Gaius already regretted taking in the kids as their own. It wasn't as if he totally hated the idea of children, or that he disliked Gwendolyn and Ellery in particular. He simply thought that children deserved loving parents who'd strive to take care of them, not some adolescent nut jobs that still had their own emotional baggage to sort out.

And it wasn't a knock on Henry's mannerisms, either. Gaius admitted he was as clueless about raising a family as Henry was, and so between either of them, they were both terrible choices. Henry, for his love of the macabre and his bluntness, and Gaius, for his selfish tendencies and materialism. Those weren't good qualities on their own, and so they were even worse when used as a measure for guiding children.

The morning following their rescue, Gaius hit up Robin in their usual tent, and explained the situation at once. "I dunno where to put 'em, so if you have any ideas, I won't object."

"I appreciate you coming to me on this matter. Those traffickers weren't—that wasn't an easy thing to do," Robin said bleakly. "However, and I hate to be the one who says this, we don't exactly have a place for them to stay. They're not trained soldiers, like Lucina and the other future children are, and the barracks are no place for people their age."

Gaius said nothing, as he mostly agreed with these statements. However, he didn't like the tone in Robin's voice, and kept himself as neutral as possible when asking, "Then what do we do?"

"I suppose we could see if the next town has any takers, or any idea of where the next orphanage might be. Otherwise, it'd be impossible for them to stay here—unless you or Henry consented to being their official caretakers."

Gaius had no intention of doing such, but the same couldn't be said of Henry. He fell in love with the little brats ever since he first laid eyes on them, and the fact that one of two children was adept in lethal magical arts wasn't helping, either. In the end, it all depended on Gaius, and how much shenanigans he was willing to put himself through either way.

He sighed, and turned on his heels before Bubbles could analyze him further. "In that case, there's not much of a choice. I won't keep you any longer."

Even as he left, Robin couldn't fight the smile creeping onto their face, all-knowing and quite pleased with the outcome.

.

.

Henry woke up early in the morning (exactly fifteen minutes after Gaius rose) and the first thing he did was check up on the kids. He left them in Maribelle's care, but he knew that she had more pressing matters to deal with than children, and that her kindness was a commodity that needed to be distributed, rather than shared.

Thankfully, he parted the tent flaps to a happy sight: Maribelle, running an expensive-looking brush through Gwendolyn's hair, Gwendolyn seated obediently on the bedroll, and Ellery cross-legged on the ground, scanning through a beginner's tome to fire spells. The second Henry appeared, however, the boy seemed to have forgotten the book entirely as he leapt to his feet, and threw himself into his arms. "Henry!" he cheered. "You came back!"

He hesitated for a moment, stunned, before running his hands through the child's hair in unfamiliar motions, but attempting to replicate what he believed to be a comforting gesture. "I did! What, you thought I'd just leave you guys? Puh-lease, that would make me no better than those baddies that locked you up!"

"Henry," Maribelle warned, her regal voice outfitted in sharp edges. "You'd do well to remember they are mere children, and so your typical comments should be filtered around them, if nothing else."

Gwendolyn's face flashed with fear. "Actually—"

"It's fine," El muttered as he pressed his face against Henry's stomach. "I like the way he talks."

"No, Maribelle is right," Henry conceded. His voice was his own, and yet something about his cadence differed from usual. If Maribelle had to guess, she'd say it was fondness. "I should...be more careful around you two. I'm kinda new to this, too, so what say we help each other out and stuff?"

"And stuff," Gwen repeated dumbly, perfectly still as Maribelle brushed out the last strands of her hair. She kicked her legs back-and-forth, nodding in agreement. "I wanna help."

"Me too!" El said, despite not really knowing what he can help with. "Uh, we can read books for you? I know how to tie boot laces. Gwendolyn also knows how to garden, since Mama let her help."

"Is that so?" Henry glanced over at the girl, smiling wide enough until her expression matched his. "Well, you're as good as any old certified Shepherd! Hell, if you can manage your sugar intake, you might even be better than Gaius—"

"Unlikely," Gaius piped up, voice permeating the space upon entry. "But nice try, Junior."

"Gaius!" Gwendolyn jumped down from the bedroll (causing Maribelle to call out "Hey!" in a clipped voice) and dived into his arms. He held onto her effortlessly, and spun her around several times, eliciting pure laughter. "You came back!"

"Of course I did," Gaius answered, in a reverie not too different from Henry's just then. "If I left you alone with this guy, you'd be done for."

"Not true." Henry pouted. "Weren't you the one saying that we shouldn't watch them, by the way? What do you call this?"

He waved at the way Gwen's little hands clasped together at the small of his back, face buried into the pit of his stomach. She was taller than her brother but still short, as Gaius could count every last strand of hair poking out from her head. He entertained himself with the idea, before patting her head softly, congratulating her on some unknown job well done.

If Henry had to guess, he'd suspect it was to reward her bravery and her sheer will to stay alive. But he said nothing in place of his thoughts.

Maribelle sighed, no longer willing to be the fifth wheel in this conversation. "The children are fine, medically speaking. They should be good at doing whatever it is children do at this time. I take it that the two of you are responsible for taking care of them from here on out?"

Henry didn't answer right away. He was aware of Gaius' trepidation at the thought, and knew that Gaius found the idea to be ridiculous. They were inexperienced at life outside of battle and desperate ways to stay alive, so rearing children should have been the last thing on their agenda. But maybe it was the sight of bright red flames, licking the walls of inner tunnels and burning flesh, that made them reconsider. Or maybe it was the way the children clung to them so fervently, desperate to have someone strong and dependendable to look up now that their parents were gone.

It was definitely the way Henry looked to Gaius, eyes openly pleading for this to happen.

Gaius didn't hesitate. "That's right," he said. "Leave the brats to us."

.

.

