Tu Es Ma Lumière

140 - Thunderstorm *Modern*

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Prompt - John and James as twins being scared of storms, like I've always pictured Mary to be!

Side Note - Please send in more requests for this AU, I'm having so much fun with it.

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The storm wakes him up. The howls of the wind and the groans of the trees echo throughout the walls and the floors of the Valois-Angoulême-Stuart estate. The grumbles of the grounds and the screams of the gales. The whistles of the mistral travelling through small spaces at thousands miles an hour. The echoes of the cries, the roars of thunder getting closer and further away at the same time. The gruffs and grunts of snow being thrown around at violent speeds. The suite being lit up by the lightening, the howling of their dogs from rooms miles away.

Mary's sharp inhale tells him that she'd also been awoken from the storm. He had always found storms to be so relaxing to sleep through. Granted, the larger ones had spooked him as a child, but nannies and his mother had eased the fear. It had gone away within the year, gone to the point where he found them soothing. Soothing to the point that he found them a marvellous thing to fall asleep hearing each night. His wife, however, she had had another experience with thunders.

They had always scared her. It started off as the basic childhood fear of loud noises, but whilst nannies and his mother had soothed his fear, Mary held no such luxury. Absent parents and cold nannies hadn't done a damn thing to soothe the fear. As a result, the fear had carried on from childhood, through adolescence and adulthood, even creeping in through her own motherhood. Unfortunately, their twins had been going through their own fear of thunderstorms, never able to sleep through a storm.

"Hey." he whispers, reaching over the small space that kept man and wife apart, taking her hand in his. "Are you alright?" he asks quietly, wincing as Mary jumped at another round of thunderstorms. The thunder boomed, the lightening cracking loudly. It resembled glass breaking more than it did a lightening bolt, in fact.

"Y-yeah." she trembles softly. She remembered when they had told Catherine that they would be moving in together. Insistent to keep her golden child close to her, Mrs. Valois-Angoulême-de Medici had insisted that the two of them take residence in an estate less than an hour away from Francis' childhood home. Which, unfortunately, put them in the part of France where snowfall was present at least half of the year. In addition, it put them in an area that was prone to blackouts and thunderstorms. Which was marvellous. Mary was still convinced Catherine knew this fear that Mary possessed and bought the estate just to mess with her for taking her precious golden child from her and making him into a man and a husband and a father in his own right.

"It's alright." he whispers, raising himself up into a sitting position, draping Mary's body over his own. "You're safe. I have you." he says, running his fingers through her hair gently. She sighs, attempting to relax in his arms. Her eyes closed soon after. Francis hoped she found some sort of slumber in the protection of his arms, so tight that not even storms could scare her.

She did. But, not for very long, because two little bodies interrupt their parents soon after they had gotten back to sleep. They grow fearful of the storm in their shared suite, so the two of them grab their blankets and make way up the large spiral staircase towards their parents' suite. John inhales sharply in fear as another crack of thunder echoes through their large home, whilst James shimmies with the doorknob until it opens. The two children pass the coffee area, and the small sitting area, before making chase to Francis' side of the bed. Mary slept in the middle of the large bed, whilst Francis had an arm slung over to the side.

"Papa." a voice whispers. Francis doesn't stir, so his secondborn raises up on his tiptoes to give his arm two big jerks. He stirs, but the blonde doesn't wake. James' cry of fear -and John's resulting one- does the job, however, after a large roar of thunder suddenly booms rather close to their home.

Hearing the sound of his children's fear, Francis jerked awake, his head snapping from right to left, before he found the two trembling, four year old bodies of his twin sons. They're in their sleepwear -James' green and black dinosaur ensemble contrasting with John's red and yellow and blue car PJs-, all fuzzy slippers on their feet and fuzzy blankets slung messily over their shoulders and all.

Seeing that his sons were fearful of the storm, he quickly put two and two together. John beat him to speech, however, seeing as though the man was still attempting to wake up.

"Papa." he sniffles. "It-it's so cold, Papa. And loud. Can-can we come to sleep with you and maman?" he asks.

Sensing the change in atmosphere, Mary's eyes flutter open and she sits up. Mary's quick to understand what the issue was, whilst Francis still tries to shake the sleep from his head.

"Of course, mes trésors." Mary whispers. Francis finally understands what the issue is, reaching over to take James' little body in his arms first, lifting the child in the air as if he is weightless. Quickly, the boy nuzzles into Mary's neck. John refuses to leave Francis' arms as he's picked up by Francis. The man is too tired to argue, so he lets him curl around his chest and torso after slinging his slippers to the floor. Storm and cold or not, no slippers in bed, after all.

The family of four nestle down into the deep covers of the large bed. James is the first to find his rest in Mary's arms, letting out contented, small mewls as the heat begins to slip into his small body, and the sound of the storm outside is dulled by the sound of his mothers' heartbeat. He is lulled to sleep by Mary's quiet singing of his favourite lullaby. And it is not long before his father and twin follow suit.

The matriarch of this little family grows contented as she watches the ones she loves the most take their rest, the children's fear floating away with each passing second. Fear be damned if she held them all in her arms.