Chapter Text
The thing is he didn’t remember it all at once. It started before he was even in school. He never really remembers when it actually started. It was always something, something in the air, a tone, voice, or rather feeling that was just slightly off.
Shiro woke up to the sound of wailing, heart filled sobs the echoed in the monastery. For a long moment he stared at the ceiling. Shaking his head, Shiro stretched and made his way out of bed. He stopped for a moment in the hall, glancing down at all the doors closed filled with the other priest and his friends. He could hear them shuffling and turning in their beds but none of the others were getting up. As it was for the past six months since he had taken custody of the twin boys.
One of the baby’s gave a shriek, jolting him out of his thoughts. Turning he walked back towards the nursery he was met with the sight of the smaller twin, red faced, and screaming his head off. Yukio was almost always the one that was fussing, especially at night. Rin tended to be quieter, happier, but was the one that tended to be stranger. Though Shiro wasn’t sure he should really say it’s strange as he had never been around small children for this long before.
Stepping over to handle whatever problem the six-month-old was having, he spared a glance at the older one. The baby’s head was turned and staring at them, blinking owlishly at his twin before something to his left caught his attention. It was a sight he was rather use to, as Rin was prone to be up at odd hours, fall asleep at odd hours, and just be a very strange child.
“Yuri, what did you get me into.” Shaking his head, he finished changing Yukio’s diaper.
He moved to stand over Rin with a bemused smile, “Strange one aren’t you.”
Reaching down he checked his diaper, swaddling the baby he held him close and walked around the room with leisure steps.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this.” He told Rin, unsure if he was talking about taking care of the twins or his current situation with Rin.
After a few minutes of this, he walked out of the nursery. The halls were dimly lit but a couple of wall lights- or at Kyodo had called them nightlights, they had installed after the third time Shiro had tripped making his way to the nursery. The light was enough for him to make it to the room, switching on the side lamp and getting comfortable sitting on the couch and draping the baby onto his chest. With one hand on Rin’s head, he reached to the side table to gather up the book on baby care Mephisto had gifted him some months before.
Rin yawned softly, his head moving to rest over Shiro’s heart, snuggling happily before his eyes dropped.
It was the next morning, as Izumi got up to make breakfast, that Shiro is found dozing with the book over his face and Rin sucking his thumb knocked out on his chest.
Rin never got a sleep schedule down, no matter what Shiro or the other priest did. They put him down at the same time as Yukio, but while his brother fell asleep in minutes, Rin stayed up with wide blue eyes. It had actually gotten worse as he got older. Climbing out of his bed to wonder around the monastery at night, taking odd naps during the day, and the last couple of weeks simple dropping off to sleep while playing, eating, and babbling to the priest. The priest had panicked the first time he had dropped, the toddler had been eating, smashing his fist into the tray and creating a mess with joyful laughter. His brother taking his que and following his example and spreading his fingers through his food before throwing it. The priest with laughing with them, Maruta snapping pictures and handing the two more food. Suddenly the loudest shrieks came to an abrupt halt and Rin’s head felt forward, slamming into the highchair with a loud bang.
“RIN!”
They rushed him to the doctors, but nothing could be determined. They were in and out of doctors’ offices and specialist.
It wasn’t until he was nearly three that Shiro went to another specialist that finally gave them more then a few words and a referral to another doctor.
“It wasn’t really a problem before now, but we’ve had to catch him at least twice a day from simple toppling over.” Shiro explained quietly, handing Rin a pen to play with.
“Can you tell me how he usually sleeps?” The doctor asked, smiling at Rin when his blue eyes looked up.
“He gets nightmares, but other than that I’m not sure he’s up at odd hours. We find him playing quietly in his room or walking in the halls…”
“Okay, can you fill these out? Answer as best you can.” He told Shiro before turning to Rin, “Hello Rin, would you mind answering some questions for me.”
Glancing back at his father, Rin cheerful answer “Yeah!”
“Okay then, we’re gonna leave Oto-san to fill out this boring paperwork.”
Giggling, Rin followed the doctor out and into the small play room across the hall. It took nearly a half hour before Shiro was done. Knocking gentle on the door, he passed the paperwork to the doctor and went to pick up Rin, who had fallen asleep at some point.
“I’ll call you with the results or if I can find someone to help.” the doctor said warmly.
Shaking his hand, Shiro took Rin home, shrugging at the other priest hopeful looks. For three days they heard nothing from the doctor, when the phone call did come, Izumi and Maruta gathered Yukio and Rin brought them into their room to play with some toys.
Shiro came in nearly an hour after with a troubled look on his face and for a while he just sat back and watched the twins play.
“We got a diagnoses and medication.” He told the priest that night.
“Well?”
Narcolepsy, the prescription has been sent over and we just have to pick it up. We need to keep him on a strict schedule and diet to help. No caffeine what so ever.” He said sternly, his gaze sticking to Kyodo who even know was holding a can of Pepsi.
“Well…” Izumi shrugged, “At least it’s a human thing?”
Shaking his head at the other priest, Murta pipped up, “I’ll do some research, let you know what I find.”
“Thank you.”