Not for the first time, Henry was completely unbothered as he guided Ellery to his tent. Given his and Gaius' lack of parental experience, they decided that they were better off splitting the work between the two of them, therefore it was easier separating the kids for now. At first they hesitated—El was wide-eyed at the thought of being apart from Gwen, and Gwen was too terrified to speak—but after the promise of reuniting often ("It's mostly for sleeping," Henry explained carefully. "The tents aren't big enough for more than two people, and we can't leave the two of you by yourselves!") they were convinced to temporarily go their separate ways.

Naturally, the magical one went with Henry, and the levelheaded one went with Gaius.

Though perhaps it should have been the other way around. "Welcome to the House of Henry!" he said to Ellery as they arrived at his tent. Most of the camping supplies were all the same, but Henry differentiated his abode from the others with a string of jet-black feathers attached to one of the stakes holding the tent down.

There were also suspicious dark colors staining the canvas, but Ellery was too scared (and too distracted) to ask about them. They headed inside, and Henry immediately offered to sleep in the same bedroll as Ellery, seeing as there was only one cot for them to use.

"Is that okay with you?" Henry asked as he gently squeezed at Ellery's hand. "If it's not okay with you, I can just sleep on the ground while you take the bed."

"N-No," he replied weakly. "I don't like sleeping alone. Please...share with me."

"If you get any cuter than this," Henry warned, "then I might literally eat you."

Ellery jumped into the bed and pulled the sheets over his head. "Don't eat me!"

Henry laughed and sauntered over, delicately pulling at the blankets. "It was a joke, silly! I'd never eat you. That is cannibalism, El, and it's frowned upon in today's society."

"C-Can a bull...what?" He poked his head out from the blanket cocoon, and scratched at his ears. "You won't eat me, right? I don't taste good!"

Actually, I'd beg to differ, but— "No eating you," Henry swore. "I promise."

Ellery relaxed, and wrestled with the blankets before shrugging them off. "Okay, sorry. I know Gwen is better at talking than I am."

"True, but you can cast magic." Gaius wasn't there at the moment to scold him, so nothing stopped Henry as he blurted out: "Hey, maybe I should teach you some more magic!"

He half-hoped that Ellery would refuse, but instead his little green eyes lit up like fire, and his smile spread like an infectious disease. "Yes, yes, oh yes, please! I wanna learn more magic!"

Gaius still wasn't there, and so no one advised Henry to reel back his own excitement as he said, "Perfect! How about I train you in my spare time, in between battles and meals and stuff? I have plenty of books and we can start off small."

"Okay. I can read," El reminded proudly, chest puffed out as he tried to look bigger than he was. "I'll read anything you give me."

A vague thought surfaced in Henry's mind: is this how Ailah felt when his magical capabilities manifested for the first time? She certainly did her best to train him, especially given the fact that she was a completely different species than he was. Unlike back then, though, Henry knew the extent of his powers, and he knew a large arsenal of spells beyond the accidental cast of panicked energy.

This was his first time taking on an apprentice, and yet the act itself did not feel strange. He wouldn't know what to call it, but most others simply accepted moments of familiarity as something like home.

He just smiled and nodded, instead. "Then let's get started, shall we?"

.

.

Not for the first time, and Gaius had to clean up someone else's mess. It was his specialty, after all, dealing in the acts considered too blackhearted by the others. Assassination, reconassaince, misdirection—Gaius did anything if it meant helping the Shepherds, or helping out good folks once in a while.

Taking in a snot-nose under his (tented) roof was no different, though he wished the circumstances were different. He could only imagine what torture poor Ellery was going through, so the least he could do was spare his sister from the same fate.

Easier said than done, when the moment they entered the threshold, her face fell into the deepest frown he'd seen on her. "It smells sweet," she said. "Is it supposed to smell sweet?"

"Crivens. You noticed already?" Maybe Henry wasn't wrong all that time ago, when he said he could smell the cavities coming out of Gaius' tent. Was it really so bad? "I like sweets, so I keep a stash of 'em around. If you and El are good, I'll even help you guys to some of it."

Gwendolyn's eyes sparkled at the prospect, but no sooner had the shine come, so had the storm. "N-No, you don't have to," she quickly amended. "I don't need sweets. I'm a grown-up."

He raised a brow, and set his things down to the side. Then he hopped onto the bedroll, and invited Gwendolyn to do the same. "Really? So you don't want any sweets whatsoever?"

She seated herself next to him without any hesitation, although looked rather annoyed at his redundant question. Arms crossed, she harrumphed. "None whatsoever."

"Not even bon-bons?"

"No bon-bons."

"So I guess that also means no pies," he said with a hint of a smile. "The kinds I make with honey and whipped cream and pecans on top."

Gwen's guarded look lessened somewhat as she considered this. "That's—"

"Or what about taffy? Salt-water taffy that tastes like orange and lemon zest. Or candied apples, fig cakes, spiced cinnamon muffins and blueberry scones." Her mouth hung open at his tantalizing offer, and he grinned wider as he continued on with his list of confections. "Cream puffs, popcorn, fried dough with powdered sugar. And those little—"

"I-I don't need those," Gwendolyn insisted, shakily. "Those are all for babies."

"Or what about chocolate?"

She gasped. "Chocolate?"

"Yeah, chocolate. Chocolate by itself, chocolate ice cream, chocolate icing on cakes and—" a funny thought crosses him, one he wishes Henry could hear as he says it— "honeybuns. Even liquid chocolate, if you wanted it."

Her lower lip was shaking. "I...like...chocolate…"

"Me too," Gaius agreed. "But if you're too much of an adult, we can just forget about it. I'm sure with our resources, I could cook up a nice steak or something. Toss you kids a salad. I don't see why—"

"If I'm really, really good, do you promise to give me some chocolate?" Gwen's voice was barely above a whisper, as this inquiry required an incredible amount of pride to be summoned. "Promise?"

"If you guys are really good, then you can have all the chocolate I can scrounge up for miles. I promise."

"I'll do it, but only if you promise to let El have some, too."

Always concerned about him, huh? Must be nice to have a sister like you. "Sure, I don't see why not."

Gwen nodded, and drew her knees up on the cot. "Okay, that's fine. So, what should I do now that I'm here?"

