#deidrick

Chapter Two.

King was face to face with Ban, and he hadn’t seen the Fox Sin of Greed this pissed since fighting the literal king of demons, even then it was never aimed anywhere near King so having it happen now was unsettling to say the least.

“Why King? Why the fuck is Captain asking for the kids to join us? He’s never asked before.” He started to pace around the room, picking up bags and various items while talking, “This has something to do with that prophecy the old man spat out doesn’t it? It already involves one of my kids, is he trying to drag one of the other two into it?” 

“Ban.” King grabbed his brother-in-law's arm to turn him to look at him, “Calm down, lest you forget that you’re not the only person with a child of prophecy.” King took a breath before continuing, “And you said yourself, this might not be anything more than the Captain being bored and wanting to see us. I know you’re worried but accusing the Captain of foul play when he has no control over it won’t help anyone.”

Ban looked back at his old friend, his brother now, and closed his eyes, slumping into a chair and placing his face into his hands.

“I know,” He spoke softly, “I know it won’t, but I can’t do this King. I can’t live with this fear of my kids being sucked into a fucking apocalypse, I don’t know whether I want to be dead before we figure them all out or just know and have it be over with.”

King nodded solemnly, when Bartra invited all the sins to meet, they never expected to be given a vision of those Four Knights, who would either stop the apocalypse, or be its cause.

When Gowther used his magic to share what exactly Bartra was seeing. That was his first mistake.

King saw Meliodas fall, just for a moment, as if the shock had taken away all his strength. King would’ve fallen too if he saw his own son in that vision.

Seeing Tristan, an adult Tristan, shocked all of them to say the least, King could only imagine what was going through his Captain's mind. And either Meliodas had purposely shut King out or his mind simply went blank from fear, but King couldn’t read his heart. All he could feel was bone deep fear emanating from his once fearless Captain.

He was just glad that Elizabeth hadn’t been with them, he didn't think he would’ve been able to stand hearing her heart, which had always been a painfully open book. 

Tristan was the Third of the children of the Seven Deadly Sins, with King's own son being born right after his and Diane’s wedding, and King's nephew (Lancelot, the poor lost boy, his first nephew, who he was afraid might’ve been his last) beating Tristan by just one month.

King was close with all of the children, he never expected to have such a natural talent for child rearing but he was glad he did, whenever the girls would need a day off and the boys would take the kids, Mel and Ban would always be rushing to King for advice, which was new.

‘How do I heat the milk up? How hot does it need to be? What if I burn him!?’ 

“Just warm it up a little, it doesn’t need to be hot, it just needs to not be cold.” 

‘I’ve tried bouncing him and feeding him and changing him but he’s still crying! Does he hate me!? What do I do!?’

“He doesn’t hate you Ban, he just needs his chewie, he’s teething and his teeth probably hurt a little.”

‘King, what's a Binkie? Eli left me a note saying Tristan needed it for sleep but I don’t know what it is!’

“Probably a blanket, didn’t he used to drag around that old purple one Lady Veronica made for him everywhere? It’s most likely that one.”

‘King I will pay you whatever you want if you’ll give them pillow rides.. Please, that's all he wants to do and he says he won’t breathe until he can.’

King was proud to be the one who knew what he was doing while the others were standing around clueless for once in his life. So he never complained whenever he would be given the kids to watch, he loved being with them, Lance was the calmest child he had ever met and would spend most of his time following around King’s children to ask them to play, and Tristan was just in awe of most things King did, and would ask him to tell him stories while sitting on Chastiefol.

King adored Tristan for who he was and what he represented, Peace. Finally after 3000 years, a child of Meliodas and Elizabeth was born, they had waited so long for a child but never risked it before their curses were broken.

Seeing Tristan in that vision, with cold eyes and a war-torn look on his face, covered in heavy armor and riding upon a white horse shocked them all to their very core. They had never thought their kids would be dragged into war, not after all they had done to stop the last one, they had worked so hard for peace. 

They knew something was wrong, after what happened to Lancelot they were all on guard, but they thought after they found him it would be done. 

‘Five years isn’t that long’ they all had thought, ‘Surely after we find him and fix this we can all go back to living peacefully.’ 

