quadrival (fxmxfxm poly)

CHAPTER 1

CLEO'S POV:
Entering our large shared house, I was greeted by Jemma, our youngest, tightly attaching herself to my legs.
"I was out for like two hours, pup." A light laugh escaped my lips as I placed the bag of groceries on the floor and hauled the little girl up and onto my hip. "Where's mum?"
Speaking of the devil, Scout appeared around the corner, searching for the girl intent on squeezing the air out of me with her tight grasp.
"Hey Scoutie." I called pulling her close to me and her daughter, placing our foreheads against each other, the bond between us humming in delight.
"I heard there's a greenie arriving today." The tall, blonde woman pulled away from me reluctantly.
"Yep," I answered. "His name's Kynan."
"Mmm." A thoughtful look passed her hazel eyes. "Thought you were gonna miss it." Nudging me playfully, I gave a look of fake offence.
"With how everyone's reacting, it's like I've been gone for years, jeepers." She only rolled her eyes at me.
"How old?"
"Seventeen, I'm pretty sure." Every time there was a greenie, a mixture of longing, sadness, excitement and nervousness pulses through my being.
"Bringing any family with him?" Through her questioning, she was gently and unsuccessfully trying to detach the small girl from my form.
"Mum, Dad and brother are coming today, but not staying." I joined Scout in trying to remove Jemma. "They're from WA." Scout hummed in response. "Alright pup, time to let go. I promise we can play later." I promised with a slight laugh, continuing to try and pry her off of my jugular. In response, she held out her pinky that I silently grasped onto, placing my forehead on her own similar to what I did with her mother.
Hesitantly, she let go and let her mother whisk her away.
"Athrav!" I called up the stairs. I was answered with the sound of rumbling feet before the boy appeared before me, soft and brown faced, atop the stairs, sliding to a clumsy stop. I couldn't help but smile at the sight. Wouldn't guess he's almost 19, shaking my head with an affectionate smile at his familiar manner. "Is Kynan's room ready?"
Making his way down the stairs, he stood before me timidly, hands twitching to reach up. Without a question, I reached for him and closed the distance, pulling his forehead to mine and closing my eyes. After a few moments, I pulled away, loving the joyful glint in his eyes and the endless smile on his face. "Well?" I asked teasingly, with a playful tilt of my lips.
Recognising the teasing, he quickly flushed and frantically nodded. "When's he coming?"
"In about..." quickly pulling out and glancing at my phone. "An hour, ish?" Looking up I could see the pure excitement coursing through his being. Excited to finally have another male around his age. "Have you seen Joel?"
"Yea, he's in the kitchen."
"Of course he is," I said rolling my eyes. Picking up the bag once again, I moved into the kitchen. "Come on," I called to Athrav. "Come and help me put this stuff away." With a short pull on his wrist, he was pulled along beside me.
The kitchen was buzzing with energy. Lex and Inayat loosely moving around the kitchen, making sure everything was in place for the meal tonight: every now and then, asking one of the others lingering around to do something. One of those being Joel. He sat at the bench, head lowered reading a document that held everyone's allergies, double checking no one would die with the meal and that substitutes were arranged. As well as snacking on the side, as always. Plopping the grocery bags on the bench beside got Joel to perk up, his square glasses momentarily slipping down his nose before being shoved back up. A fond smile found it way onto my face.
"Hey Joel," I said, placing my forehead on his as a greeting. I started unpacking the bag and passing the contents to Athrav to put away. Choosing the shorter greeting, Inayat and Lex touched their foreheads with their fingers before touching my own. The couple moved about the kitchen like swans, interweaving with each other in seamless movements. I love watching them work, I thought fondly.
"Lex! Where's that-" before Inayat could finish her sentence I was holding up the pack of mushrooms she was looking for. "Oh! Thank you so much!" Her wavy, thick bounced as she made her way over to me, grabbing the mushrooms before moving onto the next task.
"Thanks for that." Lex snuck up behind me.
"Jeez!" I jumped. "Quit sneaking around!" I said laughing.
"She was this close-" They held up their index and thumb up, almost touching. "-to losing it over the mushrooms." They said with a quiet laugh, not wanting to alert their partner of the secret scheme.
"You're lucky she didn't notice when I was still out." I said quietly out of the side of my mouth. They nodded briefly, long, white blonde hair falling into their face with the movement. "Spin around." Obediently doing so, Lex spun around. Luckily, Lex was only slightly taller then me - most of the adults were taller than me, wasn't too hard to beat. I gathered Lex's hair and placed the claw clip that had been in my own hair in theirs. "There you go, now it'll stay out of the way," I chirped, grabbing their shoulder and spinning them back around to see my handiwork from the front. "Beautiful." My bright smile caused their face to flush. "Now, go help Inayat. Looks like she's getting a bit stressed." Looking over, Lex couldn't help but let out a slight laugh.
"You're right, I better get over there." Inayat was worrying about the number of onions we had. Lex sauntered over and wrapped their arms around the almost frantic woman, and she instantly calmed with Lex's face pressed into the crook of her neck, slightly standing on their toes to reach, whispering calming words. My smile grew even further at the sight.
"Joel, can you come with me to the green room to finalise some things for the greenie?"
"Sure!" he chirped, following me to the office - affectionately called the green room.
The office was filled with law and history books, with light green walls and a large window overlooking the backyard and no door. In the centre, stood a light blue circle table; cluttered with a few forms, files and other paperwork as well as an unopened laptop. The two of us swiftly sat at the desk facing one another.
"We received the parental permission forms yesterday for Kynan, and the school forms have also been forwarded through to us, so he'll be all ready to go in the next couple of weeks." I nodded along with Joel's update, adoring that he already new what I wanted to know; the proud, loving smile the bloomed across my face spurred Joel's ears to pinken.
"Amazing," his neck began to tinge at the compliment. "When's his induction night set for again?" I asked, already knowing the answer, but wanting to watch our admin lover to perk with pride.
"Seventh." He chorused back swiftly. "Oh! And we got a reply from the high school a couple of suburbs over and they said they'd be honoured to host our program for their students."
"Cool," I added, going through my mental calendar. "Did they say any specific time?"
"Nah, just to let them know a month in advance."
"Great, we'll deal with that after Kynans induction night then." Relaxing further into my seat, I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, and the receipt from the shirt grocery shop in tow. "Can you out this on the receipt stack for me?" I asked Joel, leaning across to pass it to him. Wordlessly, he took it before turning around and piercing it with the skewer that held all of the receipts from the passed two weeks.
"Should probably get Min to key these in soon," Joel noticed.
"Yea, I'll go let her know."
"I can do it." Joel went to jump up.
"It's fine Joel, I wanted to see how she was doing anyway," I answered with a chuckle. "Could you put Kynan's medical stuff into the system for me? Off the top of my head, I don't think he had an allergies or anything so we'll be good for tonight."
"Of course!" He chirped. In a thank you and parting gesture, I placed my hand on my chest before moving it to his head and combing through his dark, coiled hair once. After watching his eyes close briefly and his head lean into my hand, I made my way out and up the stairs.
Walking through the corridors I could hear all the laughter and conversation dispersed with video game, movies, typing sounds. As I walked passed the open doors, they called my name out as a greeting. Giving them all a brief touch to my heart and then to the air in a wave, I kept moving in my desired direction, eventually coming upon Min's dark pink room with a large painted white tree. Min sat with her died dark pink hair at her desk, leaning over at her laptop and sketch book simultaneously, working away at her new comic. She answered my knock with a slight hum without looking up, giving me permission to enter. Entering her cozy room, I flipped down onto her bed.
"What do you want?" She quipped, still not looking at me.
"What makes you think I want anything?" At that, she turned around and narrowed her eyes. "Ugh, fine." I caved. "Can you put our receipts in for the past couple weeks, please, my fabulously talented accountant?" Her fake glare fell as she stood up and plopped herself next to me on her bed.
"Fine, I guess I'll do it," she signed, with mock exasperation.
"Thank you!" I cheered, pulling her into my side. She tried to push me off, but eventually gave up: I knew she secretly like the affection. "What colour are you doing next?" I asked, gesturing to the closed cans of paint next to her door.
"I've got red and orange, so I'm thinking of doing a fire sorta design."
"Sounds awesome." I replied. "You should put some flickering embers on to the roof too." She hummed in acknowledgement. "If you like, you could ask the greenie if he wants his painted too."
"Hopefully he's not boring like Athrav." She said playfully.
"Hey!" I chided. "He's not boring, he's just likes simple colours." I shrugged. Despite the banter between Athrav and Min, they were extremely close. "Thought about what you're gonna do for you birthday?" I queried.
"Yea, I was wondering if I could have a few friends over here?" She asked gazing up at me from her heads position laying on my arm. Her light almond shaped eyes pleading up at me.
"Of course. You can have it at the guest house if you like, we haven't got anyone booked for next week," I said, thinking it over. "I trust you enough not to trash it, yea?" She nodded eagerly. "Good, I doubt Athrav would let that happen anyway."
"He's such a goodie two shoes."
"Hey!" I nudged her playfully. "Leave him alone." A smile pulling at my lips as she only rolled her eyes. "The big two zero, excited?"
"Yea," she answer, moving to look back up at the roof again. "I'm glad dads gonna be able to make it down."
"Me too." We sat in silence for a while just laying with each other in our warmth.

