#for continuity

"Sweetheart, you are too slow for this." Your voice is heaven to the blind when it chrips up from behind him. The child in his arms is taken and his hand is wrapped in yours as you tug him forward.

The fresh smell is what gave the place away. Familiar and nostalgic, slightly pungent and salty. And when the air conditioning hits his face, he's certain he's figured the surprise out.

And if he was wrong, Lucian saying "Ooo totopus." would be the very thing that gave it away.

"Papa, up, up." Kyros, now closer, locks his arms around his knee and tries to climb him like a firepole. "Fast-ou!"

The urgency, of course, was for Kyros to climb on his shoulders and pull away the veil from his eyes. It takes a while for his blurry vision to adjust to the dim light and the shifting shades of blue, but when clarity returns nothing is as breathtaking as the sight of his family before a beautiful blue tank of large medusae.

Arms outstretched, and proudly grinning. Atrocious jellyfish hats on their heads (yes, even Lucian!) shimmer and shake when they exclaim. "Happy Father's Day!"

His vision is compromised again when Kyros leans over and covers him with his own jellyfish tentacles on his head as a result of a tender kiss on his forehead. "Ta-da, papa!"

"Thank you." He chuckles, peeling back the curtain like tentacles and catching you in a hug.

"Did you know? Was soo-prised?" Kyros asks, bouncing on his shoulders eagerly.

"No, not at all." Sylus implores him, lifting him and sitting him in the bend of his elbow. "Good surprise, angel."

Before Lucian bellows something about what about me from below— already peeved about the itchy thing on his head— Sylus scoops him up too and blows a raspberry on his cheek. "Very well done, both of you."

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

The rest of the day is spent following Kyros and Lucian around the aquarium, hand in hand with you. He is delighted to see that the nature documentaries he puts on do not dissipate from their minds as soon as they lull them to sleep.

Kyros takes pride in naming at least five fish in the saltwater tanks, while Lucian lists all the kinds of sharks he knows that swim above him in the tunnel.

Your own academic list is more of a concerned mantra, one that goes, "did he lick that?" whenever you catch your kids pressing their faces on the glass to see better.

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

Lucian's voice is booming when he retells you all of the robotic dolphin show he just watched— the one you were also all present for— in his own colorful way. "Da doh-fin go sh— sh— ssh—" he wiggles his body and bobs his head in a wave-like motion, then jumps. "spash! flying! so high!"

You're listening intently, smiling and asking him what else the dolphins did.

Meanwhile, Sylus stands in the designated audience-drier beside you after he and Kyros got spashed in their seat, and squints to read Lucian's lips through the turbine's noise.

"Your turn, Lucian." Sylus plucks him from the ground and places him in the drier too, making sure to put his palms over his ears to protect him from the sound.

"How about you, Ro? What part did you like?" you ask, turning to your quiet little baby currently staring down at his shoes... or what you think are his shoes.

He looks up with a bright smile and says, "Wain-cott."

You stifle a giggle.

"Wain-cott!" Kyros says happily, spinning in his yellow nylon raincoat, he made sure to pack it in his dinosaur backpack. The single item, actually, in there, he insisted, was important.

And true enough, he is the only one who didn't step into the warm, loud dryer.

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

"Kee-ro, is okay!" Lucian reassures an anxious Kyros when he refuses to put his hand in the petting tide pool. Hiding behind papa's legs while you and Lucian dip your fingers into the water. "Kee-ro, nice fishies!"

"Wanna try?" Sylus inquires, kneeling to meet him where he is and letting small fingers curl around his thumb.

Kyros pouts, his lip trembling at the fact that he does want to, but his heart is racing, and he can't seem to get his legs to move.

"Papa try?" he asks through sniffles that border on a sob. "Then Weewo?"

"Of course," he mutters, lifting him and approaching the tidepool together.

You help Sylus roll his sleeves up. Kyros doesn't look away when he reaches in and traces out a starfish's outline gently.