Seeing Tristan had painfully reminded them all that while five years isn’t that long for them, five years was a third of their children’s lives. They’ve barely lived a decade and are already being thrown into war.

Yes, they were all distraught by seeing the young prince as the Knight in that vision but nothing could’ve prepared them for the knight that came next.

Ban hadn’t said anything when he saw the adult Lancelot standing there, he hadn’t said anything or moved at all, looking back, King realized that was probably due to the fact that he couldn’t breath. 

To have not seen his first born for so long and then seeing him grown up in a prophetic vision warning them of the apocalypse? That must’ve hit hard, it apparently hit Gowther hard enough to have him make his second mistake, accidentally knocking them all unconscious. 

It was dawn when they had gathered and midnight when they all awoke. 

Gowther apologized profusely and tried to get the rest of the vision, but Batra’s mind was old, and his memory was shaky at best. He remembered that the other two knights would have Golden Magic, and Verdant, Wing-like hair.

The knight with the hair would be rather easy to spot, so they all quickly gathered that he must be out in the world somewhere, and wasn’t any of their children.

But the knight with Golden Magic could still be one of theirs. 

King knew that Ban would be upset by the summoning, but he still wasn’t prepared for the rage and fear he felt from his brother-in-law's heart. 

“I’m gonna go make sure everyone’s ready, calm your heart before coming out please? Everything will be fine, and I don’t want Deidrick or Ellie to pick up on anything.”

“Yeah yeah, I got it. Just go, I'll be out in a bit.”

As King left he spared one last look to the Fox Sin before leaving.

Ban was now left with nothing but his thoughts. And that was never fun. For anyone but especially not him.

This prophecy business was irking him, that fact that three knights were unaccounted for was problematic, the fact that they only knew who two of them even were wasn’t great either, and the fact that they only had one defining trait for each of the unknown two was fucking irritating. 

They could literally be anywhere and anyone. The green hair wasn’t that bad because they could be easily identified. But the Golden Magic? Any child that hadn’t yet developed magic became a candidate. And since a large amount of the children he knew were still young, it was concerning, to say the least.

Ban was particularly concerned as neither of his youngest children had developed any innate magical abilities yet.

His daughter could float slightly and was growing healthily, Elaine’s best guess was that would likely inherit her magic, so he was less concerned about her.

But his second son, Gustav. That child worried Ban.

Gustav hadn’t displayed any magical abilities at all, and when Ban had asked around, none of his friends or acquaintances had sensed any innate magical ability within the boy.

Ban should feel relieved, but he wasn’t.

Despite most people believing that Ban was “A brute who couldn’t appreciate a good book if he was beaten to death with it, in fact they weren’t sure he could read at all”, (These were Gowther’s words to Ban after The Fox Sin had spilled Ale on Gowther’s Brand new Book, ‘A Week Spent With Fredrick’. Ban had apologized but Gowther was still bitter for about a month afterwards) Ban read quite a bit. 

He had read about heroes who were a part of prophecies, and “The child without magic suddenly gains powerful magic and becomes a tragic hero” was a frighteningly common troupe.

So every day his son walked around with no magic, Ban would pray the child stayed that way.

The fact that the hero in the stories would always be from a long line of heroes or had some sort of tragic backstory, that only made Ban worry that much more, because he had adopted Gustav when the boy was seven. 

And seven years is a lot of time unaccounted for.

Lancelot had been missing for two years when Ban made that journey to the edge of Benwick. It was a cold rainy night, in the middle of December. Elaine was waiting at home, heavily pregnant with their second child, and he had been extra paranoid since she was so close to her due date, and the rainstorms had started.

They had been tracking the weather like madmen ever since Lance and Jericho had disappeared that night, at this point Ban could feel the storm's arrival in his bones.

Even so, Ban couldn’t take any chances, so he was determined to do one quick check before heading back to his wife.

He was just about done when he heard it, a small cry of a child, how he had managed to hear it, let alone realize what it was through the tumultuous rain he didn’t know. But he hoped upon hope that maybe that cry belonged to Lance, that after two years his son had finally returned.

He dashed across the field to the middle of the valley in front of Benwick, calling out for someone to hear, he could barely see through the rain, he was soaked from head to toe. 