"Shit! What time is it?!" I yelled, bolting upright as Min grabbed her phone that was resting next to her quickly. Showing me the time, I hurried out of her room, her laughter floating behind me. I thumped down the stairs and flew out the front door, coming to a quick stop.
'The car's coming up the driveway now.' Domenic called through the link to me, no doubt running alongside the vehicle as they enter. Taking a breath I tried to tame my frizzy hair, from the running, for a moment before giving up. Just as the car became visible at the top of the hill of the driveway, it pulled to an abrupt stop. My eyes tightly creased together in confusion. A lanky boy with shoulder length black hair stumbled out of the stationery car. As soon as we made eye contact, there was a snap between us and a happy sob tore through me. We started running. As we ran, I could see the tears flowing down his face, encouraging my own to take the same course.
We collided harshly in an embrace, immediately sliding to the ground, as sobs broke out of the boy in my arms - despite him being much taller than me.
"It's okay, it's okay," I soothed, running one hand stop his head an the other down his back. "You're safe here, nothing can hurt you," he continued to jostle with his harsh breaths. Grabbing his face with my hand, I pulled our foreheads together. I began rocking us both back and forth, basking the warmth of our bond finally coming together - the warmth that was overwhelming the teen clinging onto my body. Beneath his heavy breathing and short cries were mumbled words.
"Alpha," he muttered. "Alpha, alpha, alpha-"