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Aether opened the door to the house and slipped inside as quietly as he could.
The door closed with a soft click and the blonde let out a soft sigh of relief. Sounds like no one woke up.
“Where were you?”
Aether nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the voice behind him, he turned around and the lamp clicked on. Warm yellow light illuminating the living room on the far right, and there sat Neuvillette, looking both tired and awfully disappointed.
Aether straightened up his posture and gave a nervous smile, “heyyyy Neuvi, whatcha doing up awake?”
“Just waiting for my son to come home from his late night rendezvous with his ‘friend’.”
The blonde’s face turned a bright red and his mind went completely blank. How did he know?
“I uh- well you see…er-” he stammered.
And another voice came from the kitchen, “you didn’t actually think we wouldn’t notice you were gone, right?”
Aether looked over at the dark kitchen, the light above the oven turned on to reveal Wriothesley behind the kitchen island, eyebrow raised.
What is with it tonight and them being so dramatic?
“What’s with the theatrics?” he asked, trying to change the subject.
“Adorable attempt, trying to get us off your back, but it isn’t gonna work. C’mon, kid, where were you?” Wriothesley asked.
“Out…”
“With?”
Aether chewed on the inside of his cheek, gloved hands starting to fidget, “Lyney…”
Neuvillette hummed and nodded along, taking a sip of his water. “And you’re safe?”
“Where were you?” Wriothesley asked.
“I’m safe, and we were in the hills stargazing.”
“Sounds innocent enough,” Wriothesley muttered as he began to pour some tea into a cup. “Why the need to sneak out?”
“Because I didn’t want to deal with the amount of questions that I’m getting now.”
Neuvillette stood and set his cup aside, he motioned to the couch for Aether to sit. Once the boy did so, he spoke, “oh trust me, you’re getting more questions now than you would’ve had you been honest.”
Aether frowned, though it looked more like a pout.
Wriothesley moved to stand next to Neuvillette, his arms crossed. “You’re 100% sure you’re safe? No new injuries?”
“I’m fine.”
“You said that when you got a concussion last month,” Neuvillette commented.
Aether’s frown got deeper.
Wriothesley looked Aether over, checking for any differences from afar. His eyes narrowed when they got to the young hero’s neck, “you were just stargazing?”
“Yes.”
The dark haired man let out a sigh and used his left hand to gesture to his own neck, “your scarf isn’t really good at hiding those hickies.”
Aether felt his face heat up, hand now adjusting his scarf to cover them.
He could hear Neuvillette sigh softly as he adjusted the scarf. When he looked back at his parents, the scarf did a little better of a job covering the hickies.
“How did you even know I was gone?”
“I was checking in to make sure you and Paimon were soundly asleep and I saw you weren’t there,” Neuvillette said, “but a couple pillows with Paimon snuggled against them was.”
Aether let out a groan, he didn't think they checked up on him and Paimon at night.
Neuvillette chuckled, slightly amused by the hero’s annoyance. “It's perfectly normal for parents to worry about their young.”
“Especially when said young decides he can sneak out in the middle of the night to hang around a boy,” Wriothesley added.
Aether rested his elbows on his knees, “so what now?”
“Now, you're grounded. Sneaking out at night to see someone from the organization that has tried killing you before is stupid and far more reckless than anything else you've done,” Wriothesley said.
“For how long?”
Neuvillette thought about it, “two weeks.”
Another groan came from the blonde.
“I know, I know; it's no fun, but it's responsible parenting,” Neuvillette said, “now get to bed, we’ll continue this in the morning.”
Aether got up and walked to his room, grumbling.
Wriothesley looked over at Neuvillette after the young blonde left. He smiled, grey eyes grazing over his lover.
“You did great, chéri.”
Neuvillette smiled back, face tinted red, “why of course.” He slid his hand in Wriothesley’s, “come on, let’s get back to sleep, we’re both busy men.”
“But my tea-”
“It’ll be there in the morning. Besides, you need to drink more water.”
Wriothesley groaned in mock annoyance as he let himself be dragged to their shared bedroom.