He searched and listened but could hear nothing, see nothing. 

He was almost convinced he had some sort of auditory hallucination when he heard it again, louder this time. 

He pinpointed the sound coming from the stone near to where he and Jericho had last talked about the disappearances.

As he made his way there his hopes soared, finally, maybe he had found him. His son, his Lancelot.

His hopes were dashed almost as quickly as they had built. As he was ten feet away, there was a child there, behind the stone, but this child was just that, a child.

Lance would’ve been thirteen by now, and much larger. 

As his hopes faded away into a despairing thought that he may never see his child again, his thoughts quickly turned to panic when he got closer and saw the child there, soaked worse then even Ban was, and the worst of it was the child wasn’t shivering. 

Now Ban’s not the smartest but he knows that being that wet and cold your body should be moving trying to warm you up, that’s what the shivering was, the fact that the child wasn’t moving was more than concerning.

Ban began to walk to the child, ‘He has to be alive,’ Thought Ban as he approached, ‘He had called out to me, and I came here so fast, he couldn’t have died that quick.’

He put his hand on the kid's shoulder, slowly so as to not frighten him. The shoulder was as cold as he expected, when he turned the child’s body towards him, he nearly had a heart attack at what he saw.

Sunken in cheeks, and his frame was slim, too slim for a child, he had pale skin that stood out, even in the dead of night, Ban couldn’t even tell if the poor child was breathing or not. 

Throwing caution to wind, he picked up the kid into his arms and removed the ripped, faded, useless, blue shirt to put his ear to the boy’s chest.

He had seen something like this before, a child that was cold, slim, and pale, (His sister had looked like this before she died) and he knew that no child could’ve survived a night like this all by themselves. 

He knew that most likely what he heard was either the poor child's last hurrah, or the wind playing tricks on his mind. but still he hugged the cold child closer to his ear, hoping against all he knew.

‘Let me be wrong,’ He prayed, ‘Just this once, please let me be wrong.’

And for the first time in his life, it seemed God was on his side, for he heard it, the soft ‘bump-bump-bump’.

It came from the boy’s chest, and Ban swore he had never heard a sweeter sound in his life. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around the boy before taking off into the night, making a beeline for his home. 

That night had been one of the most frightening, heartstopping, painstakingly slow nights of his life. He had brought the child home in a panic, holding him as close as physically possible, trying to warm him up.

Bursting into his home he had called out for Elaine, when she saw what he was carrying she immediately got to work, drawing a warm bath and breaking the emergency spell bead that had originally gotten as a way to summon Elizabeth to help with the birth.

To say Elizabeth was confused was an understatement, seeing as Elaine was still two months away from her due date. But she had quickly gathered what was going on and had chased Elaine and Ban from the washroom to focus on the poor boy.

Elaine and Ban had waited the whole night in the living room, waiting.

Elaine had fallen asleep two hours in, but Ban didn’t sleep that night, couldn’t sleep, not until he knew the boy would make it.

At midnight Elizabeth had come back down to them, looking as exhausted as Ban felt, and had told him that she had done all she could, and that the rest would be up to the boy.

She had offered to take Elaine to lay down while he watched over the boy, he had thanked her profusely for that.

He walked into the room with deep fear in his heart, as he saw the child lying there he had two conflicting emotions trying to settle within him.

One was a bleeding worry.

The child looked two steps from death’s door. Their breathing was erratic and heavy, interrupted with horrid coughs, their face was flushed a bright red, and he swore he could see tears leaking from the squeezed shut eyes. He was adrift with concern that the child might not make it through the night. He couldn’t take it, this child had barely lived. How old were they? They looked to be about five, but they were so thin, were they that small or starving? He didn’t know their age, he didn’t even know their name, he didn’t want to carve out a blank gravestone Goddamnit.

The second emotion was a deep, warm, fondness. 

He looked at this child, so small, and saw his tiny eyebrows furrowed in anger, as if they were fighting against their sickness with all their tiny might. He looked at their small hands, clutching the blankets so tight they turned red, so small and so strong. He pushed back their bangs that were sticking to their head with sweat, he briefly wondered what color his hair would be when they got it cleaned? He had known this child for less then a day but he knew that he would protect him with his dying breath.

