Work Text:
Bobby was sitting on Frank’s shoulders as the two of them followed Matt through a foresty part of the Plagueround. Roland walked next to Matt. He had grown a lot since his first year and though he was still ‘portly’, he had become very strong, which meant he held the leashes for both Mr. Chicks and Tarquin, while Matt carried Ratt and Saikaku flew along with the family above the trees. They were going out for a picnic with the whole family.
A little deeper into the woods, there was a small lake that didn’t have a kraken in it, so it was perfect for a family outing. Frank put down the picnic basket he had been carrying and let Matt levitate Bobby off his shoulders, which Bobby loved. Matt even let him do a little flip in the air before putting him back down, which made the toddler giggle like crazy. Adorable.
“What food did we take with us?” Roland asked while helping Frank with the blanket. “Did we- Did we force Mister Beans in there?” He laughed at his own joke.
“Nope, it’s Mister Mulligatawny,” Frank joked and Matt pulled an unhappy face.
“God, imagine him leaking out of the sides of the basket…” Matt saw Roland flinch at the word ‘God’ and smiled apologetically. Even though he wasn’t part of his community – let’s be real, his cult – anymore, he was still very sensitive about swearing. Matt didn’t tend to swear a lot, but there were still words, like God or Lord, that didn’t even cross his mind when he thought about swearing, that Roland would dislike.
The boy had joined their weird little family at the start of the year. Things weren’t official yet, but Roland couldn’t go back home, now that his family was convinced his curse wasn’t actually ‘the Lord’, and he didn’t really have anywhere else to go either. None of his fiends had a very stable home to offer him, like Frank’s family had done for Matt back in the day.
Edgar’s dad and granddad were travelling a lot and didn’t have enough room in their motorcycle-chimera to add another son. Montague’s grandmother was old and had enough to worry about with just Monty back home – although according to Roland, Monty now mostly took care of her instead of the other way around, which was heartwarming, albeit a little worrying, to Matt. He hoped Monty still had enough time to just be a teen, but he trusted Fifi to not ask too much of the boy.
Kevin… Well, Matt had often thought that the Creeleys should’ve never gotten a child in the first place. He had grown fond of Kevin and was glad the boy existed, but there was no way his parents should be caring for another child. Sure, the boys were 16 now, hardly children anymore, but still young enough to need a responsible person looking out for them. So Matt and Frank had decided to be that person for Roland, at least until he was 18.
Their family now consisted of Matt, Frank, their biological son Bobby, their foster son Roland, Saikaku the car-dragon, Mister Chicks the chicken-dragon, Tarquin the semi-tame hellpincer and Ratthew, the teleporting rat with huge eyes. It somehow worked.
When the blanket was straightened and all of the food – none of which was Mister Mulligatawny – was laid out, Roland untied the leashes from his wrist and let the hellpincer and chicken-dragon loose. Both of them had enough power to break loose or to drag Roland into the woods or up into the air, but the psychological effect was enough to keep the beasts close to the family. Now that they were loose, Mister Chicks joined Saikaku in the air and flew around the car. Mister Chicks was a lot bigger than his older brother. It was a large rooster, or as Frank liked to call it when Roland couldn’t hear: a big cock. Matt and Frank didn’t really mind Bobby hearing that kind of humour, but they knew Roland wasn’t a fan so they tried to watch their language around him.
Tarquin scurried away into the woods, but he’d be easy enough to find back since he was also pretty large and not very well camouflaged.
They had bought actual solid food for their picnic. Elliot had offered to help them prepare because he liked cooking and didn’t get to do it much at school, so he had made a whole bunch of little wraps that were secured with cocktail sticks. Bobby tried one and then cried about how he didn’t like salmon, or rocket, or cream cheese… and then ran away to eat dirt and drink lake water, because he was a toddler.
“Bobby!” Matt yelled. “What have we said about eating things from the Plagueround?”
“That’s dangerous,” Bobby answered, pouting.
“Exactly, and that also goes for the dirt and water. Why would you eat dirt anyway?”
Bobby shrugged.
“We also have wraps with-” Matt lowered his voice and looked up to see if Mister Chicks was within hearing range, but he wasn’t. He was still frolicking around with Saikaku. “-chicken. You like that, right?”
Bobby nodded.
