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“Oops,” Max says, hunching his shoulders guiltily.
“Mierda,” Rafe says, wishing Papa were here.
“What’s that mean?” Dad asks, staring up at him with huge eyes that don’t look like they should fit in his face but somehow do.
“Shit.”
Dad frowns disapprovingly. “That’s a bad word.”
“Uh. Yeah. It is. You shouldn’t say that.”
“Then why did you say it?” Dad challenges, his eyes narrowing and his chin jutting out mulishly. By the Angel, what did Rafe ever do to deserve this? “You’re supposed to lead by example.”
“It was an accident!” Rafe defends. He was surprised, okay? He’s still surprised, actually, and he doesn’t have any real reason to expect it to get better any time soon because Papa isn’t supposed to be home for several hours.
“Oh.” Dad considers this, his eyebrows scrunching together thoughtfully as he makes his decision. “Well, that’s okay, I guess. As long as it was an accident.”
Rafe wants to laugh, but he also wants to cry a little. Or a lot. This is weird.
“Where am I?” Dad asks.
Rafe suppresses the urge to whimper.
“You’re at our home.” He motions between himself and Max, who is stuck between fascination and horror and wouldn’t be any help at all even if he wasn’t stunned stupid. “I’m Rafe. This is my little brother Max.”
Dad looks at him for a long minute, and then at Max for another long minute, frowning harder and harder.
Rafe suddenly remembers how Papa and Dad had fought a lot when they first met, with the sort of sinking feeling in his belly when he knows he hasn’t finished memorizing the latest group of Runes and he’s going to get a bad grade on a test.
Please, please don’t let Dad have ever been one of the mean Shadowhunters, he thinks desperately, hoping against hope that Raziel will hear his prayer.
He doesn’t think Dad was ever like that, but people who aren’t family almost always think he is anyway, and kids can be the worst. He doesn’t think Max – or he – could take it if their Dad suddenly turned into a jerk because of a magic accident.
“You’re blue,” Dad finally says, accusingly. He turns his angry eyes on Rafe. “Why is he blue? What kind of big brother are you? ”
Before Rafe can start to explain that Max is a warlock and he was born blue, and Rafe had had absolutely nothing to do with either of those things, his Dad storms off through the loft, pulling open closets and doors until he lets out a shout of victory and comes back with a comforter in his arms, so big it obscures his face and still drags on the floor behind him.
Or maybe it’s just because Dad is so small, now.
He dumps the blanket on the floor and then goes off for more, repeating the process until there are four blankets in a pile and he starts spreading them out on the couch.
Rafe still doesn’t get it. He looks at Max to see if he knows what’s going on, but Max looks just as bewildered as Rafe is.
Once Dad has three of the blankets spread out, he comes over and grabs Max by the wrist, pulling him relentlessly toward the couch and pushing him right in the middle of the blanket pile. Then he does the same to Rafe, shoving him down next to Max and folding the blankets over so they cover both boys. He lays the last blanket over the top of them and tucks it in on either side.
Dad looks critically at the results of his work, frowns, and wanders off again. There probably aren’t any blankets left on anyone’s beds, Rafe thinks bemusedly when Dad comes back with even more of them. Or if there are, there won’t be for much longer.
Dad piles these ones on top of Rafe and Max, too, bundling them up so high that Max’s face is barely even peeking out of the pile now.
Dad looks at the pile again, frowning, and nods determinedly before he climbs up the arm of the couch and starts wriggling his way in on the other side of Max.
They sit there awkwardly for several long minutes. Rafe wonders if there’s a point to this. Knowing his Dad, there probably is.
“I’m hot,” Max complains, his voice muffled by blankets.
“You just feel hot because your body is warming up,” Dad says firmly.
“What are you talking about?” Rafe asks.
Dad gives him one of the looks that means he thinks someone is being especially stupid and says, “Max is blue.”
Well. Yes.
