Timeless [Sting X Reader] || Third Book

18 : His Tall Tales, His Puzzling Question

[a/n]: yo guys/fam/girls i'm running out of ideas idk what to write send me ideas in the comments if you have any, i'd appreciate it lots ^^!  <333

x x

After Lance is returned back to you, Sting serves another round of Nutella sandwiches, and another round of jokes and delightful laughter, though you exclude yourself from the former.

You simply watch from behind the beige-colored, hot surface of a mug, swallowing laughs when you weren't swallowing scalding coffee.

Lance tells his tales of his time with Wendy, and from the elated, animated way he beamed when he spoke, you were assured he had a fun time with the Sky Dragon Slayer. Very quickly, there are only sprinkled crumbs in the place of sandwiches, and the ends of a live conversation that's carried and set down on the fabric of the couch. You rise from your chair and wipe off the crumbs and some spilled water with a dry rag before you join Sting and Lance, just in time for when Sting narrates the story of "the giant fish I caught with your Uncle Natsu."

Lance's eyes blink in awe and pure admiration for his father. Sting's encouraged by this (because when he tells you stories of his greatness, you only chortle condescendingly,) and he twists, stretches the tale a little bit, like a passionate painter washing the brush clean, to paint a more vivid, more praise-worthy picture of his image.

Despite how ridiculously freakish his story's become, you still find yourself nodding, giggling a little, when Lance turns to you for affirmation of its authenticity. When Lance is older, more sensible, you know he'll have discerned the difference between hard reality and soft tales intended only for choirs of laughter at afternoons like these.

"You're so awesome, Daddy!" Lance pipes, and you can practically feel the pride that's flowering inside of Sting, soon, it would cloud his head like a virus.

"I know, right?!" Sting says with an excited smile, "You know what? Your awesome dad's gonna buy you ice cream tomorrow!"

"Yay!" You shake your head, looking away from the two boys, as if their joy was as blindingly bright as a thousand suns. For now, it was going to be a long, long while before Lance matures.

(Even longer for Sting to do the same.)

The minutes bleed into hours the same way the laughs that bounce off the walls bleed into a featherweight silence, so fragile that it only takes the union of Sting and Lance's orbs to damage the silence. 

It seems too soon when you see the quickly-retreating beams of orange light cast against the glass of the windows, warming the side of your face. The afternoon sun's collected many of your anecdotes, your words, your laughter, and you're sure its collected the good spirits of many other families, too. Its fueled by the lightheartedness, bursting the last of its heat, the last of its colors; the lingering rays almost dancing across whatever surface they've touched before they're reined back for the evening.

The conversation is still handled carefully, like a glass jar, even as you seat yourselves for dinner, warm, mouth-watering soup distributed into glass bowls, pouring their aromas into the atmosphere. They pay their respects, their compliments to you for preparing such a great dinner, picking up the spoon with an enthusiasm that seems to flow endlessly from their bodies, like an isolated mountain stream. Waterfall might be more appropriate, though, because both your husband and your child shared the deafening loudness of the mighty body of water.

The conversation quiets, but it never settles back into silence. You're okay with it, though, because it's always beautiful to look up from a spoon of cooling soup to see either Sting or Lance giggling.

"Your Mommy's a really great cook, isn't she?" Sting tries to hide his affectionate smile by running his tongue over his lower lip, wiping a bit of soup off of Lance's chin with a napkin. The way Lance is bubbly and bouncing from energy, the napkin almost gets dropped to the ground.

"Yeah, she is! The best!" Lance agrees, patting his tummy twice, "Everything she make is so~ yummy!"

"You're so stupid," you whisper in between flustered laughs, you give Sting's foot a solid poke from yours. Your cheeks are just as profusely red as when Sting first kissed you, or at any other of you and Sting's firsts.

"I love you," Sting laughs as he winks at you, and you're blushing even more. God, this was exactly like your first date, except now Lance could see firsthand your humiliating weakness for anything sincerely honest that Sting said.

"I love you, Mommy!" Lance pipes in.

"I love you two, so much," you finally say, grateful that, after smirking at you briefly, Sting resumes eating, and so does Lance.

"Oh yeah, Mommy, Daddy!" Lance suddenly exclaims. He waits until both you and Sting have turned to his direction, "Can I have a baby brother for my birthday? Or a sister- ooh, but I wanna brother!"

Sting chokes on his food, near spitting it out. It's a few seconds of nothing but Sting's pitiful gurgling before it's your turn to laugh at the adorable red that's blossoming on Sting's face, all the way up to his ears and down to his neck.

(Once Sting relearns the concept of chewing and swallowing food, he answers Lance with a curt 'No', glaring at you after hearing your jokingly spoken: 'We'll think about it.')