“Yes, chicken!” he screamed. Matt looked at the air again, but the big cock didn’t seem to have heard it. Pfew. He took the stick out of the mini wrap and gave it to Bobby, who was very happy to eat it, even though there was also rocket on this one.
“Can I have one with salmon?” Roland asked and Frank nodded.
“Of course, take what you want!”
“Thank you,” Roland said, picking up one of the rolls and then pausing for a moment. He closed his eyes, mumbled something that was probably a prayer and then smiled. “Enjoy your meal!”
Matt shook his head with a smile.
“How can a polite boy like you ever have been the one to steal my car?”
Roland blushed a little and ate another salmon wrap instead of answering.
“Dad, look!” Bobby exclaimed, pointing at the ground. Matt and Frank both looked, not sure which of them was meant by 'dad’. Bobby had found a caterpillar that he excitedly picked up to show them. Matt’s heart skipped a beat as Bobby did that, because there were some very toxic bugs in this part of the Plagueround, but his son seemed to be lucky. This moth only became a problem once it was mature, but the caterpillar was relatively fine, so long as you didn’t anger it. “Can I pet it?” Bobby asked.
“No,” Matt answered. “You should really be careful picking up animals from the Plagueround, love.”
“It runs in the family, though,” Frank pointed out, nodding at Ratthew who just crawled out of Matt’s sleeve.
“That’s different! Ratt is not toxic!” Matt defended himself.
“You didn’t know that when you first saw him.”
“I… suspected it though,” Matt said. “Can we just raise our kid to be careful, please? The Plagueround is too dangerous to fu- mess around and find out.”
“You almost said fuck!” Bobby laughed and sighed. Maybe he and Frank should be a little more careful with their language around him.
“You do have a healer with you,” Roland remarked, making his hands light up golden to emphasise his point.
“That’s true, a quite capable one at that,” Matt said. “Still, I’d rather my child doesn’t hurt himself.”
Bobby seemed to take absolutely zero notice of that though, as he stood up from the picnic blanket and started running away.
“Run!” he explained, waving his arms. Matt quickly levitated him and brought him back to the blanket, not quite putting him down in case he would run again. Bobby giggled, despite looking comedically angry. “Put me down!” and then, after a second of thinking he added: “please!”
“What do you need to take with you if you want to run around alone?” Matt asked and Bobby crossed his arms.
“Nothing,” he said with the grin of a toddler who knew he was lying.
“Bobby, you take either one of us with you… or…?”
“An eye…” he mumbled, moving his arms around. “Can I go down now?”
“After I put one of my eyes on your necklace,” Matt said. “Which one do you want? Not-”
“That one!” Bobby said, pointing at the one eye that had gone blind a year or two ago.
“Not that one, indeed. So which one instead?”
“But I want that one!”
“Okay, so I choose,” Matt concluded, picking out one of his eyes that he had the strongest bond with, so it’d be easier to locate if he lost his focus for a moment. He attached the brass casing of it to the necklace Frank had made for their son and then put Bobby back on the ground. “Now you can run.”
Bobby didn’t wait for a second and ran off into the forest. Matt made sure to keep at least part of his focus on the eye that his son had taken with him, so he wouldn’t get lost. Frank stretched his arms and then laid himself down on the picnic blanket.
“I love it when you’re being a strict parent,” he mumbled.
“I’m not that strict, am I?” Matt asked. Roland shook his head.
“I don’t think you are, sir. In fact- well, no, that’s not my place.” The boy cut himself off.
“In fact?” Matthew asked, now curious.
“I suppose I was just raised differently. I think both of you are the opposite of strict. You eh… you swear quite a lot around your son and let him play with dangerous animals – which is fine! That’s just- that’s what you choose to do and I respect that. I’m sure Bobby will become a great man, regardless. I mean-”
“Thank you, Roland,” Matt interrupted, not really wanting to hear more. He understood where the boy came from. He had had actual strict parents himself – unreasonably strict – and this more laissez-faire style of raising his child was a choice, not an accident, but he didn’t really need it all spelled out to him. It made him feel like he was doing something wrong.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Roland said.
“It’s fine, you’re quite right. All parents just do what they think is best for their children.” By that, he mainly meant himself, Frank and Roland’s parents. Roland’s parents might have cast him out of their community, but at least they did it out of some sort of ethical motive. His own parents had just not wanted a cursed gay child. It was hard to find the morality behind that. To distract himself from that thought, he looked at what Bobby was doing, who seemed to have found a stick and was now playing knight. That was fine.
