Days Go By | lavashipping

*✰*

Nya welcomed them at the door with a big smile and an even bigger pair of rakes. Kai didn't bother with returning her bribery of a hello. He dropped his bag and instructed Cole to do the same.

"Don't act so surprised; you agreed to this before I even asked!"

Crossing their arms, Kai took a breath as if to deliver their usual sharp and quick comeback. Instead, he turned to Cole, who hoped to not get involved in the sibling staredown.

"Cole, you complain, you're not her brother. She has to spare you some chivalry."

"Do we not even get to check in?"

"You're checked in now. Lloyd'll get your things. Now, if you'd be so kind, I chivalriously ask you to rake the leaves in our garden. Thank you."

Cole took a rake from her with a 'good enough' shrug, but when she turned to summon Lloyd with her angelic voice of normal height, Kai took his hand to make him stay in place.

The blond seemed just as excited as his brother to be given a task. Kai, on the other hand, grinned upon his arrival. The kind of a grin that would be the last thing a fish sees.

"Ah, hello, my darling brother. Boy oh boy, am I glad to see the family altogether!" Then everything happened in such a rapid moment, it would have been like missing an entire season of a show had Cole blinked.

All three inhaled to say something—and Kai stood as the fastest and loudest of them.

"Dibs on upstairs bedroom!" he exclaimed before snatching the second rake and dashing around the house, leaving behind one confused boyfriend and a couple of infuriated siblings. When Lloyd and Nya began bickering amongst each other about the true owner of the fault—whatever was going on—Cole took that as his cue to go follow the cackles of the madman that stole his heart and claimed it for his own just like this supposed upstairs bedroom.

-

Lloyd shook his head in disapproval. Maybe if his face crinkled with wrinkles it would have had potential to induce guilt. However, with his still boyish scowl it was just insulting.

"Seriously?"

"I'm hosting a masquerade, smartass, I didn't think he'd think that far ahead."

"He's your blood."

"Talk more about blood and I'll remind you how it tastes."

Huffing, Lloyd began working on his assignment. While making sure not to lift the bags off the floor. Nya still heard the thumps as he made his way upstairs even as she tried to distract herself—and Zane—in the kitchen where magic happened. But they fanned her hand away from the homemade sweets.

One little hiccup couldn't bother her then, that was for future Nya to deal with. Present Nya had to make sure all decorations stood, hung or lay in their rightful place, everything too expensive and fragile was hid away in safety, and everything that needed to do its job, did its job.

"Relax, Darling, Jay and I triple-checked everything already as you instructed," Pixal tried calming her down, gentle hand on her shoulder but it was the same every year. Every event.

"I need to see it for myself," she huffed out, blowing bangs out of her face. Maybe the house glistened clean, though she did not want to see herself in the mirror.

Despite her best efforts, she wound up on a couch with one hand wrapped around a cup of tea and the other idly scratching behind Samurai's ears. God damn Borg magic.

"Where's Jay? Please tell me he's not trying to stuff Alfonso into the fairy costume again."

"I'm not sure about his whereabouts, but I promise you he won't find that costume any time soon."

Nya let out a long sigh, body burying into the cushions. "Have you ever considered wearing a magician costume? That would suit you."

Pixal chuckled, curling and uncurling raven hair onto her index finger.

Nothing could ever stay peaceful long enough at that house.

"Oh my Master!"

"That is disgusting."

An orange blur called Derpy whizzed by, luring Samurai and hence the warmth out of Nya's lap.

"What's that now?" she grunted, getting up and leaving the cup on the coffee table. She followed the voices with Pixal right behind her. She recognised Jay's shrill and Lloyd's deadpan, but she dreaded what they could be talking about.

The two huddled by a window to the garden, Jay clutching Lloyd's arm and shaking him around—must have for a while because the blond gave up on trying to slap him away.

"I've never seen him like that before, it's adorable! Goddamn hypocrite."

"What? What's going on there?" Nya pushed her way between them before they could snap their heads around and looked out to see herself.

Looked out to see Kai and Cole causing more mess in the garden as they laughed, tossing the leaves around and at each other instead of raking them as she asked them to.

"I can't look at this," said Lloyd, looking at it.

"They're so cute!"

"They're so dead." Nya turned on her heel, slipped by Pix before she could work her magic again and sprinted out of the house.

-

With a sigh, Jay put his elbows on the window sill and rested his chin on his hands. He tilted his head to the side.

"Love is in the air," he breathed as Nya chased the two down.