Work Text:
As a rule, they are not a house of early risers. Late nights are the name of the game between work schedules, health issues, and nightmares that plague the house as a whole.
But on the day Dorian finally comes home, they’re all up so early, it seems like they barely slept. Orym is first to stir, which he usually is anyway, but this time it’s nearly an hour before daybreak.
He pads out onto their concrete patio surrounded by winter-brown grass and works his forms until the sun peers through the trees and the smell of tea and coffee envelops him, even through the closed sliding glass door.
Letters pops a wheelie in his chair as Orym comes back inside, muscles like jelly and no more settled than when he woke up. Fearne waves blearily from where she’s slumped next to the coffee machine. Her green hair is painfully tangled around the big, dangly earrings she’d forgotten to take off when she came home last night, looped around her long ears, and she knows she’s going to have to bother Laudna to get it undone before they leave at two.
Ashton stumbles out of their room next, eyes not even open as they grope past FCG’s wheelchair to collapse on a kitchen stool at the bar. They bury their face in their arms and only respond in grunts until Fearne drops a black coffee at their elbow and a kiss to the hair crystals near their ear. Ashton makes a semi-pleased noise in response and raises up just enough to slurp the top most layers out of their cup. There’s silence for a few moments and then, upon swallowing the first mouthful-
“Good fucking morning.” It’s the first words spoken in the house on the new day and Orym grins in agreement.
“Pretty good one, isn’t it?”
Ashton smirks and wiggles their eyebrows and Orym doesn’t bother to remind Ashton how much they’ve been bemoaning the empty space and quiet in the house. Which is a joke in itself. Bell’s Hells are rarely quiet and nearly constantly on top of one another, much to Imogen’s occasional chagrin.
Chetney stumbles in a few minutes later, knit beanie pulled down almost to his nose. They can see the wood shavings caught in his arm hair and the slightly bloodshot quality to the whites of his eyes, even around the hat. He murmurs his usual, awkward “good morning” to Fearne who bats her eyelashes in return. The tips of Chet’s pointed ears turn pink outside of his beanie and Orym almost feels bad for him.
The coffee Chetney drinks is more sugar and cream than caffeine and Letters chucks some lactose pills across the dining room (the small pouches tied to either side of his chair are full of medications and bandaids and fidgets and extra foam earplugs, and anything else the Hells might need whether they’re out and about or around the house) before Chetney gets it to his lips.
“Oh, come on, it’s the beginning of the day, My stomach is empty, I don’t need-”
“We only have 2 working bathrooms right now and a handful of us have a hard time using the stairs so, get the fuck over yourself,” Ashton yells from the kitchen where he’s slicing bananas into a bowl of cheerios for him and Letters to share.
Chetney swallows more pills than he needs to but the over correction is preferable to an under. Ashton pulls his beanie down lower over his eyes in an approximation of affection and drops a spoon into FCG’s waiting right hand, taking their pills from the left.
Laudna and Imogen traipse out of their room last, though it’s still before 6:45, draped over one another, sleep drunk and anxious in one, and take their spots at the table next to the wall, Laudna as a buffer between Imogen and everyone else. Orym finishes tea for the three of them and slides them their mugs (Lavender Chamomile with honey for Imogen, decaf Earl Grey with heavy milk for Laudna, Jasmine green with honey for him) before perching on a stool next to Fearne.
They all sit in peace for several moments, only the ticking of the cuckoo clock in the hallway to indicate the passing of time. Drinks are sipped, morning medications are swallowed, and they pass glancing touches off of one another’s skin before Laudna finally speaks.
“This waking up early thing is bullshit,” her tone is as cheery as usual, “It’s going to be so long until he gets here.”
“We could clean?” Imogen suggests, idly stacking some of the mail they’ve neglected. She receives a round of groans and incredulous looks in return but shrugs, “I’m just sayin’, the upstairs bathroom is lookin’ rough. And the living room could use a tidy. It’ll go faster if we all work together.”
Which earns her a hearty (though not unkind) laugh from Ashton and some long standing teasing about sounding like a children’s show, but eventually, they all agree to chip in to get their rundown little home nice for their returning fancy boy.
Blankets spread across the couch are folded and tucked in a basket, magazines stacked with the oldest on top, mail at least somewhat organized into stacks of ‘Imminent’ and ‘Can Wait.’ Laudna untangles Fearne's hair from her ears and earrings. Ashton even vacuums the living room, though he waits until Imogen is upstairs, helping scrub the bathroom before he turns it on.
The morning seems to fly by quicker than any of them anticipated, and by the time they’re breaking for lunch, the house is looking incredibly well kept. Orym throws together everyone’s preferred sandwich (cut up in their preferred shapes; Letters likes his in 4 small squares, Ashton likes theirs in two triangles like Imogen and Orym do, Laudna and Fearne like 4 small triangles, and Chetney doesn’t like his crusts so they put them in the bushes for the bunnies that sometimes hop around their backyard. Dorian likes his the same way as Chetney and Orym’s oddly excited for the extra bunny scraps coming in the near future), slices a few apples in danger of going bad, shakes out pretzels and chips a few days shy of stale since Fearne doesn’t always remember to close the bag when she has a late night snack.
Lunch is a rowdier affair than breakfast, and between a debate over appropriate sandwich fillings and a discussion about what movie to watch that night for their reunion (a vote will need to be taken when everyone is back home properly), it feels like no time at all has passed when they hear the clock strike one.
“Oh, shit, we need to get going, we have to leave in half an hour.” Orym pushes himself away from the table, dropping his napkin and gathering his plate but Laudna waves him away.
“You made lunch, I’ll clean, dear!” She squeezes his shoulder with her cold fingers (a move that would have unsettled him 2 years ago but is now as comforting as any in the house. She always manages to trail up just into his hairline and scratch the part of his head that eases some of the tension in him.) and goes about scooping up empty plates. