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3am Challenge Day 5
Prompt: #7 - Family Consciousness (800 words)
Song: Owl City - Fireflies

Characters: Narcius/TrapMaster, Rod the Bladestar, Axel, Demyx, Kairi, unnamed parent OCs

Based off Thicker Than Water (AdoptiveFamily AU)

(dedicated to ninemelodies~)

Narcius likes looking out his kitchen window at the three children running through the yard, at two boys wearing bed sheets like capes and a tiny wine-haired girl laughing like she's never been sad as she chases them with a plastic fairy wand.

Narcius smiles so his teeth show just past his lips and chuckles to himself, feeling something warm spread throughout his body. He isn't religious, but he does offer a soft 'thank you' up at whatever gods may exist. This rag-tag family, pieced together out of the unloved and sewn into something bright and beautiful is perhaps the most precious thing in his life.

Out in the yard someone shrieks happily as the chase continues.

Axel doesn't know that Kairi has been adopted, isn't really his blood sister; none of them is old enough to be told this. But despite the fact that their genetics hold no similarities the two have been inseparable since Axel first laid eyes on his new little sister. He'd immediately proclaimed himself her protector and swore a silent oath to be the best big brother ever. Though he was only four at the time and only barely old enough to have permanent memories. The oaths of children, born from love, are steadfast and strong.

Years from now, when Kairi finds her birth certificate somewhere in their dad's office and sees that her real last name is not the same Narcius' but rather "Uncle" Rod's, she will not be upset. Axel will still love her, will still wrap his arms around her and remind her that he is and always will be her brother, and the two of them will share a tearful smile. Nothing will change between them, nor will it change between them and the adults of their family – other than Kairi suddenly having two dads instead of a father and an uncle.

Why should they be upset, after all? Kairi isn't the only one who has been brought into the family from outside.

Demyx may not have the same red-hued hair that his siblings have, may look nothing like the rest of them because he wasn't descended from an East Heaven heritage, but he is family nonetheless. Unlike Kairi, Demyx remembers having different parents, remembers the day Narcius brought him home and the day Axel made him the same promise he had once made Kairi so many years before. And though Demyx has no basis for comparison because he had no siblings while with his original parents, he would have to say that Axel has kept that promise.

Demyx is the rescue, the once abandoned that has now fitted himself snuggly in between his miss-matched sibling as the middle child. No one thinks about his past. Though it is known that he isn't Narcius' by birth, it is never spoken of, never acknowledged. Now that he is there with them it seems unreal to remember a time before their home was his as well. It's almost as if those memories are false because Demyx has always been there with them, the second child out of three, and this odd warping of the time stream is helped along by how easily Rod and the rest of Axel and Kairi's extended family accepts him. He is treated no differently from the other two and it is something that makes him smile each night, as he is lulled to sleep by the sound of his brother breathing in the bed across from his.

Out of all of them, though, Kairi is probably the wisest. Like Axel before her, it took no more than a moment for her to adamantly attach her heart to Dem's. Her love is fierce and loyal and her understanding unfathomable. She knows Dem was hurt before. She knows but doesn't ask him about it and does her best to draw him pictures to make him smile. She knows that Axel remembers their mother. She was still too young when Narcius's divorce went through and so only has fleeting mental images of a woman with hard eyes to put to the word "mom."

Though when she discovers that Axel's mother is not her mother and that her real mother died in childbirth, causing Narcius to take Kairi in because Rod's grief was too great, she harbors nothing but relief. Axel has bad memories of the woman that birthed him and Kairi will find herself secretly grateful that she is not required to love a woman that caused her brother such sadness. She turns that love instead toward Rod two-fold to make up for the years she didn't know him for who he was.

Tag ends with Narcius calling them in for dinner as a grinning Rod peeks over his shoulder, having stopped by to join them.

For now, time is irrelevant.