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“Why are we doing this?” Lalli hesitated on the threshold of the Västerström house and caught Emil’s arm to keep him from going inside.
Emil smiled and patted his hand. “You know why.”
“Remind me?” Lalli was stalling, and he knew Emil saw right through it, but Emil answered anyway.
“Torbjörn and Siv need a night to themselves. I’m free, and it’s been too long since I spent time with my cousins. They miss me.”
Lalli huffed. “That doesn’t explain why I’m here.”
Emil turned to wrap Lalli in his arms, blue eyes sparkling. “Because you love me?”
“Oh, right.” Lalli kept his frown, but leaned into Emil’s touch. “That.”
“I love you, too.” Emil pulled him into a kiss, which ended all too soon. “Thanks for doing this with me.”
“Mrr.” Lalli still wasn’t excited about this, but at least his boyfriend was good at showing his appreciation. With a sigh, he allowed Emil to lead him into the house.
A frazzled Siv met them at the door. “Thank goodness you’re here, they’ve been asking about you every five minutes for the last five hours and—”
“COUSIN EMIL!!!” Three golden-haired blurs streamed past Siv and threw themselves on Emil. Lalli shuddered at the thought of being grabbed like that, but Emil laughed and bent down so he could hug them back.
“Can we stay up ALL NIGHT?”
“Are we going to play Hairdresser Salon?”
“Did you bring us a present?”
While Emil answered their questions, Siv and Torbjörn edged past them and opened the door. “Bye kids!” Torbjörn called, “Have fun!” His offspring made no sign that they’d heard.
“Thank you. Seriously,” Siv added. “We’ll be home...eventually.” She backed out the door, pulling her husband after her.
Lalli looked back to Emil, who was still answering the deluge of questions. “No, I didn’t bring any presents this time, but I did bring my boyfriend. You remember Lalli, right?”
Three pairs of eyes turned on Lalli. Lalli sent Emil a look that said You will pay for this later. Then the one with hair like Emil’s said “Oh, it’s Catman!”
For some reason, the cousins refused to call Lalli by his real name. That was fair; he couldn’t remember their names, either. As a group, he called them “changelings” or “devils”. If he had to refer to them individually, he called them Longhair, Shouty, and Tiny Emil. He used the Finnish words. The small Västerströms thought this was hilarious.
“Catman!” The other two took up the cry, and only quick thinking on Emil’s part—in the form of another cousin-hug—kept them from charging.
“No, wait, remember what we talked about last time? Catman does not get hugged.” Emil waited until his cousins all nodded to relax his grip. “Or grabbed, or kicked, or poked, or touched at all unless he says it’s okay. Right?”
“O-kaaay.” The little devils sounded like they meant it. Emil beamed at them. Lalli edged further away.
“Now. Who wants to play hair salon?”
“Meeeee!!!!”
The mob of Västerströms headed into the next room. Lalli followed at a safe distance. Hairdresser Salon was one of those weird games he didn’t understand, no matter how many times he watched them play it. He hadn’t enjoyed the games people played when he was a child, either—Night Scouts and Trolls, or Hide and Keep Hiding—but at least those made sense. And they didn’t require anyone to touch anyone else. Hairdresser Salon was all about touching. First Emil’s cousins herded him into a chair, pushing and pulling until he was arranged to their liking. Then they wrapped a blanket around his shoulders—more touching—and handed him a pile of books and papers.
“For you to read,” one of the changelings explained. Emil looked at the top paper—a photograph from one of Siv’s failed rash cures—and quickly turned his grimace into a smile. Last of all, they brought out an old metal box. From his perch on the other side of the room, Lalli could see letters picked out in faded paint: “MIA.” Longhair reached to open it, when—
“Wait.”
All three of the changelings stopped what they were doing and looked at Lalli. He took a deep breath. “Scissors?”
The changelings exchanged guilty glances. Emil sighed. “He’s right. Where are they?”
The trio grumbled amongst themselves, but eventually Shouty offered up a pair of scissors. “We wouldn’t use them on you,” Tiny Emil said.
Emil shook his head. “You’re not supposed to use them on anyone. Give them to Lalli, he’s Hairdresser Boss today.” Hairdresser Boss was a new part of the game, invented by Onni when he’d lived with the Västerströms two years ago. Whoever was Boss got to hold the scissors, and nobody was allowed to touch their hair. None of the cousins liked to be Boss, because it was too boring to hold the scissors if they couldn’t use them. Now that Emil and Lalli lived close enough to babysit, Lalli was usually Boss by default.
Tiny Emil skipped over with the scissors. “Here, Catman.” He—or she, Lalli was never sure—leaned in close and whispered, “I wouldn’t use them on you either, don’t worry. Even if your hair is a mess.”
A few more adjustments—a pillow for Emil’s feet, a wide-toothed comb fetched from the bathroom—and the stylists were ready. Lalli watched in horrified fascination as they reached in with their grubby hands and did their worst to Emil’s perfect hair. They opened the MIA box and found colorful clips and rubber ties, bits of string with sparkly beads. Each of the changelings seemed to have their own preferred method of destruction. Shouty took big clumps of hair and twisted them, trying to see how many ties he could use before he ran out of hair. Tiny Emil kept starting some sort of elaborate design that involved most of the clips, but always messed something up and had to start over. Longhair simply braided and re-braided the same piece of hair over and over, until Lalli was sure the hair would fall out.