“I hope that I’ll be a good dad,” Roland said. “Well, I’ll first have to meet a girl and fall in love and all that… but I do really want children one day. Do you think they will inherit my curse?”
“I don’t know,” Matt answered honestly. He was still working on the dissertation he had started over five years ago. Doing a PhD along with a full-time job was a very slow process, but the interaction between Roland’s and Lenny’s curse fascinated him to this day. “Maledicti spirita can be hereditary, like in your friend Edgar’s family, who all get their own corvid. In that sense, it might be possible that a spirit like yours will also latch onto your future sons, but it’s definitely not a certainty.”
“Will Bobby inherit your curses?” Roland asked and Matt shrugged with a smile.
“We hope so.”
“Cubic eyes, I’m calling it,” Frank commented, putting one finger in the air from his spot on the blanket.
“Just anything but an ever-growing collection of floating skins,” Matt laughed. “I would love for our kid to eh… not look like he just crawled out of actual Hell.”
“Even though he did,” Frank added.
“Even though he did,” Matt agreed.
The dragons seemed to be getting tired from chasing each other around in the sky so they landed: Saikaku gracefully folding in on himself and hitting the ground with a soft beep-beep, and Mister Chicks seemingly doing his best to make the hardest landing he could with his feathered body. He crowed loudly.
“Oh, really?” Frank asked the monstrous bird, pushing himself up on his elbows. “And why do you think we have a snack for you?”
Mister Chicks crowed again.
“You’re massive though,” Frank said as if he understood the dragon. “It’s easier for you to find your own snack, right? I can’t even carry the animals you eat.”
Mister Chicks made a discontent sound but then made his way through the trees, looking for a treat. Saikaku was easier to feed, since he ate mostly plants and petrol. He liked petrol more, but it was expensive, so Matt and Frank used it as a snack rather than as his main food. Matt quickly checked on Bobby, to see if he hadn’t wandered into the same part of the forest where Mister Chicks was now looking for food, but the boy seemed to be safe. No gigantic rooster was coming to eat him.
Roland peered into the woods in the direction that Tarquin had somewhat disappeared in. Somewhat, because the purple-and-orange scorpion was still very visible between the dark green trees.
“Do you guys think I can ride Tarquin?” he asked.
“Have you never done that?” Frank raised his eyebrows. “That would be what I’d do as soon as my hellpincer was big enough!”
“I assume that means yes?” Roland asked.
“Of course!”
“Be careful, though,” Matt added. “We can’t lose our best healer.”
“Second-best,” Roland corrected him. “I’m nowhere near Nurse Lenny’s level.”
“You’ll get there,” Matt assured him.
Roland nodded proudly and then walked over to Tarquin, the hellpincer he had pretty much raised ever since it was an egg. Hellpincers couldn’t really be tamed, but Tarquin was as close as they got, so Matt and Frank didn’t mind leaving their foster kid with the beast. Well, Roland had also slain enough hellpincers who weren’t his pet during playtime, so if things would go south, Matt was sure Roland would be able to handle it.
Now Matt and Frank had the picnic blanket to themselves and even though Matt was still literally keeping an eye on their youngest, he put his head onto Frank’s stomach, who had laid down on his back again, and took a moment to just enjoy the sun on his face, the smell of the forest (that was definitely not as foul as some other parts of the Plagueround but also by no means as pleasant as an actual forest) and the cubic structure of Frank’s skin on his cheek. Frank idly brushed his fingers through Matt’s hair and Matt wished he could close his eyes. Instead, he made them all look at the ground to reduce the amount of visual stimuli he got, excluding, of course, the one that he used to keep track of Bobby.
“I love you,” Frank hummed and Matt smiled.
“I love you too.”
They didn’t get much alone time anymore now that they had two children. Roland was 16 and did his own thing most of the time, but he still needed a lot of attention. Not being welcome back home had hit him hard and even though he clearly enjoyed staying with Matt and Frank, he had plenty moments where his emotions hit him hard. Bobby constantly needed attention, because he was three years old, which meant he was old enough to make choices but not old enough to really think about the choices he made. Matt now understood why so many parents said they were constantly worrying about their children. The idea that this little ball of chaos would ever turn into a capable adult seemed almost silly. He would, probably… but not for a very long time. It was an adorable ball of chaos though and both Matt and Frank were absolutely in love with him, so they didn’t mind constantly cleaning up after him and getting him out of trouble time after time.
