#acceptanceverse

46. Family

Camping is so overrated.

Admittedly, the sand makes for a more forgiving mattress than a forest floor, but after waking up with sand in places Luke didn't know sand could get, it's quickly worn out its welcome.

But there wasn't really a choice. There isn't a real inn at the Oasis and the girls get first dibs on the beds. Ion gets one too because recent kidnap victims need their rest.

(Luke, thinking back to Choral Castle, wants to call bullshit but it's Ion, so.)

That left one extra bed. Yuri and Flynn and Guy volunteered to sleep on the ground. Jade offered the bed to "the Ambassador" but Luke has learned to read Jade a little bit and declines as fast as he can.

And gets sand in his pants. He tries to shake it out as quietly as he can.

"Are you still awake, Luke?" Flynn asks from on the other side of Yuri.

No point in hiding it now. Flynn is almost as perceptive as Yuri about things like this and he has Guy's unwillingness to let things lie. And a stubbornness all his own.

"Yeah," Luke says as he sits up.

"You should try to get some sleep," Flynn says. "We've got a long hike tomorrow."

"Not like we can get a whole lot of sleep with this sand," Guy says from Luke's other side where he is, presumably, still awake. "I'm going to be able to build a sand castle with the stuff I'll be pulling out of my hair tomorrow."

"And I'll be able to build a scale model of Baticul," says Yuri. He rolls over and throws himself across Luke's lap, grinning up at him. "Wanna help, Luke?"

"With getting the sand out of your hair or the sand castle?" Luke responds. Yuri's hair is lying spread across his back and Luke's legs so Luke takes a section and starts to braid it. He almost manages to finish it before Yuri notices.

"Oi, knock it off!" Yuri says.

"I don't think so," Luke says. Guy slips him a hair tie from... somewhere... and Luke ties the braid in place. "It looks cute." He can't stop himself from smirking.

"You brat!" Yuri's smiling so he doesn't mean it but there's a vaguely homicidal glint in his eye. "Now it's your turn!"

Luke will never admit to the squeal that he makes as Yuri grabs for his precious hair. He tries to hide behind Guy but Guy is laughing too hard to stand up. And Flynn is staring at both Luke and Yuri with a disapproving look.

He opens his mouth and for once Luke hopes he's getting ready to tell them both off but all Flynn says is, "Keep it down. There are people sleeping."

The thought of Natalia and Anise and Jade is enough that Luke doesn't yell when Yuri tackles him to the ground, hair tie in hand.

It's only a few minutes later that Ion pokes his head out of the tent/inn and he's greeted by the sight of Luke's hair being done up in various stages of braiding because Flynn is more like Yuri than he likes to admit and Guy thought the whole things was too hilarious not to be a part of, the traitor.

"Do I want to know?" Ion says.

"Probably not," Luke says at the same time Yuri says, "Grab a hair tie and come join us."

Ion doesn't join the "torture Luke" brigade be Ion is really a nice person but he does come and sit beside Luke and pats his hand in sympathy.

"It's nice to have a family like this, isn't it?"

Luke's never thought about them as a family because he already has one of those, even if his father doesn't speak to him and his mother can't be around very much. But now that Ion's said something, he can't help but picture Flynn as the stern, disapproving mother and Guy as the father who doesn't take anything seriously and Ion is the sweet little brother that everyone dotes one.

And Yuri is...

Right now, Yuri is the cool older brother but Luke knows that little brothers aren't supposed to have these kinds of feelings for their older brothers. So that's something that's going to change in the future.

"I guess," he mutters so that only Ion can hear him.