He had picked up a storybook Gowther had gifted him for Lance, deciding to read to the boy. As he read the book he could hear the boys breathing starting to settle into even breaths, no longer wracked with coughing. 

When he finished the seventh story, a tale of two parents and their baby being saved by a ghostly warrior, the sun had begun to rise out the window, shining onto the small boy. That was when he heard it.

“P-please…” The child had spoken, Ban had barely heard it.

He got closer to the child, brushing his hair back and asking what he needed, water? Food? Was he cold?

The boy had furrowed his brows as he struggled to respond, but had managed to utter softly,

“Please… turn the stupid sun off… it’s hurting my eyes.” 

Ban had never cried so happily in years.

The boy had taken months to fully recover, (He still had breathing problems to this day) but had been quickly inducted into Ban’s family. He couldn’t remember who he was, or where he came from. The last thing he remembered was walking through the rain looking for shelter, and calling out for help before collapsing, he didn’t know how far he had walked. He couldn’t remember what his name was either, so Ban and Elaine had decided to just call him their Boyo, just in case he remembered.

When Beru was born the boy had been quick to help wherever he could, making sure Elaine could rest comfortably and cleaning up around the house so it was easier. Elaine still recounts how helpful he had been to this day.

There was this moment, about four months after Beru had been born, when she was trying to roll onto her stomach while lying down on the bed, and she had somehow managed to wiggle her way out of her blanket pile and scoot near the edge of the bed without attracting Ban or Elaine’s notice, but she hadn’t escaped the boy’s.

She had nearly rolled herself off the bed but the boy had flung himself towards her and had caught her at the last moment, Elaine and Ban had rushed to the both of them to find their Boyo red faced, chastising the small baby about how she should’ve stayed in her blanket pile and had no reason to throw herself off the bed.

Beru just giggled, having no idea what the boy was saying but seemingly amused by him all the same. The boy wasn’t as amused but still carried her to Elaine, Beru still overcome with giggles.

Watching the scene, Ban had been reminded of something, a long memory buried deep back in his mind, of the only time he had ever seen Jericho’s older brother talk to her.

He had gone to check on her, mostly because he was told by Merlin to double check that he had actually fully removed the demon seed from her, but partly because he had felt slightly guilty for unintentionally driving her to become a demon host by purposely humiliating her at the prison, but you’d never hear him admit that outloud.

When he had finally found her, she was already in a heated discussion with someone else, her older brother.

He was apparently chastising her for ‘running herself ragged’ to which she countered with ‘walking down the street to get something to eat wasn’t running herself ragged, she was just bored for God’s sake!’ to which he then responded with ‘It’s running yourself ragged when we literally have people we pay to do that so you can rest you incorrigible dumbass! You had a DEMON residing in your body feasting on your emotions for months! AND YOU CAN’T REST FOR A WEEK!?’

His entire face had gone bright red with anger at his sister’s nonchalance for her own health, which she had apparently found hilarious because she had started laughing hysterically. 

Her brother wasn’t as amused but he helped her back to her feet and they started the other way, Jericho laughing the whole way.

Ban stared at the children in front of him as he was reminded of that day, the only clear memory he had of his foster sister and her real brother, and remembered his name.

“Gustav.”

“Yeah Dad?” The boy had responded. 

That one response had shocked both of the boys in the room into silence, the only thing anyone could hear was Beru, still giggling.

After trying to coax the boy out from under the bed, where he had hid in embarrassment, Ban had decided to talk with him about how he would adore if the boy wanted to call him Dad, and had asked why he had responded to the name. 

“It felt right? I don’t know, you said it and it sounded like you were talking to me, sorry.”

“Kid, you don’t have to apologize, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Ban was lying down next to the bed on the floor on his back, talking to the child as he rested his small chin on his crossed arms.

“Does someone else already have it?” The child questioned.

“Have what?”

“The name, you said it. Does someone else have it or did you make it up? Like you did with Master Hawk?”

Ban fixed the boy with a slightly annoyed look, “Number one, Master Hawk is very real-” The boy fixed him with an equally annoyed look and scoffed slightly, “AND, no. I didn’t make it up, he was my-” He cut himself off there, were he and Gustav anything?