“What are you doing?” Frank giggled suddenly. Matt turned one of his eyes towards his husband.
“Nothing, that’s Ratthew,” he laughed. Ratt had teleported onto Frank’s collarbones and apparently decided that that was a great place to sleep. Normally the creature liked sleeping in Matt’s sleeves or, when available, Elliot Kelly’s hood. Frank was wearing a dark shirt though, and the sun had warmed it up nicely, so Ratthew curled his tail around himself and made himself comfortable.
“Hmm, surrounded by my favourite -atthews.” Frank sighed contently.
“We should’ve named Mister Chicks something like Tank, so I also have multiple -anks.”
“Blank, because he’s blind. But he looks more like you, so Mister Chicks makes sense,” Frank reasoned.
“He looks more like me.” Matthew repeated. “How?”
“Because he’s blind.”
“That’s not- First of all, being blind is not a ‘look’. You can’t see that Mister Chicks is blind. And second of all, I’m not blind! I see more than four people combined!”
“You are blind in one eye.”
“Yeah, one out of 10? 11? I still see more than you! Like- ugh, fuck.”
Matt didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he got up and flew over the lake to the part of the shore where Bobby had wandered off to.
“Robert Alexander Hinks-Hebden!” he said in his loud teacher voice when he was close enough to his son. “What have I just told you about picking up bugs in the Plagueround?”
“But this one is fluffy!” Bobby whined, pointing at the large spider in front of him.
“Fluffy things can bite really hard,” Matt said, crouching down next to the spider. “Can you see these long teeth?”
“Ratthew is also fluffy with long teeth and he doesn’t bite,” Bobby countered.
“Ratthew can bite really hard if you annoy him, he’s just used to us. And spiders are often toxic. Do you know what that means?”
“That they have poison?” Bobby asked.
“Venom, but yes. So if they bite you, it hurts a lot more than just these teeth. Just stick to the rule that if you aren’t 100% certain what something is, you don’t pick it up, you don’t pet it and you don’t put it in your mouth, okay?”
“I don’t know what carrots are,” Bobby grinned.
“Yes you do, young man. Come, let’s go back to dad, okay?”
“Can we take the spider?”
“No.”
Matt took his son’s hand and walked him back to the picnic blanket, where Frank was now trying to push Mister Chicks’ beak away from the basket.
“Help, Chicks is a cannibal!” Frank cried. “He smelled the flesh of his people and decided to chomp.”
Matt shrugged.
“Whelp, what can you do? Have you had enough food?” he asked Bobby, who nodded. “Our son is fed.”
“You’re useless,” Frank complained. “Hey, Chicks! Knock it off!” Frank took one of the little wraps out of the basket and held it in front of Mister Chicks’ nostrils before throwing it past him into the forest. It worked for a moment as the dragon turned around and searched for the small treat. Frank immediately stuffed two of the wraps into his own mouth and then looked around. “Wewe’s Woland? He’s aways hungwy.”
“Still riding Tarquin I’d imagine. Just put the basket in my satchel, so Chicks can’t smell it anymore, until Roland is back,” Matt suggested. It worked like a charm. Once the chicken dragon was done with his tiny wrap, he turned around and tried to smell his way back to the basket, but couldn’t find it, so instead he made a horrific sound and took off into the air again, probably to hunt. “Man do I love Saikaku,” Matt sighed. “He’s never any trouble.”
“Mister Chicks is truly one of the dragons ever,” Frank agreed vaguely. “Did you find anything cool on your adventure?” he then asked Bobby, who excitedly told Frank about the fluffy spider.
Matt stared longingly at Saikaku, who was now soaring through the air again after apparently having eaten enough for now.
"Do you want to take a ride?" Frank asked and Matt nodded guiltily. "Go on then. I'll guard our blanket."
Matt happily kissed Frank and pulled the keystone out of his pocket, summoning Saikaku to the ground, who neatly folded into a Nissan Micra. Matt patted his hood and got into the driver seat. As a child, he had never been a fan of his own dad’s obsession with his expensive Jaguar, but now he had to admit that loving a vehicle was probably something genetic. Maybe Bobby would inherit it too. Although, he reasoned, a car dragon was objectively cooler than just a car, so maybe it wasn’t… well it still was a bit of a love for cars, because he also thought Saikaku was cooler than Mister Chicks, though he would never say that within hearing range of the monstrous rooster.
