#ugh i am having so much fun with slightly gruff dadlux

[friendlylocalwhumper]

“I n-need help.” Rain-soaked clothes cling to his body where he shivers on the doorstep.

Just inside the doorway stands Emory, blocking the warm yellow glow of the Christmas tree with his body. His eyes widen but he stays tucked between the door and the frame. “Lux.” He wants to crouch down, scoop him up, carry him in. But there is something dangerous inside: a wonderstruck little girl fawning over all her presents in pretty paper and bows. A little girl who has no idea that anyone ever gets hurt, and who thinks her dad is away on a trip to pick up the best present of all for her.

“It’s Christmas morning,” Emory adds finally, face twisted with distress. He doesn’t know what to do. He can’t bring Lux inside, Penny can’t see him like this. But it’s so cold outside, and Lux looks like he’s in so much pain.

“...Need help,” Repeats the miserable warlock. “Just… g-get me to, to the side of the house, to hide. And then - and then - I can h-heal. I just…”

“You’re scared. Okay. Yeah, okay.” Swallowing his fear of ruining their daughter’s magical morning, Emory steps out into the rain. A chill runs down his spine when descending the two steps to the pathway reveals the bad angle of Lux’s leg. In a practiced motion he kneels and gathers his husband up into a better shape to guide him to his feet. Lux isn’t so thin anymore; he finally has enough muscle and dad-pudge to make his shoulders bigger and add some weight to him.

Besides, unfortunately, Emory knows that Lux can limp along on a broken leg without screaming.

The puddles complain with feeble splashes at being disturbed by dragging feet. The bricks on the side of the house catch them as Lux and Emory half-collapse together. The rough stone catches Emory’s knuckles and scores scrapes across the skin there as he protects Lux’s head without a second thought. They’ve fallen together enough times for him to see that coming.

The collision with the wall and muddy ground is finally enough to punch a sound out of Lux. It strikes Emory as horrifying that he was hesitant to come out and help when he hears that whimper. It sounds so different from how Lux’s sounds used to, like he was using a voice back in his twenties that the Hunter would be more entertained by. Letting his voice go high and cracked. Now, his voice is deeper, and that makes the soft, broken sound worse. Lux doesn’t sound like someone who makes pitiful sounds anymore.

“What happened, honey?” Emory asks softly as he checks on those shoulders first. The right one is just tense, the left one being touched makes Lux snap his head back against the bricks. He doesn’t scream, but it’s obvious that he needs to. Rain splatters across rapidly paling cheeks, droplets catching in his short beard that was just scruff a few days ago.

“Him. Just - a popped shoulder, uh, busted ribs, leg needs… you know.”

It looks exhausting for Lux to speak. A soft hand wrapped in band-aids cups his cheek as Emory leans in to tip his head down, their foreheads touching and the world seeming to close in comfortably around them. “Do you want to heal up, come in, get changed? She’ll be so happy to see you.”

It was supposed to be reassuring, but Emory can tell it came off as dismissive instead. Lux keeps his eyes closed and frowns deeper like he does when he’s holding back tears. “Yeah, I just… need a minute?” His voice cracks at the end. “Because I f-felt small again and I don’t feel like a dad right now.”

Their daughter inside the house, waiting on jumpy legs to finally get to open presents, weighs on Emory’s mind urgently like a stove left lit. But the Lux trying not to weep right in front of him is a concern more of the world-endingly devastating variety. Seeing Lux needing to cry always chokes him up, too, and it takes deliberate effort not to crack right now. “Okay, Curls. Take a minute. You’re home. Let’s get this shoulder healed first, what do you think? Make it hurt less so you can breathe.”

Lux’s staggered gasps stop for a second, and then comes a tense chuckle at the realization that he was struggling to get enough air around the agony. “You think, you th-think, fuck…” The curse comes in a practiced whisper to protect little ears. “Stupid, the stupid stuttering, I didn’t miss that.”

“It still happens when you’re stressed, sometimes.”

“Well I hate it a lot, a lot more when it’s because of him.”

Emory hums, whipping back tangled sopping hair that looks straight right now, but will be fluffy and curly once it’s dried out. “Just breathe and think of bed. The black blanket and the pillows. You can use your magic, it’s safe and we’ll be warm soon.”

A shuddery sigh comes at the guiding reassurances. With the deliberate calm and focus that comes, Lux allows blue-white light to blossom in his palms. His eyes blink open to squint toward the street, because as protected by the side of the house and the fence as they are, someone could drive by and see, and then…

“It’s safe,” Emory reminds, his hand on Lux’s cheek guiding him away from looking compulsively for danger. “Fix that shoulder. We have a few more minutes before she tears the presents to shreds, I think.”

