family au
“honestly, theo. you need to be more careful.”
the boy tries not to sniffle too much ( spoiler alert: he fails ) as his brother spreads ointment on scraped knees. the child always plays too rough, falls too hard, cries, and never learns from his mistakes. it’s blessing enough that his elder has the patience to calm the child through his fits and tears, to coax him to hold out his palms to brush the gravel out of his scrapes and bandage up his battle scars.
“c’mon, it only hurts for a moment and then it’ll feel better. i promise.” arthur reaches for the boy’s wrists as he speaks, gently tugging until theo lets him look at the damage done. it’s not so bad, but the six year old that he is can’t stop the teary sounds from spilling out of his lips.
“she pushed me.” theo’s voice sounds unusually small, timid as if embarrassed to admit to his big brother that he more or less got beat up by a girl.
arthur glances up from his attentive work on the scrapes only for a moment to raise a brow. “who? which one?”
“the witch from down the street with the curly hair. she pushed me because she’s taller than me.” for just a moment he tries to curl in on himself again, but it’s only thanks to arthur’s steady grip that he relaxes and just lets the tears fall mostly silently down his cheeks.
arthur fixes the last bandage in place, little theo’s battle wounds not safely cleaned up and taken care of, and stands up. it’s gently that he hauls the little boy to his feet, making him stand and taking his hand. “well, i guess we should talk to her mother then, shouldn’t we?”

