Rafe is, in fact, aware of that. He doesn’t see what it has to do with the fact that every blanket in the loft has been piled on top of them.
“…and?”
“That means he’s cold,” Dad says, in that same tone of voice, “And he needs to warm up or he’ll get sick.”
That is, Rafe thinks, both absurdly cute and entirely wrong at the same time.
“It hasn’t ever made me sick before,” Max protests, “And I’m not cold.”
Dad pushes at the blankets until he can see out of them and squints dubiously at Max. “You’re not cold?”
Max shakes his head.
Dad considers this. “Are you sad? We could cheer you up.”
“No,” Max says, “I’m just blue.”
Dad purses his lips as he considers this. “Have you gone to a doctor about that? I’m pretty sure people aren’t supposed to be blue.”
Max shrugs. “It’s normal for me. It’s my warlock mark. So’re my horns, see?”
He reaches up to push down his hair until they can see his horns.
“Cool.” Dad pokes them. Max makes a face. “So you’re not sick or sad or anything?”
“Nope.”
“That’s good.” He looks at Rafe and says magnanimously, “I guess you aren’t doing a terrible job as a big brother, then. I’m sorry I thought you were.”
“That’s okay.” It’s really hard to keep from laughing right now. “Thanks for trying to help Max.”
Dad puffs up his chest, looking satisfied. “I’m a big brother too, you know. I was reading about things that make people sick, in case anything happens – that’s why I know that being blue means someone is cold. Well, usually it means they’re cold. ”
Rafe’s face spasms and he has to fight back another laugh. “Yeah?”
Dad nods seriously. “Yeah. I have a little sister. Her name’s Isabelle, but I call her Izzy instead. She likes it better, and it’s not as hard for her to say – she’s really little, still. I’m gonna be the best big brother ever.”
“Rafe is the best big brother ever,” Max objects loyally, “He told off an adult two weeks ago for being mean to me and made him stop it. You can be the second-best big brother ever.”
Dad nods seriously and agrees, “It’s hard to make adults do anything. Second-best is still pretty good, though.”
Rafe grins to himself and starts working his way out of the blanket pile. His foot gets caught when he’s almost all the way out and he falls down with a loud thump that makes the other two boys look at him.
He sighs and stares at the ceiling. Yeah, this might as well happen today.
“Are you okay?” Dad asks.
“Gravity,” Rafe grumbles before reluctantly pushing his way up. “I need to call Papa. You two stay here for a few minutes, okay?”
Dad nods obediently and turns back to Max, who goes back to describing all the kinds of warlock marks he’s seen before. Satisfied that they – hopefully – won’t get into too much trouble in the five minutes he isn’t in the room, Rafe grabs his phone from the coffee table. He’s really glad Dad and Papa decided to give him one for his birthday this year.
The phone rings and rings and then goes to voicemail, but Rafe hangs up before he can leave a message and dials again. This time it only rings twice before Papa picks it up.
“Rafe?” Papa asks, clearly worried, “What’s wrong?”
“He didn’t mean to,” He blurts and then immediately regrets it. So much for not making Papa worry. “Nobody’s hurt,” He adds belatedly, “But Dad is – um –”
He doesn’t want to say it. He really, really does not want to say it.
“What happened?” Papa’s voice leaves no room for argument, and Rafe knows he needs to know what’s going on.
Still.
“Dad is like. Five, I think? I’m not sure because I forgot to ask, but I don’t think he can be much older than that – he’s even smaller than Max is.”
Papa doesn’t say anything for a long second.
“You said nobody’s hurt?” Papa asks cautiously when he finally manages to speak.
“Yeah, we’re all okay. Just. Dad isn’t. You know, Dad.”
“You did well calling me and letting me know the situation. Will you be alright for a few minutes longer? I just need a few moments to get to a stopping point here.”