Back on the ground, Roland and Tarquin returned to the picnic blanket where Frank was still sitting. Bobby had wandered off a little bit again, to draw with a stick in the sand. Roland was elated about having ridden a hellpincer.
“I can’t believe I’ve never thought of this before!” he exclaimed, dismounting Tarquin.
“Neither can I,” Frank said. “I can’t believe that wasn’t the first thing you ever thought of.”
“Well…” Roland sat down next to Frank. “I have thought of it before, of course… I was just scared that I’d be… I guess too heavy for him. So I never really dared to try it.”
“You say heavy like it’s a bad thing,” Frank said.
“I’ve always been the fat one…”
“People who call you fat have never seen a strongman,” Frank assured him.
“Also with my diabetes…”
“Type 1,” Frank reminded him, “which has nothing to do with your weight. Hey, I get it. I’ve never been thin either. I don’t think my body is even able to look like Matt’s.” He laughed. “But we get a whole lot of physical strength and resilience for free. Have you ever seen Matt lift something without levitation?”
Roland thought for a moment and then shook his head.
“You should, it’s hilarious,” Frank said. “I love him and he looks great, but yeah, just saying, being big has its advantages.”
“I have gotten pretty strong,” Roland agreed. “More than my friends, I think. Maybe Monty could beat me in arm wrestling, but definitely not Kevin or Edgar.”
“And in football,” Frank said. “I’ve seen you play! You’re good!”
“Thank you, mister Hebden,” Roland said, blushing a little.
“Please just call me Frank. We’re family now.”
“Frank… I still think it wasn’t a bad idea to wait with riding Tarquin. I mean, whether it’s muscles or fat, I’m still not light.”
“It’s good to be aware of your body, just don’t be insecure about it, yeah?” Frank laughed. “I say that as if it’s a choice. Well, the more you hear it, the easier it sticks I guess.” He looked to all sides to see if Mister Chicks was nearby and then reached into the satchel Matt had left behind. “On that note: wrap?”
“Yes please!”
Frank handed the picnic basket to Roland so he could pick out what he wanted and stood up to see what Bobby was up to. Bobby was happy to show him, pointing excitedly to parts of his drawing and explaining what they were. There was a spider of course, with the fluffy fur, and Tarquin and Mister Chicks, but not Saikaku because he was too hard to draw. Bobby handed Frank the stick.
“Can you draw Saikaku?” he asked, which Frank of course couldn’t refuse.
Stick on dirt wasn’t his preferred art medium, but it worked. By the time Matt landed Saikaku near the blanket again and happily joined Roland back on the picknick blanket, Frank had made a pretty detailed drawing of the dragon and Bobby was clapping with joy. As Frank was admiring their joint artwork, Ratthew decided that this was a great place to teleport to, appearing right in the middle of the drawing and immediately scurrying all over it.
“Ratt!!!” Bobby whined, crossing his arms and pouting. “He ruined everything.” He uncrossed his arms again and hugged Frank’s leg. “Can we draw on paper when we’re home, so Ratthew can’t break it?”
“Of course,” Frank promised. “Talk of going home…” he turned to Matt. “It’s about time, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I think so. Especially if we want to walk,” Matt agreed.
Roland folded up the blanket and put it back into the basket, which he handed to Frank.
“Is it okay if I ride Tarquin back to the school?” he asked with a grin.
“Sure, see you there,” Frank answered. “Be careful!”
“Always, mi- Frank!” Roland waved and then disappeared into the forest, looking for his hellpincer.
Matt did a high-pitched, loud whistle to call Mister chicks to him, which somehow worked. He put the leash back onto the chicken dragon and then told Saikaku they’d be going home. Saikaku blinked his headlights and beeped at them, before taking off. There was really no need to keep him close to the school, since he always reacted to his keystone. Mister Chicks needed more supervision than that, so Frank tied the leash to his wrist. Then he put Bobby back onto his shoulders and grabbed Matt’s hand. They hadn’t walked very far yet before they were overtaken by Roland who let out a loud “Yeehaw!” as he rode Tarquin in the direction of the school.