#zxy

But… their new parents deserved to know.

And well… they wanted to tell someone.

“Arte- Par?” They called out from the top of the stairs.

“Hey ZXY” Artem smiled at their new kid, going up the stairs to meet them.

Zxy read the poem, his voice low and serious, in that way that made Renee both laugh and fall a little harder for him. There in their bed, in warmer pajamas to stave off the early fall chill in the night, the bedside lamp on, and a book in Zxy's hand, they lay together, Zxy reading as if preaching a sermon, and Renee listening with rapt attention, enjoying it more than she'd let on.

After all, who the hell still read poetry to their lovers in 2019, much less their wife for that matter. But Zxy did. And maybe it was because he was from a different time, or... more likely, it was because his soul was so old, in the romantic sense, but he read the poems with an almost childlike earnestness, one that was sincere to a fault.

"What do you think of that one?" he asked, turning to her with a gentle smile. She met his smile with one of her own, and snuggled a little closer.

"Kinda sappy..." she said teasingly. There was the masculine approach of being bad at connecting with and communicating emotions, and then there was Renee's. Feminine, masked with a veneer of gentle bullying, but there nonetheless was a shy sort of love. Zxy knew she adored the romantic attention that some would call sappy. Some were not Renee. He knew her real feelings on these subjects by now.

"Then I guess you wouldn't want another one. And here, I had several bookmarked," he replied, faking a pout. Two could play at that game, after all.

"Wild that you're projecting your desire for more sappy poems onto me," she said. Their back and forth could last awhile like this. It was fun and easygoing, and it put Renee's mind at ease. Zxy seemed to enjoy it, too. Worries and anxieties melted away in the face of a back and forth of teasing and playing. They had to.

But as usual, Zxy's "sharp" mind was the one that couldn't come up with a playful barb quite in time, or at least not as casually devastatingly witty as Renee's, so he simply rolled his eyes and began with,

"Having a coke with you is even more fun than going to San Sebastian..."

“No.”

And that was that. Zxy glaring, his eyes burning, fists clenched, as Alister sat unmoving on the couch. As usual, he was infuriatingly calm.

Don’t you get it? Zxy wanted to scream at him. I’d do anything for you! I’d die to keep you safe, just like I would for Renee! I’d do the most unspeakable things for you, to you, if you asked!

Whether or not he understood was a mystery. He probably didn’t. And just how or since when that had started up was another dizzying mystery.

But it didn’t matter. He’d do what he had to do to keep the people he cared about safe. He wouldn’t mind being left to die if it meant he’d saved them. Hell, it was common sense! One life to save two? That was basic fucking math!

Unfortunately, the man before him didn’t seem to agree. It was insane. It was reckless. It made Zxy want to grab him and shake him, in spite of his grievous injury, in spite of his own still-healing burns, in spite of everything. He wanted to grab him and shake him and scream and make him somehow understand what he was feeling.