Eventually, the changelings declared themselves satisfied. Longhair brought out a mirror and thrust it into Emil’s hands. “Look!”
Emil turned his head this way and that, trying to see his head from all angles. “Wow! You three are so...creative.” He gave his hair a cautious fluff—the clips rattled—and somehow, even through the mess of knots and ragged braids, it sparkled in the light. “I look beautiful!”
Strangely enough, he did; not because of the awful hairstyle, but because sitting there, surrounded by children, Emil looked totally content. Lalli allowed himself to relax a little. Maybe this wouldn’t be a total disaster. His boyfriend seemed to still have all his hair, and thanks to the scissors being safely tucked away in Lalli’s tunic, everyone’s ears were still intact. They might get through this night after all.
His peace of mind lasted approximately ten seconds. “So what do you want to play now?” Emil asked. He freed himself from the chair and caught Tiny Emil in a hug. Tiny Emil squeaked and hugged him back, which made Shouty grab Emil from the other side while Longhair tried to climb on his back. From the resulting wrestling match, one of the little terrors shouted a suggestion.
“Let’s play Silent World Heroes!”
Oh no. Here we go. Lalli gave Emil one last sympathetic look—he didn’t understand, would probably never understand why Emil looked so happy about what was about to happen—and backed slowly away. He’d done his best to keep the changelings from damaging Emil. Now it was time to retreat.
For the next two hours, Lalli played a version of Hide and Keep Hiding while Emil and the terrors played their own game. “Silent World Heroes” was a campaign; they stormed through the house, searching for “rare books” to collect and “trolls” to fight off. Anything could be a troll, including stuffed toys, the sofa, a lamp that was missing its bulb after being “killed” last time, and Bosse the cat. Lalli thought Emil would keep them from targeting him as a troll, but he wasn’t willing to risk it. So he spent the evening lurking in closets or under beds, moving quickly to a new hiding spot whenever the carnage came too close.
At last, the noise subsided, and Lalli emerged cautiously from behind the paper-strewn desk in the study. He found Emil and the children back in the living room where they’d started out. Only now, the little Västerströms were collapsed on the floor, stifling yawns and struggling to keep their eyes open. Emil slumped down with them, leaning against a chair.
“And then the great Captain Sigrun stabbed the giant through its second head, and SQUISH! It let out a scream and died. I had to clean troll blood out of my ears after that one. I thought my hair would never be the same, but as you can see it’s recovered. They don’t call me ‘Emil Armor-hair’ for nothing. And...yep, it looks like that’s the last of you. Hey, Lals.”
Lalli crept into the room. True to Emil’s word, his cousins were all asleep. “Are you…okay?” Lalli couldn’t see any injuries, but it was still a relief when Emil nodded.
“Yeah. Nearly got smacked in the face with a curtain rod—or a ‘troll spear’, as they called it—but I managed to dodge in time. Have you seen Bosse?”
“Mmhmm. Hiding in the pantry.”
Emil nodded. “Okay.” He pushed to his feet, wincing a little. He bent down and scooped up the nearest child. “Uh...I know you don’t...they’re not your responsibility, but…”
Lalli sighed and stooped to lift one of the others. “I’ll help.” I don’t love carrying children, but I do love you.
While Emil carried the third changeling up the stairs, Lalli returned to the living room and curled up on the couch. After a few minutes, Emil joined him. He was swaying on his feet, and he didn’t even bother trying to sit upright, just slumped down and laid his head on Lalli’s lap. Emil didn’t say anything, and neither did Lalli, not even when the mess of hair clips dug into his leg. Instead, he picked up one of the tattered braids and removed the hair tie, gently teasing the strands apart. Then he took another and did the same, then moved on to the next. When he was finished with the front, he gestured for Emil to roll over so he could get to the back.
“They really are good kids,” Emil murmured, voice muffled. He seemed content to stay where he was even after Lalli finished undoing his cousins’ handiwork. Lalli, for his part, was happy enough to keep running his fingers through Emil’s ill-treated hair. But he wasn’t sure he could let that statement go.
“Are they?”
Emil rolled over so he could look up at Lalli. “Too much for you?” At Lalli’s nod, he reached up to caress his boyfriend’s cheek. “I know. They have a lot of energy, and they’re loud. They touch everything and everyone. But...well...they’re family, you know? I love them.”
Lalli did know. And he knew what it was like to have difficult family members. So he merely sighed again and leaned down to kiss Emil on the forehead. And then, because no matter how many times he heard the answer he still had to ask, he said, “Are you sure you want to have kids?”
“Yes.” Emil’s smile was wistful and a little worried, the way it always was when they had this conversation. “But not yet. And only if you’re okay with it. I want kids, but...I want you more.” He closed his eyes.
The last of Lalli’s tension drained away, and he went back to stroking Emil’s hair. “Okay. Maybe. Someday.” And then, because his boyfriend was half-asleep in his lap and there was no one else around to hear, he added, “I love you more than I don’t want kids.”
From Emil’s smile, Lalli knew he’d heard. “Love you too, Lals.” The words were sleep-slurred, and before long his breathing turned to gentle snores. Lalli watched him, wondering what Emil could possibly see in his pack of unruly cousins that would make him want children of his own. Wondered, too, what it was about Emil that made the idea of children seem...almost bearable. He was still wondering, hours later, when Siv and Torbjörn came home and were surprised to find their house in one piece.