Sylus aquires a successful giggle from both his sons when his long fingers chase after Lucian's hand underwater like a stingray and catch it with a tender squeeze.

He is relieved when that prompts Kyros to roll up his sleeves and joyfully cry too, "My turn!"

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

"... papa's cousins," Sylus hears you whisper to them in the reptile section's warmth. You yelp when he pokes your side and catches you in a loose embrace.

"We don't talk," he whispers like a conspiracy. "Not since the bearded dragon owed me money."

You laugh and lean against him.

His chest is a familiar pillar of warmth, reminiscent of when you were here years ago. His hands, the same ones that gripped yours when you fought against the pains of the tail end of your pregnancy.

You fought him here then. You're glad to return under more favorable circumstances now.

As if he can read your thoughts, his hands ghost over your stomach. Remembering a similar memory from his own mind's misty eyes.

You lead him to the bench in the middle of the exhibit as your children run around and fawn at the different lizards and frogs under heating lamps and yellow lights.

He rests his chin on your shoulder and kisses your jaw. To spite him in jest, you wipe the kiss away. He clicks his tongue.

"Did you bring me back here to fight with me?" he murmurs, amused. "You miss our quarrels that much?"

You laugh. "Of course not."

"Hm." he smiles, pressing a kiss to your hair. "So, for the poetry."

You fight a smile because he's right. But the day is already his— he can't have everything. "Maybe."

He scoffs because he knows he's right. "Maybe," he says incredulously, shaking his head at your stubbornness.

You sigh. "Look at them."

He follows your gaze to Lucian, who holds Kyros's waist as he balances on a step to look into an enclosure, and then to Kyros chasing his brother to hold hands when Lucian takes off running to another one across the room.

His heart seizes, then melts under the tenderness of what his life has become. His sons— looking so much like him it was uncanny, and yet carving through this cruel world with the hearts that you've given them. The hearts he helped hold, mold and love.

Kindness isn't something he shows himself often. Only when you ask him to do that does he. Now, he is forced to be a model to two little souls that watch his every move and want to be every bit of the person he is.

He cannot say he opposes.

Before you, he knew he needed only one thing to complete all the desires he could ever have in this world. After you, he never would have thought he'd want more— two in fact.

"Thank you," is all he can say when you lace your fingers together— for you, for them, for this life he would not trade for anything in this world or the next one over.

You plant a kiss on his ring finger, telling him you feel just as grateful.

You both watch them for a moment longer. Carve the patterns of their giggles, the outlines of their hair and cheeks against the dim light of each room into the crevices of your memory. Just for a moment longer.

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

"Your doctor is going to have a field day about this," Sylus chuckles, handing you and your children each a tall cup of electric blue slushie.

"Don't tell!" Lucain harruphs, already slurrping the sweet drink up before anyone—including Doter Sayne who he fears would pop up from the penguin exhibit— could take it away.

"Aa!" Kyros whines, squeezing his eyes shut after he'd sipped too fast. "Owwie! Ow!"

"Oh, brain freeze." you rub your palm over his hair and bring him close to your chest. "Slowly, baby."

"You know, I thought it was an old wives' tale," you tell Sylus, taking a sip of your own drink. The very same one you asked for during the most inopportune times during your pregnancy. "But maybe pregnancy cravings do affect the babies."

Sylus hums, pinching Lucian's cheek as he stubbornly slurps at a large ice block at the bottom of his straw. Sylus shakes the drink for him and takes a sip. "Or maybe it's poetic."

You roll your eyes at him.

"All done," Kyros tells him, only just halfway done with the drink. Sylus didn't buy himself one for this very reason. Kyros adds so very gallantly, "Happy father's day, papa. Love you. I love you."

"Mm!" Lucian gasps into his straw, but unlike his brother, he is unwilling to give up his drink. "Not done— but, but— love you, papa!"

Sylus laughs, full and rich, as he gathers them both in an embrace. "Thank you. I love you too."

You're too busy snapping photos of them in their little group hug to notice the two other men who walk up behind you. The other two owners of the clownfish all-access pin in your purse.

