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Flames lick at melting skin as crying fills his ears. It hurts, but nothing could move him from that spot. He doesn’t know what happened or why his father is so angry. All he knows is that the four-year-old in his arms will die if he runs from the fire.
“ENJI!” his mother screams. “Stop it! You’re hurting him!”
A yelp reaches him a moment before the crash. Daring to look over his shoulder, he sees Rei sprawled across the floor at the base of a now broken bookshelf. She’s unconscious and bleeding from her head.
“Momma!” he shouts.
Shoto’s crying turns to distressed screeching when he sees their mom. When his father turns back to him, ice crawls up his leg. In the doorway, Fuyumi is trying to drag Natsuo away. She’s begging for him to run before he gets burned too. He takes the opportunity to pick up his little brother and escape. The ice barely lasts long enough for him to get to the door.
“Run,” he orders.
They practically fly down the hall and into the bathroom. It’s the only room in the house that locks from the inside. He ignores the pain that blossoms when he sits with his back pressed to the door. His brother and sister huddle close on either side of him.
“Come on, kids,” Enji calls from halfway down the hall. He hadn’t seen which room they’d ducked into. “I won’t hurt you, just stop hiding from me.”
Quickly clapping a hand over Shoto’s mouth to muffle the toddler’s wailing, he prays the elder pyro doesn’t find them. They flinch every time their father slams open a door. It feels like an eternity before he reaches the bathroom.
He wakes up gasping before the man finds them. Looking around the dark room and hearing a baby crying, he fears he’s still asleep for a moment. Then a second small cry joins the first and he realizes it’s his daughters, not his brother.
He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until it came out as a groan when he sat up. Quietly making his way to the nursery, he contemplates whether he should tell his husband about the nightmare. Keigo hasn’t been sleeping very well since the girls were born. He’s worried about Kaya every second she is not in his direct line of sight and Rei’s fussy more often than not.
It’s an easy decision once he reaches the girls’ room. He decides against talking about his nightmare. Keigo’s stressed enough and he seems to be having a particularly rough night. He’s sitting on the floor, leaning against Rei’s crib. Tears race down his cheeks as he quietly begs the infant to stop crying. The hero doesn’t notice Touya as he looks from the baby in his arms to the one in the crib on the other side of the room.
“Hey,” Touya greets.
Keigo flinches as he looks to his husband. “I don’t know why she won’t stop crying,” he says. “She’s been fed, burped, changed, bathed. I don’t know what’s wrong and now Kaya’s crying, too.”
Carefully retrieving Kaya from her crib, he asks, “How long has she been crying?”
“A few hours, maybe. I-I don’t know.”
Kaya calms down as soon as she’s picked up. She’s probably just annoyed at having been woken up. “How about I take her for a drive?” he suggests. “It might help.”
“I can take her.”
“Absolutely not. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“Touya, I’m-”
“Exhausted. Here.” He gently switches Kaya for Rei. Holding the mostly asleep twin is immensely less stressful than trying to calm the one that seems to be in competition with Present Mic. Kissing Keigo, Touya assures, “We’ll be back in a bit. Please get some sleep.” He doesn’t give Keigo the chance to argue before grabbing the diaper bag by the door and leaving, taking the crying girl with him.
The warm summer air only serves to further agitate the two-week-old. “I hear ya, kid,” he mumbles as he straps her into the car seat. He almost feels bad when the lights turn on in their neighbor’s house. It sucks being woken up at one in the morning, especially by someone else’s screaming baby. He waves when the old woman peaks through the curtains before getting in the car.
With the radio on and the ac on full blast, they’re off. He drives around the neighborhood for a little while. Then he moves on to the city. He drives past the bar he met Keigo in, the school, Keigo’s agency. Rei’s crying starts to die down just as the fuel light comes on. Now their little adventure has a destination.
She’s sound asleep by the time Touya reaches the furthest gas station he could think of. Thinking he’ll be able to quickly fill the tank and leave, he rolls down the windows and leaves her in her car seat. He has no such luck. The card reader on the fuel pump is broken. He contemplates just going home and getting gas in the morning.
“Please don’t wake up,” he whispers, unbuckling the straps as if defusing a bomb.
Success.
Fortunately, there aren’t too many people in the small convenience store. After a quick detour to acquire Keigo’s favorite coffee, and a red bull for himself, he joins the small line to the register. Of course, now is when Rei decides to wake up. Her small chirps draw a few confused glances as he attempts to keep her calm. Swaying seems to help.
“Long night?” the cashier asks. Small talk is a welcome distraction.
“Yeah, sort of.”
“How old is she?” she asks as she scans the drinks.
“About two weeks now.”
“She’s adorable. Is there anything else I can get for you?”
The ride home is quieter than their adventure around the city. At first, she would chirp every few seconds. By the time they got home, Rei was silently asleep. She, fortunately, stays asleep as he gets her out of her car seat and back in the house. Touya’s only slightly surprised to find that Keigo had fallen asleep on the floor beside Kaya’s crib.
After setting Rei down in her crib, he moves to wake his husband. “Hey, you can’t sleep on the floor,” he whispers when tired gold eyes finally open. Keigo only grumbles and closes his eyes again. “The girls will be fine. Come on.” This time he gets an annoyed chirp. Progress. “I’ll carry you.”
“Don’ drop me,” he mutters, wrapping his arms around Touya’s shoulders.
The scarred pyro can’t help but chuckle. “Wouldn’t dream of it, pretty bird,” he assures.
“Are you okay?” Keigo asks as he’s carried back to their room.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You looked upset earlier.”
“It was just a bad dream then I heard the girls crying. I’m fine.”
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
“Maybe in the morning,” he suggests, setting Keigo down on his side of the bed, careful of the hero’s wings. “For now, just get some sleep. Okay?”
“Mm-kay,” he agrees.
He curls up with his head rested on Touya’s chest and is asleep in seconds. His partner, on the other hand, can’t bring himself to close his eyes. He’s afraid to go back to the nightmare. Staring at the ceiling and listening to Keigo breathe is more appealing than the fear that’s haunted his dreams for longer than he can remember. It seems like the nightmares have only gotten worse since they moved out of the faculty dorms and back into their own home.
Deciding that scary dreams aren’t worth sleep deprivation, he forces himself to close his eyes and think of something happy. Pleasant images fill his mind as he tries to sleep. His husband holding his daughters. Tomura smiling and laughing with his friends. Fumikage and Dark Shadow showing off a new move. His mother and siblings making up for lost time. New memories chase the old out of his dreams as he sleeps peacefully for once.