[PRP] Parenting Styles (Liam and Renard)

[Silverah]

Even home didn't feel like home anymore. The condominium in Salem had been their sanctum for so long - purchased as soon as it was available, decorated exactly so - and now... the furniture had changed, chosen by someone with tastes just slightly off from Liam's own, the yellow couches turned neutral, the artwork moved about and traded. The fire was warm. He should have been cozy.

Instead, he turned towards Renard as he entered and said, "I think we might need to move back into the Shore House."

Sunny was there, but... that didn't seem like such a bad prospect. Maybe even a positive.

"I feel like a trespasser here. Someone moved all the cutlery around."

Shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I moved it back," said Renard. He hung up his coat and untucked his feet from his shoes. The cutlery was not in fact the issue. It was the opposite of the issue, but also emblematic of the issue, and in the end he supposed it might as well be addressed. "We could move," he told Liam, waving a hand to start the kettle boiling. The magic jumped to obey him, like it was thousands of years ago and not, in point of fact, a completely new cage.

He ought to tell Liam what he knew, he thought. But he didn't.

Settling onto the couch, he drew Liam into his arms. "What's bothering you, babe? Not the cutlery, surely."

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

"Thank you," said Liam, tucking his head up under Renard's chin. They had a good height difference for cuddling. You couldn't live thousands of lifetimes together without noticing these things. It really tested the relationship.

"It doesn't feel like home anymore," he sighed. "It feels like an Air BnB. I didn't pick these couches. I didn't pick these paintings. And I don't understand anything that's going on."

Renard had his magic back. The cage wasn't open but it wasn't properly closed, either. And Sunny was dead and alive all at once.

"Maybe we should move back into the Shore house," he suggested. "It feels more like home than here does."

Shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Renard slid his fingers into Liam's hair, tugged it gently. "You've said," he said, and then he said, "I don't want to move where she is."

He acted to defend her when she was endangered, but the idea of seeing her every day?... He loved her, in the awful abstract way that someone loved a memory of pain and degradation. He loved her but he didn't want to see her. Couldn't. "And I have no desire to put her out in the cold."

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam leaned away from Renard's touch and savored the pull. He wanted his family all under one roof, of course - and so did Sunny, in her strange new incarnation where she thought she loved her fathers. Where she thought her fathers loved her in a different way than they did. Where she was something different than the quiet melding of flesh and centuries spent anxious and pain and trauma and the ache of old wounds and inescapable irritants, sand under skin.

But there was Liam, caught between the two of them.

"We wouldn't have to," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "She's different now. You should go see her."

Shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I don't want to see her," Renard said. "I already--"

He didn't want to talk about that, so he shut up.

"I've done everything I can," he said, "Don't push me further, Liam."

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

"Never mind," said Liam softly, shaking his head. He knew when things were a moot point.

He'd just need to be sneakier.

"These paintings are awful," he said, indicating the wall. "Like Pier 1 clearance bin prints. If you're going to insist we stay here, we have to redecorate. We could take some of the Prividaniyes out of storage."

Shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I have the feeling that our counterparts didn't spend much time here," said Renard. He chivvied Liam's head back to his chest, pressed a kiss to his husband's dark hair. "I do insist," he said.

He twined his fingers into Liam's hair again, pulled his phone out of his pocket to check his emails. "We'll pull some Prividaniyes," he said. "I found the polaroids." Organizing them had always been Liam's prerogative. Renard was glad to hand them back over. "I don't know how to explain it," he said. "The... disinclination. Do you trust me to tell you when I'm ready?"

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Renard didn't need to explain the disinclination - he'd had it for millennia. For Liam, it had always been different. He hadn't given birth to Sunny. He was removed from the process in a way Renard could never be.

"Of course I do," he said, glancing at the empty space behind the dining room table. "I'll do the photographs this week."  

[shibrogane]

Renard was not inclined to let his husband wander off to do anything right now. They were alright. They were okay. Renard's meddling hadn't hurt anything: he'd just failed, which was more forgivable than not trying. Inaction was still an action, not choosing was still a choice, and he would see this through either way.

He took a deep breath. "Alright, babe?"

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

"Yeah," said Liam, biting his lip.

"I think I found a way out," he said. "One of the new principals. Shiloh. He came to my office. I think I can convince him to help us."

Shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"We're out," said Renard, who couldn't bear to listen to Liam speak as if they were still trapped. "We are. The one who's trapped now is--"

He took a deep breath. "I helped cast the sigil," he said. "I tried to direct it to the old spell knot, but there was only so much I could--too many of them wanted to focus their spell around Ascencion." Around his daughter, God damn them. "She's not caging us anymore. She's caged."

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

"What." said Liam, a look of sick realization flashing across his face. So much more made sense now... and yet his objectives hadn't changed at all.

"I can still get her out," he said. "A cage is a cage."

Shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I know," said Renard, and he kissed Liam's temple. "I'll help you. I know how the spell works."

Like old times, messing with the inherent forces of the universe again.

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam froze momentarily, a slight stutter in his movement as he settle back down against Renard's chest. "How..."

He bit his lip. "How did you convince them to let you have a hand in the casting?" he asked. "Do you think they would trust you enough to let you take it apart?"

Personally, he was proceeding carefully. He didn't know how else to.

Shibrogane