Gaius hoped the talk of sweets would distract from the real issue, which was that he had no idea where to put a kid except away. Still, he allowed this to happen, and so the least he could do was see to it—see to her—properly. "Well, you'll stay here for the most part. I'm usually busy fighting, or stealing, or doing something important, so I can't always be here. I guess we just have to find you something to do."

"I can read," she reminded him. "I was the top of my class."

"I haven't forgotten," he reassured. "I guess I could borrow some books from the others. Though, I can't imagine you'll be pleased just reading for the rest of your days."

She bit her lip. "Well, I wouldn't, but I can deal with it."

Yeah, but you'd been dealing with too much already. It's time to more than settle, Gwen.

It's time to enjoy.

"It's not much, but I can teach you some skills, if you'd like. I'm not magical like Henry, but I do know my way around a lock, a kitchen, a smithy—if there's something you wanna do with your hands, I can help you do it."

Her eyes were the sea melting into the horizon, illuminated by the stars in the sky, pinpricks of light on her lashes. "Really? Do you mean it?"

"I mean it."

"I like jewelry," she said. "Our father used to work in a crafts shop. He made the ring he used to propose to our mother by himself."

His stomach twisted into knots at the mention of two people he couldn't save. Of course, at this point in time, no one could've saved them, but he didn't like the idea as it settled into his skull at her admission. "Right. Well, if it's jewelry you want, it's jewelry you'll get. I'll nab some stuff and we can start working whenever you're ready."

Her eyes were big, still.

Gaius sighed. "Unless you're ready right now?"

"Yes!" she screamed, then realized her outburst and looked sheepish. "I mean, yes, that would be very good Mister Gaius."

"Mister?" His face scrunched up. "No need for that. Just call me Gaius, and we'll be peachy-keen, Gwen."

"Gaius," she repeated. "Okay. Please teach me something right now, if you can, Gaius."

And it was that exact moment in time, when Gaius said "Okay," without thinking even really about it, that he fully understood why Henry wanted to take care of the children themselves.

Their smiles were too true to pass up.

.

.

Routines were set. Henry and Gaius were busy like anyone else, but whenever they had free time, they dedicated it to their charges. Henry and Ellery practiced spellcasting, while Gaius and Gwendolyn tried their hands at handicrafts. They spent hours in their tents, talking over the material, with the adults demonstrating bits of their expertise to the children's wide, dewy eyes.

At meals, the four of them united, and other times the siblings couldn't bear to be alone anymore, so Henry and Gaius watched them play in the nearby forests with something like content in their eyes. They did their best for them, even if their priority was the war and all the destruction it brought.

On one particularly sunny day, the four of them sat outside of the mess hall instead of in it, as they basked in the rays while gorging on their soup.

Gwen and El were so scrawny and filthy back then, it was hard to believe they were the same kids now, glowing and curious. "You smell, Gaius," Gwen said.

His face turned sour and he dared to sniff. While he wasn't the cleanest Shepherd by any means, Cordelia had a way of convincing him otherwise, and it helped that Henry's gross behaviors sparked a fire in him—one that promised to keep himself together so he could set an example for someone that badly needed one. Yet somehow, her words cut him at his core. "Well, that's rotten business. I bathed in the river only yesterday."

"I don't mean you stink," Gwen corrected herself. "Everyone has a smell."

Henry abandoned his empty soup bowl (Gaius still had trouble convincing him to eat more than one serving of food on occasion, but no longer worried about the boy starving himself for whatever reason) at once, eyes as blue as Gwen's as they sparkled in delight. "Can you explain?"

Ellery smiled softly as he picked apart a slice of bread methodically, waiting at his sister's behest. Though Gwendolyn was confident in her words, having all the attention on her made her shy, and she averted her eyes. "Well, I'm not sure, but I've always been able to identify people by their smells. There are different kinds, but same categories," Gwen said, emphasizing the latest word she'd learned from Henry's books. "You smell like autumn."

Autumn? Gaius was born in the winter, but he personally didn't identify himself with either season. Though if autumn was a person—if fallen leaves of crimson and gold, sweaters that reached up over the neck, crisp winds that were too cold or mornings that were too hot, and the smell of fruit and freshly baked goods had been linked to someone else—he figured it'd be Henry. Or maybe even Robin, with their seasoned brain and whirlwind of secrets and thoughts that he could never know. Hell, even Anna was a better autumn than he was.

Before he could protest, Gwendolyn explained further. "Lots of people smell like autumn, but not the same kind of autumn. You aren't leaves or wind, but something else. Cinnamon, sugar, apples. You also smell like the forest, and rain."

"Is that so?" Gaius left his thoughts unanswered as he finished a second helping, slowly. "Don't tell me you see things, too."

She shrugged. "Depends on what things."

"Do you see colors around other people?" Henry's voice was so serious, Gaius almost didn't recognize it.

Gwendolyn appeared equally shocked at the question, but did her best to answer. "Yes, sometimes. El is red, but sometimes he's green. And Gaius is orange. Henry, you're—"

"Black? Blue? Indigo? Ooh, or gold?"

She folded her arms on the table, and stared at him long and hard. "Yes and no."

"Wait, it can be both?" El spoke up quietly, eyes widened at the possibility of something being yes and no; true and false.

Gaius shook his head. "It's, uh, more complicated than that. Gwen, you were saying?"

"Henry, you're many different colors. Most people are one, and few people are two. I've never seen someone with three or more. But you are—" she squinted at him, as if that helped her see him better— "always changing. Like a rainbow. Like a…"

"Kaleidoscope?" he offered.

"What's that?" Gwen and El asked at the same time, wearing matching expressions.

Henry felt around his pockets and frowned. "Darn, I think I lost my only one in the last battle. If I ever find it, I can show you. But I understand what you mean! You're saying that I'm a big mess of colors, right? And I'm never the same color at once?"

Happy that he understands, Gwen nodded. "Yes!"

