Now you’ve put her to bed, someone needs to do the same with you.”
“Only if you tell me a story.”
“Oh, I will. You’ll love it. It involves two fire trucks, a fifteen year old boy, and nine people with second degree burns.”
“Nine?”
“Hush, you’ll wake her up. C’mon, bed time.”
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