Jericho was Ban’s sister, and he was her Brother, you could pry that title from his cold dead hands, but he and Gustav were never close, had they ever even spoken to each other? Or was Ban just a stranger that had known Gustav’s sister and attened his funeral?

“He was your what?” The boy had scooted slightly out from under the bed, enough to lay his upper body on Ban’s chest to look him in the eye. And as Ban looked at the boy, he decided that he had already claimed Jericho, he was sure Gustav wouldn't mind if Ban decided to claim him too.

“He was my little brother, his name was Gustav, and he was an annoying older brother, seeing you nag Beru reminded me of him.” 

The boy puffed his cheeks out in anger, “I wasn’t nagging!”He said fervently, ”She needed to know she can’t just roll herself off of places like that! She could get hurt!”

“She’s like three months old.” 

“If you treat her like a baby she’ll never grow up! You gotta talk grown up like and then she’ll copy you! And besides, I know she knows better, you can tell from her eyes.”

“See? Naggy~♪” 

The boy had then smacked Ban on the head before fully laying down on top of him.

“If he’s your younger brother, how could he nag like an older brother?”

“... He didn’t nag me, just our younge-” He choked up a bit at this point, he hadn’t really talked about Jericho since she and Lance had disappeared, he cleared his throat before continuing, “Our younger sister, Jericho…”

“Oh… D-do… Do you think he’d be… Okay with it?”

“Okay with what?”

The boy had curled up into the crook of Ban’s arm, he did that often, whenever he was unsure of things and needed comfort. 

“With me using his name? Will it get confusing? Would he be mad?”

“No buddy, I think he’d like it. I think he’d like it a lot.”

“Okay… Then I’ll use it good, so he’s happy, I’ll grow up big and strong, so his name gets a good story.”

Ban broke into a wide grin at that, “Sounds like a great idea~♪, Super smart like.”

“Thanks… Dad.”

Ban was glad the boy had curled himself into his arm, he didn’t like letting kids see him cry.

Chapter One.

It’s a beautiful day in Benwick, sun shining across the trees, the smell of fresh dew and wisteria flowers floats across a room, you could hear the chatter of the fairies outside the window, and the birds chirping faintly in the background, and on this beautiful morning one lad laying down in his bed could only think of one thing.

“God I hope someone kills me.” The young man said to himself hopefully. 

A knock was heard at the door to his bedroom, the killer he wanted perhaps?

“Gus!! Mom said get up! We’re leaving for Uncle’s in five mimutes!!”

No such luck, just his sister sent to drag him out of bed. He supposed he should get up before his mother comes to get him up herself, she won’t stop at simple knocking and yelling and he’d rather not get tossed out of his bed again, the first time was enough.

He kicks off his covers before going to inspect his closet for anything he would feel comfortable wearing on this hellish field trip his mother was dragging him on, settling on a simple white button down shirt with peasant sleeves, putting a leather vest over the shirt, and a pair of black slacks. He was going to feel miserable in whatever he wore so why bother being extravagant? 

He went through his washroom routine mindlessly, doing it by muscle memory rather than paying any attention to what he was doing, his mind was on other things, the visit to Lionas mostly.

He didn’t want to go, not that he hated Lionas, the kingdom was lovely and he didn’t mind the people there, it was simply what he was expected to do once he arrived. Greeting the King and Queen wasn’t an issue, in his family it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that he had the best manners out of all of them, his father treated everyone the same no matter who they were, his mother’s usual response to anyone was ignoring them or throwing off of cliffs, and his sister was seven.

No, the problem he faced was he would have to go to that castle, meet with all of his relatives and friends and he would have to look all those people in the eye and pretend everything was okay, knowing what he knew.

‘I can do that here,’ He thought to himself while brushing his teeth, ‘I can do that with Mum and Father and Beru, and I know I can do it with everyone else, but GOD it’s going to be fucking exhausting! I don’t wanna do this. Please let me fall down the stairs, Please let me fall down the stairs, Please let me fall down the stairs’

He was so engrossed in his mantra he didn’t notice his mother coming into his room.

“Gus?”

“AAAIIK!!!!” He screamed as he turned around and slipped on his bed clothes, almost slamming face first into the wall before he felt himself hovering.