Gaius was sure that Henry's intuitions were leading him somewhere magical—that even though El has the affinity for casting magic, Gwen is magical in her own special way—and he knew that conversation would be out of his league. Yet he understood that Gwen meant to say Henry was special, and Gaius knew that the moment they first met. The colors of himself—the rainbow-kaleidoscope pattern Gwen claimed him to have—were varied and beautiful, and never stayed put as long as Henry himself continued to move.

Gaius had seen Henry's eyes when no one else did. Now, as Henry continued to have them open more regularly, he appreciated the knowledge that came with their ever-changing irises, a detail that required a certain amount of time spent looking in his eyes.

Underneath the table, he squeezed Henry's hand, and was comforted by the mutual force received from his bony fingers.

Familiarity at last.

.

.

They talked about more things, like El's "smell" ("Summer," Gwendolyn had said, "like the storms and sand and fire, but not sweat.") or what the kids had been up to. Ellery mentioned his magic training, a topic which received a pointed expression from Gaius, while Gwendolyn talked about her new projects. Other than jewelry, she also asked Gaius to teach her how to pick locks, or tie knots. The lockpicking was difficult, she said, but so fun. The two of them were lost in their own little world for some time.

Then Henry was called upon by Frederick, who had played messenger on Robin's behalf. It wasn't the first time the man went out of his way for them, but his usual stony expression softened as he gazed upon the siblings, who were giggling and squealing with untold delight.

"That's my cue," Henry told them. "I'll see everyone later, okay? Goodbye kisses from lil' Ol' Henry." He started with Ellery (who squealed and turned a beet red), then moved to Gwendolyn (who tried to dodge him but her smile indicated she rather liked it), and finally stopped at Gaius. Though instead of kissing him, he reached out to ruffle the hairs on his head. "Bye, Honeybuns. Try not to miss me so much."

He rolled his eyes. "I can't miss you if you never leave, right?"

A cackle in response. "Right."

Once he was gone, Gaius looked back to the siblings, and found that Ellery had gotten a book from somewhere and was completely absorbed in it.

Gwendolyn, on the other hand, stared at him with rapt attention. He decided that her eyes were really too blue, but he didn't fault her for something out of her control. "You know, I told El about this before, but I forgot to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"What Henry smells like."

Gaius couldn't fight the smile on his face if he tried, so he didn't. "Can I guess what he smells like? I know him pretty well, y'know."

She brightened at the prospect of this guessing game. "Okay, what does he smell like?"

"Parchment paper and silk," Gaius began. "Like flowers, but maybe the dead kind. He smells bittersweet—caramel that's just about to burn. And the sand and the sun and grass. Oh, and like dirt, probably because of all the animals he hangs out with."

Gwen gaped, dumbfounded. "That's...almost completely right."

He beamed, but remembered her words. "Almost? What am I missing?"

"The part about snow," she insisted. "Henry is snow and ice, the smell of frost and pine in the forest. He smells like iron—" like blood, she wanted to say but didn't— "and old books. He smells cold."

"Cold?"

"Well, he's winter, after all."

And Gaius thought a lot of things about Henry. He thought he might be summer, because of Plegia and its warmth, or because of the way he smiles so blindingly (both fake smiles and real ones, though Gaius prides himself on knowing the difference) at any given thing. He thought he might be spring, too, with his infectious jokes and feverish pace. Or the way he was so attuned with nature, with plants and animals and most things non-human. Before he also figured that autumn was a good fit, too, because Henry looked like the type of person to live in sweaters and cold winds and nowhere else, but his hot-blooded veins said otherwise.

Only now, at Gwendolyn's insistence, did Gaius realize Henry was winter all along: cold ice permeating the earth, blizzards so strong they shut you out, snowfall drifting slowly, slowly, like the flakes were never meant to touch the ground. Wolves running wild in the frosted tracks of the woods, while blackbirds spread their wings and took flight—escaping from a frozen wasteland in search of warmth. For years, Henry locked himself in a prison of ice, and it took the changing winds and a change of heart to even melt the first barrier down to water.

The connections were made clear, and Gaius felt foolish for not understanding sooner. "You're right," he finally said to her. "He's winter, for sure."

She grinned. "I'm glad you understand. I...I never actually told our parents about the things I smell, or the things I see."

Ellery, who was genuinely engrossed by his book up until this point, winced at the mention of their parents. He tried to look distracted, but Gaius knew he hung onto every word his sister said.

He pretended not to notice as he spoke to his sister. "How come? I'm sure they would have understood if you had explained it to them."

She shook her head. "...Our parents never liked magic much."

El stood up at once, shutting his book closed. "I'm—I'm sleepy," he said. "I'll go back to Henry's tent and take a nap. Bye."

Gwen stared at him with an expression that could only be described as hurt. Gaius would have to comfort her later, he knew, but for now he did nothing as she simply nodded. "Okay," she muttered. "Bye, El."

He kept his gaze on her for a few seconds longer before turning to leave. Gaius had thought to at least escort him, but Henry's tent was visible from where they were sitting, and he kept his eyes locked on the boy until he disappeared behind its flaps.

Once it was just him and Gwen, he lowered his voice down considerably. "Your parents didn't like magic? Did they know about El?"

She shook her head. "No, they didn't. And before you guys found us, we really didn't know ourselves. But…"

"But?"

Gwen chewed on her lip, and curled a strand of brown hair around her hand, clenching it into a fist. "There was an accident, I heard. El's old mom died a year before our parents got married."

"What happened to her?" Gaius asked, though he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

Gwen never broke eye contact with him as she spoke. "She burned to death."

And though he didn't say it, he couldn't blame the parents for distrusting magic as they did. It was a force beyond most people's control, which was why mages had to be so practiced to get where they were. But Henry was wild and untamed, even on his best days, and the thought of him practicing spells (dangerous, Henry-like spells) with an equally unpredictable Ellery left a bad taste in his mouth.

If anyone could tame the flames within the boy, however, then it'd have to be Henry.

"I see," he murmured. "Thank you for telling me. You don't have to mention these things if they hurt you, though. About your home, about your parents."