Rafe smiles but peeks into the living room – the younger boys are still engrossed in their conversation, Max waving his hands a little and Dad watching with big eyes. He snickers. “Yeah, I think we’ll be okay. You should have seen Dad’s reaction to Max, though. It was great.”
“How did your father react?” Papa asks, reluctantly amused.
“He thought Max was too cold and told me I was a bad brother.”
Papa snorts. “That does sound like Alexander. Alright, I’ll be home shortly. Just keep everything as calm as you can, and tell Max no more magic until I get there.”
“Okay. Bye Papa, I love you.”
“I love you too, baby. See you soon.”
Papa makes a kissing noise into the phone – gross – and the phone goes quiet.
He goes back into the living room and pushes at the blankets until he can sit down without his butt being even with the couch’s arms or feeling like he’s going to roast alive. “Papa’s going to be back in a few minutes. He says no more magic until he gets here.”
Max nods sheepishly, and Dad perks up. “What’s your Papa like?”
“Papa is the best!” Max says brightly. “He’s really good at magic. He’s one of the best warlocks in the whole wide world.”
Dad’s eyes get so big that Rafe thinks they might pop out of their sockets if they get any bigger.
“The whole world?” He says, awed.
Max nods and starts talking about how Papa helps the Shadowhunters and helped fight the Circle before he and Dad adopted Max.
Papa comes in halfway through the story, his frown turning into the soft smile he always gets when he sees Rafe and Max and Dad all together once he’s decided that nobody is dying.
“Papa!” Max shouts excitedly, squirming out of the blankets to throw himself at him. He hugs Papa tightly around the waist and cranes his head back to look up at him. “I didn’t mean to, it was an accident.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Papa says, leaning down to drop a kiss on Max’s forehead. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I sneezed,” Max complains, “Nothing weird ever happens when Rafe sneezes.”
Papa’s face twitches like he’s trying not to laugh and he says seriously, “Don’t worry, Blueberry, we’ll get it all worked out.”
Papa turns to look at Dad, gaping at him from the couch, and raises his eyebrows. “Is something wrong?”
“Nobody told me boys are allowed to be pretty,” Dad says, looking gobsmacked and maybe a little betrayed, like he got hit in the face with a pillow when you’ve already called truce.
Max giggles into his hand, Rafe barely manages to turn his own laugh into a cough, and Papa doesn’t even bother to muffle his.
“Of course boys are allowed to be pretty,” He says when he’s calmed down.
Dad stares up at Papa some more and announces, “Then I want to marry a boy who looks like you when I grow up, instead of a girl like Mama says.”
Max and Rafe both burst into uncontrollable giggles again and Papa smiles really big. “I think that can be arranged. For now though, what do you say we send you home?”
Dad frowns. “But I like Rafe and Max. They’re fun.”
“You’ll get to see them again, don’t worry,” Papa assures him, “But don’t you think your parents and sister will be wondering where you’ve gotten off to?”
“Oh,” Dad says, brow pinching, “I didn’t think of that. Do you think Izzy’s scared ‘cause I disappeared?”
Papa smiles gently. “She might be. You should probably go home and give her a hug.”
Dad nods determinedly. “Okay. You can send me home, then.”
Papa smiles again and guides Dad into his apothecary, where he fixes a lot of the stuff that goes wrong when Max has magical accidents. They come out again a little while later, both smiling.
“You’re kidding,” Dad laughs.
Papa shakes his head smugly. “I’m dead serious. You took one look at me and declared you hadn’t been informed that boys were allowed to be pretty, too, and then decided that I was your ideal husband.
Dad laughs again and kisses Papa. “Well, I wasn’t wrong, now was I?”
“I certainly don’t think so,” Papa says.
Dad kisses him again and comes over to hug Max and Rafe. He pauses, staring at the couch. He turns to look at Max and Rafe, waving at the mountain of blankets in confusion. "I get me turning into a kid, but why are all our blankets on the couch?”
Rafe grins. “Because Max is blue.”