“Thanks for the save Ma.”

“I’m Sorry!! I should’ve knocked first!” His mother released her wind magic and allowed her son to gently be set on the floor before helping him stand, checking for any injuries before looking him in the eye, “Sorry, I forget sometimes, I don’t know why, I swear I try.”

The young man shrugged, “It’s no big deal Ma, I space out a lot, chances are even if you did knock I wouldn't've heard it. I had some stuff on my mind.”

“You know you can tell me anything, right? I’m here no matter what.” 

“I know Ma.”

“So what’s wrong, Babi?”

He could tell her, he could drop all his problems right here and now, he could rely on another person for one day.

He could tell all his problems and beg her to help, just this once. For once he could trust an adult to help with everything going on.

But he won’t, his mother didn’t deserve all this baggage he’s collected over the years, and he wouldn’t force her to hold him together, she’s held enough people together for a lifetime.

So he does what he’s done for the past nine years, and he lies.

“I’m just really tired Ma, and a little worried about how long the trip is gonna be, not to mention all the nobles we’re gonna have to deal with, I can hear them sucking up now. ‘OH YOUNG LORD HOW HANDSOME YOU ARE TONIGHT~ PRAY TELL, WHERE IST THOU PAPA SO I MAY BROWN NOSE???’”

His mother laughs at his joke, obviously relieved to think her son is just tired, both physically and of humans.

“Well you’ll be happy to know we’re going to take a portal over to the kingdom instead of traveling. Your Uncle is going to come pick us up, and I know sometimes the people can be tiring, so tell you what, how about I take over talking duties? I can talk to all the people there and you can go hang out with your cousins and friends?”

That… would actually help a lot now that he thinks about it, the less people he had to talk to, the less people he had to lie to, his mom did that a lot, help unintentionally.

She would give a solution for a problem he made up that actually ended up helping with the problem he was hiding, she was just magical like that he supposed.

“GUS!!! MUMMY!!! WE HAVTA GO NOW!!! UNCLE’S COMING SOON!!! HUR-RY-UP!!”

“WE’LL-BE-DONE-SOON!!!” The boy yelled back at his younger sister, she never did like waiting for anything so this talk was probably agonizingly slow for her. “You should probably go Ma, she needs to eat before we leave and I’ve gotta get my hair brushed and find my satchel before we head out.”

“Okay Babi, I’ll grab you something to eat on the way, don’t forget your sketchbook, your uncle has been asking to see your drawings and I’m not explaining why he must wait, COMING RU-RU!!!” She yelled down to her daughter before turning back and giving him a small kiss on his forehead, “Love you babi.”

“Love you Ma.” He watched his mother leave down the stairs before closing the door. 

He walked to his bed and reached under it to grab a box full of his sketchbooks and placed two of them in a small satchel. He then grabbed his brush and started to comb through his pale lavender hair. 

After tying it into a low hanging ponytail, he made sure his door was locked and his shades were drawn before walking over to the picture his younger sister had drawn for him, it was of him, her, and their older brother. 

He had told her he liked the drawing so much that he wanted to keep it in his room so could look at it all the time. A part of this was true, he did like the drawing, it was well done for a 5 year old, but everything after that was a lie. He didn’t want that thing anywhere near his room and to be perfectly honest, he would be alright never seeing it ever again.

It wasn’t because of anything his sister did, no he always loved her drawings, and honestly it was his own fault, they way the picture turned out. After all, he was the one who wondered out loud whether or not she knew what their brother looked like. She did, and then she felt bad for leaving him out of all her other pictures, so she drew all three of them together.

And now he had it in his room, where he would see it, day in and day out. He had to keep it in his room, there was nowhere else for it to go. If she had kept it in her room then their parents would’ve seen it, and then they would make that face they always did when they were reminded of their eldest son. 

And Beru wouldn’t understand, and she would wonder if it was her fault, and then he could only hope it was his mother who found the painting, and not his father, because both of them would do a terrible job of comforting the young girl, but at least his mom would be gentle about it.

So to avoid that, he kept it in his room, his mom would still see it and she would cry, but he could be there for her and hold her together so Beru wouldn’t get upset. (Sometimes his mother would lie on his bed next to him and hold him close while she looked at the picture, crying silently for a couple minutes before getting up and making them both something to eat, she was always happier after crying for a bit.)