She nodded. "Okay. I won't, unless I really want to."

"Good girl," he praised her, and reached out to ruffle her hair, as Henry did to him earlier. Unlike Gaius, Gwen seemed to enjoy it, and giggled as he tangled her strands from left to right. "Okay, how about we get you back to the tent, where you can work on that lockpick while I go out and do some errands? Sounds good?"

"Sounds good."

"Great, let's go."

And the two of them were halfway to the tent, then all the way there as Gwen parted the flaps. She stopped short of entering it, though, and looked over her shoulder. "Gaius?" she asked.

"Yes?" He paused in mid-step, and turned to face her. "Something wrong?"

"Are you and Henry married, too?"

Thankfully, he wasn't eating or drinking anything, because his mouth went as slack as a sack of potatoes. "What, what, uh—what gave you that idea, kiddo?"

"The colors and smells that people have can spread," she said. "I can see it and smell it one surfaces, but only if they've been there recently. Our parents had mixed colors all the time when they were married."

"So—"

"You and Henry smell like each other," she insisted. "His colors are always changing, but you're orange. Sometimes, I see little hints of blue and purple. Those are from Henry." Her eyes sparkled at the thought of it. "Just like our parents were. So I was wondering if you guys were married, too."

"We're not," Gaius denied, quicker and sharper than he'd like. "But we are close, like your parents were."

Her nose scrunched. "Wait, so you guys, kiss and stuff?"

"Yes."

"Ew," she squeaked. "Cooties."

Thank the Gods and any other bastards above, Gaius thought. We don't have to have the talk until they're twelve, right? Or any other time except for right now? But it's not like Henry and I ever—

"Cooties for real," he agreed. "You're too young to think about that stuff, though, so don't worry yourself about it."

"Okay, I won't. I'll go work on the locks now."

"Great."

He left without fanfare, though Gwen's observations, silent as they were, remained clear for all to see.

Henry's winter is melting, they said, and it's all because of you.

.

.

It was evening of the same day when Gaius arrived at Henry's tent, greeting him with a kiss. The movement was sudden and passionate, enough that Henry stumbled backward and needed to hold onto Gaius for support. As soon as he had a hold of himself, however, he reciprocated with equal force, and a tiny laugh that escaped his lips as he went in for more.

Ellery screamed "Gross!" while abandoning his tome and covering his eyes. "Ew, ew, cooties!"

Henry laughed as Gaius pulled away, aware of himself and embarrassed. He turned to El with the world's most insufferable smile on his face. "Sorry, but you'll be seeing a lot of that. Gaius and I are dating, after all."

"I don't care what you guys are doing, it's gross. Ew, please don't do that in front of me, please don't, please don't kiss."

"Why don't you go with your sister—"

"Yes!" El agreed, even though Henry was going to say to spend the night with her, but his meaning was clear as day as the boy raced to grab his things. Henry's old tomes, shoved into a canvas bag Henry bought for him from the market, along with a hand-knit blanket that couldn't have been from Henry because Gaius knew Henry was awful at knitwork. From the stitches alone he figured it must have been from Maribelle, as cold as the woman pretended to be.

The boy had his things gathered and gave quick hugs good night to the both of them, but didn't dare look in their eyes. Then he was out of the tent faster than a line cook on fire, and Gaius would know as he'd been in that exact situation before.

Henry's tent was now vacant, and so the owner took a seat on the bedroll, patting the space next to him invitingly. "Did you come to kiss me or did you need something? Either way I'm not complaining."

"Of course you're not," Gaius muttered. He sat down next to him without hesitation. "I just wanted to see you. Spending time with the kids reminds me of all the time I'm not spending with you."

To this, Henry laughed. "Aw, Honeybuns. Don't get jealous 'cause I'm seeing other people now."

"That's disgusting."

"As in, literally seeing other people. They're little kiddos who need our help, y'know."

"I know."

Henry leaned back on his hands and hummed. "At least they're well-behaved. Cordelia's kid is a spitfire."

Gaius remembered Severa, and remembered her pitch black hair worn in twin-tails when they first saw her. He liked her gusto, but wasn't sure if he could handle the constant backtalk she was known for having. Though, there was over a decade between her and the siblings Gaius and Henry rescued, so he couldn't blame her for not being as innocent or wide-eyed as they were. "True. Though they're already stranger than any kid I've seen. The magic doesn't end with El, does it?"

"Nope~" Henry sang. "Gwen's sight is probably linked to aural readings, like being able to see the magic in other people. Though her sense of smell is totally weird and nothing that I've ever seen, so there's that."

You're melting his winter, a random thought accused Gaius. Just like she said.

If he gave her words any merit, Gaius didn't show it as he remained neutral. "You have a point, though I wonder if it's something she'll grow out of. And speaking of magic, I'm not sure it's such a good idea to train with El."

Henry frowned. "And why not?"

"Because it's—" dangerous, uncontrollable, with you he could get himself killed or worse— "not the safest option. You saw what he did to the bodies in the cellar, right?"

"And you remember how I was able to calm him down, right?" Henry's tone was more mocking than hurt, but Gaius sensed the intention behind his words all the same. "I'm not gonna let him burn down the place. I'm taking good care of him."

"I want to believe that, but—"

"But what?"

Gaius recalled the shadows that cursed Henry, those dark magic beings too strong and complex for his head to wrap around (though that didn't stop the darkness from wrapping around Henry, poisoning his mind and hurting others around him). He recalled the trafficking cellar, the countless blackened bodies that were set alight by Ellery's emotional instability—by his desperate wish to stay alive. He thought of the flames burning higher, and higher, until everything they worked towards was gone, and reduced down to ashes of their former glory.

He saw Henry's eyes, black as night, consumed once more by the monsters that live within him.

Yet he remembered his promise to help Henry through all of this, not hinder him or fear him as a monster would be feared. He remembered the way Henry cried after realizing he was so, so sad, and how Henry apologized for all he'd done—even if it was in a Henry-like way that was different from other people. Gaius remembered Henry smiling, for real, and how that smile was as bright as the sun and twice as electric. Or how Henry approached the children first, unafraid of their feral dispositions, trusting in what Gaius pushed away.