Shiro had Yukio on his hip and Rin was toddling along right in front of him. He had decided to take the boys to one of the small toys stores in the shopping center. The twins were dressed in matching black slacks and baby blue shirts. Yukio had a pair of glasses perched on his nose.
It didn’t take long for Shiro to notice, Rin would latch on to anything with a blue bird, he carried around one stuffed toy throughout the entire store. His attention would only be stolen by tiny plastic ships that he babbled excited about.
“Pi’ate!” he squeals, dropping the bird to grab onto a wooden ship with a whale painted on the side, “Pi’ate!”
“Is it a pirate ship?” Shiro chuckled, as he shifted Yukio to put him on the ground.
“Un!”
It was then, that Rin noticed he had dropped his blue bird. Reaching down to grabbed the bird, he dropped the ship with a soft thump. He stood to his full height of three foot four, blinking down at the two downed toys.
A pair of blue eyes widen and looked up at Shiro in shock, his mouth forming a perfect O.
“It okay, it okay, Nii-san.” Yukio prattled, gently patting his brother’s cheek before he grabbed the blue bird.
“I help!”
A large grin stretched across Rin’s face, before he grabbed the wood ship from the floor.
“Well then, come on to the register.” He ushered the two to the front of the store.
Smiling at the elderly women behind the counter with thin gray hair, Shiro handed her the crayons Yukio had picked out.
Before she could give him the total, he held up a hand and motioned towards the two boys trying valiantly to look over the counter. Standing on their tip toes, the boys handed the elderly woman the ship and bird. Yukio turned and stared at Shiro, as Rin held his hand out. With an amused smile, Shiro handed the money to Rin, who handed it to Yukio. Glancing at the elderly women, he chuckled at her amused smile, as she slowly read out the numbers. With his tongue sticking out, Yukio diligently counted the yen. Nodding in satisfaction, Yukio handed his brother the money. Rin nodded and promptly stuck his hand onto the edge of the counter and dropped the yen.
With a wide smile, she counted the money and handed the receipt to Rin.
“Here are your crayons, bird, and boat.”
“Pi’ate ship!” Rin informed her before grabbing Yukio’s hand to start the walk home.
It was two days later that Yukio and Rin were sitting at the table, along with Rin’s blue bird he called Maco, coloring with Yukio’s new crayons. Rin scribbling furiously onto the paper in front of him, surrounded by reds, blues, and yellows.
Leaning over to peer at the children’s drawing, Shiro couldn’t help but chuckle as Yukio tried diligently to color inside the lines. Turning his attention to Rin, he paused when he noticed the other pages that sat discarded around Rin.
“Hey Rin, do you want any more colors?”
Scrunching up his nose, Rin glanced over at the purples, greens, tans, and other colors. His gaze locked on the orange for a moment before he shook his head.
“No.”
“Well… okay then. Do, you want to tell Papa what your drawing?” He tried.
Whipping his head around, Rin grabbed at the picture to the right of him and started to point at a blue blob.
“Wants’ta wite a book, but pi’ate first. Gonna go on a’bentures.” He chattered, “This me,” he told him, now pointing at the red blob to the right, “I’mma be pi’ate too.”
“And this one?” Shiro asked softly, looking at a crude triangle, twirl, and a line.
“It’s pi’ate flag, pi’ate flag, papa.” He told him, looking at him like he was stupid for asking.
Some pictures ended up on the fridge, while others- with the insistence of Rin- were carefully tacked in the boy’s bedroom. Where Rin would sit in front of the pictures with the bird, ship, and Yukio excitedly whispering as he pointed. Yukio’s eyes would sparkle as he gleefully laughed at his brother’s stories.
Months passed before anything else caught Rin’s attention as much as the ship and bird had.
A large white stuffed dog he had stared at as they passed the store each day for nearly three months, before it was moved from its display. Rin had cried to Shiro about it for nearly the entire day.
Maruta had shook his head before handing the toy to the sobbing boy, commenting that it had supposed to be a present for the twins fast approaching sixth birthday. Rin had stopped crying in shock when the toy had been shown to him, one hand reaching out to pet at the soft fur and the other reaching out to hug at the priest.
Shaking their heads and sharing amused looks the priest watched as the boy happily pet the dog.
Crouching down, Maruta joking asked, “Are you going to name him after me?”
He nearly busted out laughing at the affronted look the five-year-old shot him, as he quickly hugged the dog. “Name is Stefan. He already had a name.” he told them, before running off screaming for Yukio.
Izumi smiled softly before turning to Shiro, and dropping his smile.
“An English name?” he asked his leader softly.
Shrugging his shoulders, “Rin, seems to pick up languages easily, I heard him repeating French words.” He told them.
Shiro’s gaze moving to Kyodo, the only one in the monastery that knew French. His hand went to the back of his head as he looked thoughtful at the others.
“I had to speak to one of the European branches a couple weeks ago, they wanted to send over a couple exwire’s for training.”
“He has been picking up the Latin from mass rather easily.”
The priest could only watch with bemused smiles when Rin came running back in with the toy, only to see he had tapped a white banana shape to the dog.