Beru would see her drawing in his room and be happy that he liked it, and be none the wiser to how her family really felt. (Sometimes Beru would sneak into his bed in the middle of the night, and ask about her oldest brother, she knew neither of her brothers had met but she knew her older brother knew more than she did, she just wanted to feel close to all her family, even the ones she hadn’t met. So he would tell her stories he had heard about him, and when he ran out of stories he would make some up until she fell asleep and he would carry her back to bed.)

And his father, who hasn’t entered his room in years, would never see the painting, and would never get his hands on it. (The boy remembered someone talking about his older brother with his father. He didn’t hear the whole conversation from his hiding place on the top of the stairs, but he somehow knew what they were discussing. He remembers seeing a small jacket being handed to his father, him caressing it gently before yelling at the person he was speaking to and starting to stomp his way upstairs. The boy remembers hiding under a table in the hallway and watching his father storm into his older brother's room, placing the shirt in the small closet before storming back down into the front room. The room remained untouched to this day. Anything that belonged or was related to the eldest son went into that room, and never came out again.)

So this small thing, this placement of a child's painting, was actually used to hold their family together.

Well for that and one other thing.

He raised his fist above his head and slammed it down two inches to the left of the painting and down into his waiting hand fell a worn out, Prussian blue journal. 

He rifled through the pages before stopping on a page where the writer was talking about his uncle stopping by.

The writer of this journal would only ever write about his day in one page, and he always wrote on the left page, and only the left page. 

Gus was fond of that, because he would then write on the right page, as if responding to the author of the journal. 

‘Dear Whom-Ever reads this.

(NOT DAD! THIS IS MY JORNAL!)

Today Uncle came over to visit he brought over my cosin Deidrick to play with me but Dei never plays right. Okay he plays right i guess but he doesn’t wanna fight. He just plays meedator and how we shood talk out feelings out instead of punching.

Uncle also brought my new cosins MAttie and ElliE they are cute i guess MAttie likes punching but Auntie said she was too young to play swords and i have to wait til shes older.

But dad fought with me! he always wresssals with me! So he’s teaching Dei how to fight better two!

Anyway sense I have to go now im leaving this journal entry here until tomorrow.

Good bye!’

Gus smiles at the childish writing, barely decipherable but quite adorable. He had found this book wrapped in cloth and buried under an old piece of driftwood, he wouldn’t’ve found it if not for a faint glow of sunlight that had happened to have hit it just right, having piqued his curiosity and prompting him to look beneath. He likes to think it was fate that led him to it, but he was okay with it just being luck.

‘Smarter to be Lucky than Lucky to be Smart.’ He thought as he picked up his pen before writing down his reply.

‘Dear Older Brother.

I am also meeting our Uncle today, he’s coming over to bring us all to Lionas for a meeting with the king, probably for a party. And he’s bringing all of our cousins here as well.

You’ll be happy to know Deidrick now knows how to fight much better, though he still enjoys playing mediator.

Mattie can throw real punches now, and she can use swords as well, she prefers just fighting with bare knuckles.

Ellie enjoys puzzles more than anything, but never says no to a good fight.

I may have mentioned in a previous entry, but we have a new cousin now as well, his name is Brahms.

He recently turned 7 and is growing well, he gets sick a lot but he’s very brave, you would have liked him.

Father and Mother are excited to see all of their old friends, I’m worried about them so it will be good to get out of Benwick, they’ve been cooped up for too long.

I’m all ready to go, just making sure I update you before I go…

They all still miss you, please come home soon.

I would like to meet you, even though I know you hate me, I don’t care, they need you Lancelot. Please hurry up with your dumb mission or adventure that you think is more important then our fami-’

He stops before completing that sentence, he knows it might be a bit too far, he doesn’t know what’s kept Lance away for so long, and Gus knows he’s coming home soon. But sometimes you just can’t help feeling. 

He is still writing in someone else’s journal so he makes an effort to be polite.

‘I don’t mean to be mean, I just know you’re out there and I don’t know why you didn’t come bac-’

“UNCLE KING!!!” He heard his sister call from downstairs.