Gaius knew Henry, and Henry knew Gaius.

That was all it took for him to concede. "But nothing," he said. "You're right, I shouldn't be so worried. They're just so young, y'know? They're not even the first kids we've run into before, it's just that something about them makes me...squirmy."

He didn't expect Henry to understand. Instead, Henry nodded his head, and leaned on Gaius' shoulder as he sighed. "I get it. They make me want to protect them, too."

"Oh," Gaius said. Oh, Gaius thought. Oh, Gaius realized.

This was love, wasn't it? A different kind of love than his love for Henry, of course, but a strong love, nevertheless.

He silently took back every nasty thing he's ever said about the future children, and all the grief they carried with them.

It was more than he could ever understand.

.

.

Gwen and El spent the entire night talking to each other, and showing off the various things they'd learned. El summoned quiet balls of flame to accompany him (it took some doing, and Gwen flinched at the sight of fire, but they eventually grew accustomed to the sight), while Gwen demonstrated her ability to pick a lock open in under five minutes (but apparently good thieves can do it in seconds, and there are different types of locks—matters which she still had to discuss with Gaius).

Eventually, though, their talks drifted to stories. Henry, apparently, was very good at telling bedtime stories. El was afraid at first, afraid that Henry would talk about death or crows or flames that lick the heels of sinful little boys, but soon loved each fantastical tale he told about royalty, dragons, and buildings so tall they pierce the sky. El's favorite bedtime story was about a young boy and a wolf, and the adventures they went on together in a forbidden forest.

"Lucky," Gwen muttered. "Gaius sucks at telling bedtime stories." They were less of stories and more of gossip—tall tales about the other Shepherds, information passed between their scouts and spies. On the rare occasion he tried to make up a story, he repeated the same ones over and and over again, words Gwen had already heard from their late mother.

"Maybe you can sleep with me and Henry and he'll tell us a good story," El offered.

"Or maybe you guys come here and teach Gaius how to tell a good story," Gwen groaned.

In the end, the two of them talked their ears off, and Gwen was the first to fall asleep in the shared bedroll, eyes fluttering closed against the dim fire light El had cast. By the time he noticed his own sister had fallen asleep, El's fire smothered down to a candle's flame, and his mouth curled open in a big yawn. Then he dismissed the light altogether, drowning the tent in a quiet darkness.

He snuggled against her arm and sighed.

In their dreams, they reached the sky.

.

.

The night devolved quickly for Henry and Gaius. They talked about El and Gwen, then discussed the next morning's war council, a meeting that required both of them in attendance. Robin had learned a great deal, but they hadn't advised either of them on strategic matters in weeks. Perhaps it was because they learned that Henry and Gaius were good fighters, but not so good at thinking their way out of fights, given their history together.

After dwelling on the subject, the air between them grew still, and for the first time in a long time, Gaius felt awkward.

The thought of marriage hadn't left his head since Gwen put it in there, in the first place.

Yet it wasn't the first time Gaius thought about tying the knot, either. But who in their right mind gets married at a time like this? Except, y'know, almost just about everyone else. Literally. And who gets married after only a month or two of officially dating each other? Soldiers do, if they don't think they'll make it through. Libra officiated half of the marriages in the army—he'll do the same for you. What if Henry doesn't even say yes?!

But he would, the traitorous thoughts within Gaius assured. And he will.

"Gaius?" Henry spoke up, distracting him from his terrible thoughts yet amplifying them all the same. "Are you mad at me?"

"What? No." He glanced down at him. Henry had been totally still for the past fifteen minutes, silently leaning his head on Gaius' shoulder, that Gaius thought he'd fallen asleep. "Why would you think I was mad?"

"Because you get this weird look on your face when you're mad." Henry drew lines in the air with his finger, as if that helped to describe Gaius' expression just now. "Or when you're lost in thought, but it's hard to tell sometimes."

"Is my temper that bad?" Gaius was pretty sure he'd never been as angry in his life as he was with Henry, back at the start of their rocky relationship. Then again, he'd never felt anything so much in his life before Henry, either. "Sorry if I seem that way, but I'm fine."

"Okay, just making sure. Because I—"

"You make me happy."

Silence. Henry lifted his head from Gaius' shoulder to stare at him directly in the eye. "What?"

The words spilled out without warning, and Gaius mentally kicked himself for not filtering it out when he had the chance. Nothing he could do now except roll with it. "You make me so incredibly happy, I dunno if I could ever get mad at you again, unless you go out of your way deliberately, of course."

Henry smiled. "Is that a challenge? Because I love you lots, but I still know which buttons to press on the Gaius machine to make you mad. Then you'd hate me forever."

"Not forever," Gaius corrected with a similarly bright expression on his face. "I love you too much for it to last that long."

"Years?"

"Less than that."

"Months?"

"Still too long."

"Days?"

A thoughtful pause. "Depends on what you did."

"What if I told you that I was only dating you for the money?"

"Then I'd call you a damned fool because we both know I'm broke as hell."

They laughed together, and it was a harmonious thing. Henry's laughter had always been pitched, sinister, yet utterly childish. While the tones were still high and piercing, the sound was melodic, now—softer on the ears as Henry, himself, had gotten softer where it counted. And Gaius' laughter was usually reserved for snickers and chuckles, snide remarks that he made at the expense of others. Now his cadence was fuller, brighter, like champagne bubbling over the top of the glass.

They laughed together, and it felt like the first time.

Gaius stopped laughing ten seconds before Henry did, which was enough time for him to think about what he wanted to do next.

Henry's laughs disappeared between his lips, stolen out in sighs as Gaius reached over and kissed him. He kissed him hard enough that he stumbled—that Henry was thankful for the bed beneath them because otherwise he would have fallen over. He kissed him hard enough that Henry's lips screamed in pain, pushed against bone as Gaius dug deeper and deeper into him, bruising at his bitter touch.

