Ender smoothed his fingers over the fabric. Leaning in, tears flooded his eyes when he didn’t find the scent that had once lingered, only his own. “No…no, that’s not right!”
Hissing, he yanked it out, pulling apart his work. As Ender shoved it to his nose, he breathed in again and again, trying to find what he was looking for, before letting out an angry scream when he didn’t. His gaze was drawn to a pair of pants, and he shakily tugged them out, bursting into tears when, once again, he found nothing but his own scent.
“Ender!?”
He looked back sharply, his eyes narrowing on Soren. Grabbing the first discarded shirt, he tossed it at his brother’s face, yelling. “IT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!”
Ender looked back at his sad, pathetic nest, made up of pieces of clothing, fabrics, even just fluff he’d siphoned from pillows, that he’d weaved together in an almost basket-like shape, and he started crying harder. “N-none of it is right—ah!”
Soren let out a soft sigh,smiling as he slowly approached and sat on the bed beside his now four month pregnant little brother. “Come here, Ender.”
The Gorgon took a shuddered breath, before glancing back, glaring accusingly at him as tears waterfalled down his face.
He opened his arms and repeated, “Come here.”
Ender glared harder, before further devolving into a sobbing, crazy mess. “It’s. Not. Right!”
When he had told Ender he should tell the two sperm donors, he hadn’t even considered how the Gorgon would react to the fathers not being nearby. The memories of why it was best they were there had been shaken free rather quickly, as Ender’s mood had swung further into unhinged.
Chuckling softly, he tugged his brother to him. Ender lightly smacked his chest as he pulled him into his arms, before the snake just plopped fully against him and clung on as he wailed.
He ran his hand up and down Ender’s back. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out, I promise,” Soren rasped.
“We won’t!” the Gorgon sobbed.
He tsked and sighed—ah…fuck.
It really would only get worse from here. Soren knew that for a fact. Yet, he still found himself hesitating. He didn’t want to go behind his brother’s back about this, but…it would come to that eventually. Mainly, as he was now distinctively remembering just how much worse it would get.
No matter how hard his deceased brother-in-law, Coop, had tried to stop it from happening, there were times the Cryptid had no choice but to be away for extended periods while Ender was pregnant. Most of the time, the Gorgon had managed to come back quickly, or at least, when he couldn’t, it had been early enough in the pregnancy that they’d hadn’t had to worry. There had been a few times, however, where shit had hit the fan. The worst being when Cooper had been gone for a month while Ender had been pregnant with Nyla.
The multiple meltdowns, and mainly just the murderous depression it had spiraled into, kind of made Soren more inclined to ignore what the paranoid loon said he wanted. And he likely would end up doing just that…but not yet.
One more month. He’d give it one more month.
Soren looked up when Zenny hesitantly walked in. “Is…Is he okay?”
The kid was incredibly mature for his age, and honestly, that hurt his heart just a bit. He hated to think what else the Cupid had experienced before finding himself sold to traffickers.
Ender popped up from his chest, still blubbering as he reached for the kid. “Zen-Zen!” the man whined. “My nest is wrong!”
The kid let himself be dragged into a hug, Zenny patting Ender’s back. “It’s okay, I’ll help you fix it.”
“You will?!”
“Yes.”
Ender pulled back, squishing Zenny’s face between his hands. “You are such a good kid!” The Gorgon whimpered, his bottom lip trembling, before bursting into tears again.
Zenny met his gaze over Ender’s head, the kid’s eyes wide with alarm as the snake pulled him back into a hug. Ender was now just bawling, mumbling something, but it was not coherent in the least.
Instead of explaining that his brother had likely just gotten sad about Zenny’s history, Soren shrugged and simply said, “Hormones.”
Killian satdown at his desk, freshly showered from training on the third floor, and paused on noticing a file on his third screen that should not be there. He tapped his fingers on his desk, before typing away and doing every check possible to make sure he wasn’t about to embed a breach further onto his system.
As he pulled up the code source…he laughed on instantly recognizing it as Ender’s work, rolling his eyes as he found the backdoor the Gorgon would have set up if he’d just clicked it—sneaky snake.
Though, with how easily he found it, it likely wasn’t a real attempt, just the man having fun. After thoroughly disarming it, and ensuring no damage would occur, Killian opened the file, smiling brightly as he read the one and only line of text.