Startled, you yelp at the sight of them. "Where have you been?"

Then, at a further examination, you frown. "Why are you all wet?"

"Mermaid lessons," Luke offers no other explanation as they approach the group hug and join with zero warning.

Sylus cries out at the sudden weight of two more of his sons, suddenly getting his coat wet, but the big twins make no comment apart from

Happy Father's Day.

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

The touch of Frank’s palm to the small of her back, tells her he wants her to lower her hips. He follows, adding his weight to hers onto the pillow underneath. At the press of his hand to her thigh, she lifts just enough that Frank can maneuver his hand into the small space beneath her. With his hips, he nudges her back down to meet his palm, adjusting his position until Mel feels the bumps of the sleeve he’s wearing on two of his fingers press against her clit.

She hides a whimper into her pillow before they even start moving again.

“Still good?” He asks against her shoulder blade. The sweaty strands of his hair tickle her skin, making her shiver. It heightens her awareness of how she’s caught between sleeve beneath her, and the satisfying stretch of Frank’s cock inside her.

Yeah, definitely still good.

Nodding, Mel reaches back towards the heated skin of his thigh, offering a quick squeeze of encouragement.

He kisses her shoulder, moving his free hand to bracket her head. Mel’s breath quickens in anticipation when Frank rests a bit more of his weight onto her. Bracing himself. Getting ready. Mel buries another sound into her pillow.

She’s long lost track of time, thinking only of Frank’s alternating rhythm. To make it last, he’d told her earlier. He’d wind her up, and as soon as her body tittered along the edge, he’d stop.

Kneeling behind her, his thrusts grew long. He’d pull out of her slow, almost all the way, before slamming back inside, grasping her hips to pull her onto him as his hips snapped forward. Mel’s back had pebbled with gooseflesh from their cooling sweat, and her hands fisted the sheets tight. Frank spoke nonsense behind her she could barely hear, gasped when their bodies meet. It had been a torturous pace that left her straining against the drag of his cock; until she’s stubbornly trying to follow the trail of her orgasm, just out of reach. That would be his cue to change again, to press her back down onto the mattress, to finally touch her clit again.

With their bodies flush against one another, Frank speeds up, pulling out only enough to firmly push back in, making her feel it. When he’s in deep, he rolls his hips in a grind that forces her clit to rub against the textured surface of his sleeved fingers. And the friction has her crying out into the damp pillowcase—the sweat from her brow and her panting breaths soaking into the fabric.

“Do you know how good you feel right now?” Frank groans against her neck. Mel wishes she could tell him that if she feels half as good as he does, moving so insistently against her, that she must feel fucking amazing. But the words stick to her throat, lost to her oversensitivity, her restlessness. Lost to the edge of desperation urging her to meet his thrusts despite having nearly no leverage.

“That’s right, sweetheart.” He presses a kiss to her cheek. “Let me feel you.”

She’s so, so close. So close it’s barely any effort to focus on the sharp tug of arousal, to let it narrow her perception to the coiled tension of her body. Mel takes what Frank’s so freely gives her: the steady stream of pleasure building between her clit and her muscles contracting around him – wound so tightly her clenching isn’t even on purpose.

And then she’s there, suspended, one hand gripping her pillow, the other flying to grip Frank’s hand, so she can fit their fingers together against the sheets. Her body unravels in strong waves, long and almost overwhelming.

Distantly, she’s aware of Frank growing unsteady, of the increased pressure of his weight on her. It’s a delicious feeling, grounding, and it lets her wring out every last bit of tension she has left. He’s all she can feel: ragged breathing, open-mouthed, against her shoulder, his sweat on her temple, down her back and mixing with hers. The way he comes while rutting against her, without a lick of space between them.

Eventually, they turn onto their sides, staying close despite the heat and the mess. Frank takes off the sleeve from his fingers and drops it on the mattress in front of Mel. With his arms back around her again, he reaches to tap the sleeve with his index finger, chuckling as he does it.