Gaius kissed Henry hard enough to strain his eyes, so in the darkness that existed behind his eyelids, he saw stars.

When he pulled away, their faces were flushed, and Henry felt his whole body shake with adrenaline.

Gaius noticed this, and carefully peeled himself off, "I should get going," as he tried to clear his head.

Henry dragged him in closer, eliciting a yelp as Gaius staggered backward, and landed awkwardly on the bed. He sat up after falling, but was met with more passion as Henry leaned over and slammed his lips against his, disallowing him time to breathe, think, or do anything else except kiss him back.

As if he'd refuse him in the first place.

"Henry," Gaius gasped in between kisses. "Crivens, I can't breathe."

"That sounds like a good thing to me," Henry teased, not letting up one bit. "It's your fault for being like this, y'know. I can't help it."

Gaius wanted to laugh, if only it didn't burn his lungs to attempt. Instead, he let Henry get his fill, but during an opportune moment he slipped out from under his grasp, taking the lead from under him. "Me either," he muttered, words lost as they kept overlapping each other. Henry shrunk back as Gaius shadowed him, stealing his breath and controlling his lips with each hazardous move disguised as a kiss.

Soon enough, their hands wandered. For Henry, he grazed at the small of Gaius' back, before feeling his way up to his shoulders, and linking his hands together at the base of his neck. For Gaius, his hands trailed Henry's hips, going up his sides until they found his face, his hair, his neck.

He felt his pulse thrumming underneath his fingers, and on the rising beat, he dared to apply pressure—the slightest pressure intended to make hearts throb and mouths yearn— but stopped.

Henry choked back a fearful noise, and Gaius flung himself off at once.

He stared in horror as Henry sat up, hands trailing over where Gaius' hands had once been, revealing a line of bruises underneath his high collar that he'd never seen before.

On second thought, they weren't bruises, because Gaius didn't touch Henry in a way that would bruise (at least not on his neck).

They were scars and Gaius felt his heart plummet, all the warmth in his body turning ice cold. "Henry, I-I'm so sorry."

"Me too," he agreed, in a voice that was a mere fraction of its usual self. Gaius wished for anger, surprise, sadness, or even playfulness. Instead, Henry's voice felt far away and thin, like a lonely cry wavering in the wind. "I-I should go."

"Henry—"

"It's not your fault," he promised him, despite knowing that in a way, it was. "I mean, I never told you, so how would you know?"

And though Henry didn't explain it, Gaius had a feeling. He surmised that one of his many abusers in the past did this to him, undoubtedly. One of those ghosts that haunted Henry did this to him, marking his body like ink on paper, deciding what was and wasn't theirs.

Like a firework, Gaius ignited the memories all over again, with a careless touch and selfish desire of wanting Henry as his own.

"There's no excuse for it," Gaius said. His expression was grave as he turned his back on Henry, ashamed to look him in the eye. "And this is your tent, so I'm the one that should leave."

"Gaius—"

"See you in the morning, Henry."

Usually it was Henry running away from Gaius and not the other way around, but as the assassin slipped away into the outer world, he couldn't help but wonder if this was as painful as the first time they'd punctured the barriers between them.

.

.

Of course, the kids were asleep in Gaius' bed, which meant he had nowhere to go for the night. Sure, there were spare supplies and hammocks lying around somewhere, and plenty of trees for him to hole up into as a last resort, but everything felt wrong.

He was supposed to be with Henry tonight, but he royally messed that up, and sent him spiralling into fear of being killed when the intention was to do anything except for that.

In the end, Gaius wandered around camp for hours, before retreating to Henry's tent like a kicked dog.

Ready to accept defeat.

.

.

While Gaius disappeared into the night, Henry sat still on his bed, completely unmoving except to trail his hand over the scars on his neck. He was sure that no one in the world had seen them before, as he had a habit of wearing high collars to mask their appearance. But as Gaius had tried to unveil his layers, he discovered a horrible secret that had been forgotten, for the most part.

A pattern of scars, left over from chokeholds and attempts on his life, were visible along Henry's neck. At the time when they were new, each scar was bleeding bright red and scabbing black, and his throat felt dry and unusable for days straight. He remembered a woman standing over him with a knife, crying maniacally as she tried to reason out that it was his fault for the wounds, and not hers. Her fingers were bony and sharp, pressing into soft skin that withered underneath her touch.

When he could finally breathe, Henry covered up the evidence with dirt, or mud. When he traveled with Ailah in the woods, he often wrapped bits of cloth or bandage around his neck, in order to obscure what he didn't quite understand. By the time he reached the orphanage, he was decked out in big sweaters and baggy clothes, which never betrayed the old injuries that would lie, inevitably, under the new ones.

Vaguely, Henry recalled his throat setting itself on fire in a drug-induced haze, and wondered if his scars came alive recently due to his ongoing string of bad decisions.

His arms fell back to his sides, his collar exposed. He felt the cool night air seeping through the gaps in his tent, then remembered it was autumn, so the nights would get cooler until it snowed on their heads.

And like autumn, Gaius drifted in with the coming leaves—a stern expression making good work of his handsome face. "Henry, can we talk?"

"Yeah," he answered feebly. He hated how weak he sounded, but he just couldn't muster the strength. "What is it?"

"I didn't mean to—I'm really sorry about earlier. I should've kept to myself."

"But I liked it when you kissed me." He pointed this out as a factual statement, rather than a clouded judgement on a late night. "If you mean my neck, though, yeah, that was kinda weird."

"I don't know what came over me, but I shouldn't have gone so far." Gaius tried not to stare, but Henry's collar was down with the rest of his defenses. The scars poked out like weeds from his neck. "Say the word and I will never touch you again, I swear it."

"That'll be hard because I like it when you touch me," Henry said. "But it's okay, I know what you mean."

"You do?"

"Yes, I can think about things seriously, too, y'know."

"I know."

"It's funny," Henry started to say. He was sitting upright on the bed and invited Gaius to sit down in the same spot he was earlier.