He took a peek outside his window and saw his Uncle Harlequin exchanging greetings with his sister, and his Aunt Diane chatting with his father. He should wrap this up before heading down.  

‘I am leaving now for Lionas. I will try to grab more funds while I’m there, don’t worry, I won't break my promises, even if the only one who knows I made one is me.

I wish to meet you one day, on good terms, after everything is said and done.

Despite what you may think of me, I love you Lancelot.

Love, Your Brother, Gustav.’

“GOOSE!!!” He heard rapid knocking on his door, and the voice of his oldest cousin, Deidrick.

And as he stepped on top of his dresser to place the book back into the rafters he gently caressed the name on the journal. 

‘Lancelot’

He put the book back into the rafters and stepped down to grab his satchel off the bed and unlocked his door to be met with a tight hug from his cousin.

‘From your dad to you, may you write down your heart into this book,

I love you my son.’

“BROTHER! I’ve missed you man!” Deidrick exclaimed, picking his younger cousin off the floor and spinning around the room.

“Yeah, missed you too Dei-Dei.” Hugging his cousin and tapping him gently on the back, he asked, “So was it your idea for Uncle King to take us there with the portal?”

“How’d you know?” Dei asked, amazed. 

Gustav pushed back to look his cousin to look at him flatly, “Your the only one who has any issues with the ride there,”

“It’s not my fault y’all can’t fly, why do I have to slow down and wait every time?!”

“And in a letter you sent a while back you told me how your dad said he’d do you a favor if you watched your siblings for a night, and you never told me what you used it for, so I guessed you were saving it for something like this…”

“... Damn little brother. You should be a detective with skills like that.”

“It’s not ‘Skills’,” Gustav rolled his eyes while walking down the stairs to the rest of their party, “You’re just incredibly basic.”

Dedrick held his hand to his heart as he floated down next to Gustav, “LE GASP! How could you be so crew-el?”

“Very easily,” Gustav managed to say before his younger sister slammed into his chest, knocking the wind out his lungs and nearly sending both of them onto the floor if Dei hadn’t caught the both of them.

“BERU! Be gentle on your brother!” Ban chastised from the doorway where he was greeting King.

“Sorey Da!” Beru said offhandedly before turning her head back to her older brother, her crimson eyes glimmering with excitement as her dandelion colored hair bounced up and down, “GUS! Are you so excited!!??”

Gustav, now breathing again, and having picked up his energetic younger sister, replied, ”So excited for what? The trip? I suppos-”

Cutting him off and grabbing his face, “No Silly! We’re being a fish-... Oh fizz, no. Um, a-afisha-. What was the word Uncle Harlequin?”

“Officially.” King replied, smiling at the siblings from where he stood next to Elaine.

“Offishally! We are Offishally invited to a meeting of the Seven Deadly Sins!”

Gustav’s eyes widened before turning to look at his father, “Father, is this true? I thought we- I thought I wasn’t- We weren’t-”

Ban held his hands up in a shushing movement, stopping the train of thoughts tumbling through his son's mind, “It’s not that big a deal, slow your roll kid. We just got a summons from the Captain, which could mean anything from ‘The demon king has returned and Lionas is up in flames’ to ‘We ran out of Vanya Ale so I'm calling a Seven Deadly Booze-Run cause I’m bored out of my mind’. We’ll figure it out when we get there. But considering he signed it with a picture of a smiling bird, I’d say he didn’t think it was anything serious, and while grown up meetings are still off the table, this should be boring enough to take the kids to.”

“Oh, uh, okay, we will be part of the discussion or...?”

“Yeah if ya’ want, Cappy called for everyone and their kids, so we’re bringing everyone and their kids.” Ban muttered something under his breath too quietly for Gus to hear, but it sounded annoyed, “Anyway, you munchkins all ready to head out? Got’cher grab bags and toys and shit?”

“All our toys and shit are packed and ready Father.” Gustav and Beru both gave a salute before walking out to the rest of their cousins, and giving their greeting to their Aunt Diane, who was currently too big to come in the house.

Elaine glared at Ban for cursing in front of the kids, Ban smiled back unapologetically and held open the door for her to join their children.

He then turned to King with a look of pure fury on his face and questioned,