Turning Back The Clock

Turning Back The Clock: Chapter 11

Lil lizard boi. 💚

Zeldris was worried. No, he was downright losing his mind from anxiousness. First Mel had acted irritated and rude for the first time the ravenette had ever seen from the small boy, then his brother broke down crying without being able to give an answer as to why. What made that last part even worse was just how long it had taken for him to calm down the blond.

The whole rest of the day been spent with Meliodas glued to his hip with his moods changing incredibly fast without any sort of trigger. One minute he had finally calmed down and was happy again, the next he was crying even harder than before with a look in his eyes that seemed almost physically pained. Zeldris hated seeing the little one like that, and he hated even more that he had no idea what caused it.

It seemed neither of them did.

Oh well, there wasn't much he could do about it now other than keep an eye on the child. Which was why he had planned a little picnic for the two after taking yet another day off of work.

Part of him was stressed with all the time away from his duties, but overall he knew it could be handled later. Besides, little Mel came first.

Even if it had been nearly a week since the meltdown, Zeldris wasn't taking any chances in letting it happen again without him having proper comfort precautions in place.

He stopped laying out the blanket at that thought, brief amusement filling him.

Heh, I'm starting to sound like my younger self. Back when Meliodas really WAS this age..

This brotherly responsibility had come to him so little at the first weeks of having his sibling return to that state again, but now it was becoming second nature. It took no effort for him to think of solutions when Mel was upset, nor any strain to put the boy before himself.

All of his anger from before has faded entirely, leaving him to love his sibling unconditionally with a melted heart at the innocent nature of the child.

Although, what came with it quite often was a slight squeeze of pain and twist of sorrow every time the child came into sight from his defenses being gone and leaving behind the true feelings he had experienced in the blond's absence.

The true mourning he had put off so many years ago was rushing back and feeling even stronger than it should have from the time he had missed the most literally being constantly thrown in his face from the present.

"Zeldy..?"

Turning around, he found he had gotten far too lost in his thoughts to recognize the child sneaking up on him. Shame, the blanket wasn't even smoothed out yet, much less had food on it.

"What are you doing Zel? Do you need help?"

He smiled at the child softly, no guard up or scornful look like only a month prior.

"Sure! That would actually be quite handy. Could you take the other end of this blanket please and help me smooth it?"

"Okie!"

The child pepped up at being given the task before doing it obediently immediately after.

"There you go. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, that's great Mel. Thank you for helping."

The boy smiled so brightly as he beamed from the praise. How could that same face have held so much anguish only a few days ago?

"So what is this Zeldy? Why are you putting a blanket on the ground?"

"Well, why don't you go look in that basket over there and find out?"