Gaius obliged without a word. Only when Henry fell into silence, signalling he wanted him to say something, did Gaius probe: "What's funny?"

"I totally forgot these even existed until you did that." He traced a finger over the curvature of the permanently damaged skin, looping into the oldest letters on his body. "Isn't that weird? How do you just forget that something is a part of you?"

"It's not completely weird. You get so focused on other stuff that you don't bother to think about yourself for a while."

"But seriously, I haven't thought about these things in years. I think the last time I even looked at them properly was when I was, like, twelve."

"You've been covering them up all this time?"

Henry flinched at the unintended meaning: You've been hiding them from me? But of course he had to, why else would he advertise another broken part of himself for the world to see, and make fun of? "Yes," was what he managed to say. "I mean, I'm Plegian, but this outfit is pretty modest by their standards."

"If you're comparing yourself to Tharja, anything is modest by her standards."

Henry snickered, a watered-down version of his usual cheer. "You're right. See, everything's fine, right? So let's just go back to normal."

"And what is normal for you?"

"...Kissing."

"We only started doing that recently, y'know."

"Holding me tight. You gotta use your big, stupid arms for something."

"These arms are crying at how you're insulting them and praising them at the same time." Gaius wasn't super muscular like some of the brawnier guys in camp, Vaike or Gregor, but had his own type of curvature he could be proud of.

Next to Henry's noodle arms, though, anyone could be big and stupid.

Henry diverted his thoughts with another laugh. "Yeah, that's just how I roll. But I like those things we do together. I didn't hate them." Far from it. "So, uh, please don't ignore me just 'cause I killed the mood. Like seriously, royally, one-hundred-percent killed it."

Gaius raised his brows. "And what 'mood' are you referring to?"

"Uh, the one where my heart feels like it's gonna explode and I can't breathe to save my own life?" He rolled his eyes. "Come on, Gaius, keep up."

"Right, that mood. Well, if it helps, in any given situation, I'll never stop loving you."

"Never?"

"Yup. As long as I can love you—and even when I can't, if I'm away or died or something—then I'll love you." He rested his hand over Henry's, pinching softly at his knuckles. "I mean it."

"I thought I told you I wouldn't let you die," Henry recalled in a half-joking voice. "But I love you too, all the time. Always. Forever." He grasped Gaius' hand in his own, and placed it over his chest—over his thin, fragile heart. "Lissa once said my blood pressure is too low. You could fix that, probably."

Gaius struggled to feel anything except his own beating heart, but he nodded along, anyway.

"I could definitely fix that." And he kissed him again, softer and sweeter this time.

Henry tried not to admit that he sort of liked the unbridled passion, the rough pain that Gaius inflicted on him mere hours ago. Instead, he just clammed up, and kissed back with as much gentleness as he was capable of producing.

When it was over, Henry yawned loudly. "Boy, it sure is late now. Don't you want to head back to your tent to catch a wink?"

"I would, but two snot-noses are currently residing in what used to be my bed."

"Used to be?"

"They need a place to sleep of their own, don't they?"

It was Henry's turn to look inquisitive. "I thought we talked about this. They sleep with us, don't they? You sleep with Gwen and I sleep with El."

"Yeah, but they're growing kids, Henry. They'll need their own beds and stuff before they know it."

Silence fell over them, followed by: "Gwen snores in her sleep, doesn't she?"

"Like a monster," Gaius admitted. "And you?"

"I've ended up on the floor one too many times," Henry giggled as he scratched at the back of his head. "Also, El kicks and he likes stealing the blanket. It's cold enough in Ylisse that I don't need to freeze to death in the middle of the night, either."

"See? But when I stopped by my tent to check up on them, they were sleeping like angels."

"Well, yeah. They're siblings and they love each other. It makes sense."

Gaius slipped out of his outer wear—the assassin's garb and his trademarked headband—until he was down to plain black clothing and his socks. Henry didn't have much clothes on him to start with, but he copied his movements and shed off his outer layer—the cloak and the high collar that he loved so much.

They were down to casual wear, and it was here that Gaius supplied an explanation. "They can sleep in one tent, and we should sleep in the other."

"Okay," Henry agreed. "But you said they need their space. What about us? We're over twice their height and the bed is just as small."

"I can deal if you can."

Henry smirked. "You can 'deal,' huh? Sounds like someone just wants to get into bed with me."

"Where the hell are you getting these remarks from?" Gaius hissed under his breath, flustered by the mere thought of it. "Is it Tharja? Because whoever it is, I'd ought to have a word with them."

"No way," Henry said. "I only learn from the best."

Their voices lowered into hushed tones, which lowered into whispers, which lowered into complete silence as their eyes closed. The bed was small, but if they curled up on their sides against each other, they found out that they were warmer and comfier that way. Naturally, Henry's smaller, thinner body meant that he ought to be on the inside—a crescent moon tucked into the shape of Gaius' body. Gaius, in turn, was his outer curve that protected him, one arm draped over his side while the other sprawled out underneath him, in that space between Henry's neck and the flat of the bed.

Somewhere along the way, it occurred to Gaius that his hands were mere inches away from grazing the scars—that at any given point in time, Henry's injuries were always in sight, from his cursed eyes to his damaged neck.

Yet, as if Gaius was special, Henry laid his secrets out for him to see. As if Gaius mattered, Henry allowed himself to get pared down to scraps—cut up into tiny pieces for the assassin to chew on, dissect. Every wall Henry had put up was broken down, with only minor structures left to protect what was truly and irrevocably his.

At some point in their relationship, Henry became the honest one, while Gaius continued to slither deeper into his inner labyrinth, hiding all his secrets from prying eyes. It was a bad habit he wore on his sleeve, something that needed to be cut at its core, and he resolved to himself that sometime in the morning (more likely the near future as Gaius was always one to avoid facing himself than going head-first) he'd lay his strengths and weaknesses before Henry in full, proving to him that he's not the only one capable of bearing himself for the world to see.

And after that, Gaius would reach out to Henry, further than what skin contact allows.

One day he can cut straight to his heart.