questioning; au

Even on normal, ordinary evenings like they were having, sometimes Lightning couldn't help but be amazed at the turn her life had taken over the years. Had someone told her years ago that she'd be married with a family, she would have thought they were crazy.

Though when she glanced at her husband and son, she figured that maybe it wasn't quite that crazy.

"Don't you have homework?" Hope ruffled Soren's hair, earning a squawk of protest from the teenager.

"Maybe," he replied with a little shrug. Hope and Lightning exchanged a smile over his head.

"Your father's right." When she didn't get an answer right away, she glanced over Soren's shoulder and noticed that he was thumbing through a magazine - probably something he'd gotten from his aunt, she gathered. "What are you looking at, anyway?"

Before Soren could answer, he'd turned the page and found himself staring at an advertisement - one for a brand of clothing or something, but he wasn't paying much attention to anything else except the man modeling it.

Lightning cocked her head slightly when she was met with silence, noticing the slight blush that'd formed on Soren's cheeks, but forgot about that for a moment when she noticed what he was looking at. "Hope…" she gestured towards her husband, "isn't this Noel?"

"Huh?" Hope was at their sides and picked up the magazine, staring at it for a second before laughing quietly. "Geez, how many years has it been? And he still looks exactly the same."

"Guess the modeling business is good for him." Lightning smirked a little, shaking her head a bit.

Soren's eyes had gone wide at the conversation. "You know him?"

"It's been ages since we've seen him, but yes, we know him." Light still looked rather amazed. "To think, we've known someone somewhat-famous all this time and have never known."

"Because he's terrible at keeping in touch." Hope chuckled under his breath and handed the magazine back to his son, who was blushing even more by the second.

"So, uh…" Soren's foot jiggled a little, "do you think you'll ever talk to him again?"

"Oh yeah, no doubt. Once I can, y'know, get a hold of him and all."

"Oh. Right. Yeah, that makes sense." There was an awkward pause, but eventually Soren cleared his throat and hopped out of his chair, leaving the magazine open to Noel's ad as he held it. "But hey, about that homework! Gotta get started on that and all."

Lightning glanced at him in silence for a second, taking in his embarrassed tone of voice and how he was still blushing. "….Okay. Let us know if you need any help."

"Will do." Soren sent his parents each a smile, glancing at the ad one more time and blushing like crazy before heading upstairs.

Hope and Lightning stared at his retreating back, then slowly looked at each other. She could immediately tell that they were thinking the same thing…a suspicion that had actually been budding for quite awhile.

He let out a breath and slid an arm around his wife, his thumb stroking the small of her back. "Are you thinking what I'm….?"

"Yeah." She leaned into him a bit with a quiet sigh. "I think he's still figuring it out for himself, though. And no matter what the outcome, it's not as though it changes anything."

"Of course not." Hope kissed the top of her head, a little relieved. "We'll just have to be there for him until it makes sense to him."

"Right." Lightning turned her head to give him a proper kiss. "At least until then…there's no question of who you like."

He grinned against her lips. "Love, you mean."

"Hn, that's right. Silly me."

Soren comes from an RP my best friend and I have been doing for two years. He appears in these oneshots sometimes ;)