That startles a laugh out of Lux, but at the same time his magic flares and dies out, his brows drawing up in upset. “He - he, Em, he tried to use - he tried to use her. Against me.” It’s all a whisper, a hoarse confession. Emory draws back in instant protective worry as he listens hard. Lux presses a hand to the ground and digs his fingers into the mud. “He made an illusion, a, he used magic on a box so when I opened it, I’d - her earrings were in there. I thought they were. I told him - I told him, I made sure he knew not to, not to ever come here, or even - he knows not to. Not to go near her.”

“We have to kill him. Get someone to. Move, we’ll have to move…”

“Em.” Lux looks like he wants to scream again, but more from emotion than pain this time. He remains quiet and weak against the wall. “There’s nothing else to do. He’s not coming close. I just - don’t try to - I don’t need…” Every raindrop that crashes into him is an assault on his senses. He can’t stand this kind of pain anymore, not when he has things to do. A family to pay attention to. When he was twenty it was fine to spend days curled up whining and crying, sleeping, wallowing. Now it feels like a waste of time to even explain what happened to Emory. “I made him sorry. Scared him. He erased my, made it so I couldn’t…”

It’s just a fact that the Hunter erased his memory of opening that gift, and that Lux found the mind magic in his own head and tore it apart to remember. Mentioning the assault on his mind is still hard, though, and he chokes on it.

“...Just. He knows not to, and I got out. I’m just s-, I’m - yeah. Scared. God, I miss being an annoying crying kid and Anders bullying me into taking a break.” A self-interrupting, chaotic sob-sigh, and he sinks further toward the ground. Impatiently he lifts a hand, summons that magic back to his palm, and heals the dislocated shoulder. He takes the joint thunking back into its socket like a punch to the gut instead of bone grinding on bone and nerves twisting unbearably. “Fuck,” He whispers again, as if mentioning Anders makes it impossible not to curse.

“Sorry.” Emory crouches close again, taking the liberty to adjust Lux’s broken leg so it’s closer to the core of his body. Lux is pale as a ghost but doesn’t complain, as he can finally reach the limb with his magic and pour some light into it. “Sorry, Curls. I know you didn’t ask for this. I know you… you can keep her safe.”

The warlock hums in agreement, then squeezes his eyes shut and raises his free hand to bite down on the side of it. Shaky breaths hiss out around the bite as his leg straightens and mends itself.

“H-hard to, to numb at the, same time,” He pants as Emory brushes his hair back.

“I know, honey. Come on, gotta get up.”

The puddle that they passed through earlier sloshes back out of the divot in the yard as they trudge through, and the front door opens with a squeak of complaint.

There is a tremendous racket of clinking glass, crumpling paper, and what sounds suspiciously like a pine tree knocking back against a wall. Penny comes running out into the hall with pine needles in her hair and a cloth snowflake ornament trapped in her sleeve. Her eyes go huge and round when she sees both of her dads, not just the one who stepped outside.

“Dad needs a break,” Emory says with quick, practiced ease before she can run in and hug Lux. “He fell down in the rain coming home! Isn’t that silly?”

“Daaaaaad,” Penelope complains and rolls her eyes, sending her whole head lolling back and her arms flapping once at her sides with the exaggerated gesture. “Ew.”

Lux tips his head down to see the mud they tracked in, and the growing puddle beneath them. “Ew,” He agrees, and smiles. It’s so warm in here, he almost wants to just sink to the floor and sprawl across it. “I’m gonna go take a shower get on my Christmas jammies. Then presents?”

The little girl stands still, suddenly, and clearly has a miniature crisis. “Yeah, uh - uh, Papa, you can, you can help, you can go help.”

Emory tips his head. “I don’t think Dad needs help with-”

Off she goes, unleashing a tornado in the living room to try to clean up and hide the evidence of her sneaky present opening.

#dad lux and dad emory are so cute #it's so messy and heavy how they try to keep penny protected #make sure she doesn't know about torture and mind magic and death #it involves a lot of lying and hiding aches #but they work so hard for her to has a safe spoiled happy life #and lux would be devastated if he didn't even get to come home from the hunter #without ruining her childhood and her special christmas morning #ugh i am having so much fun with slightly gruff dadlux #mine #lux #emory #penny #broken bones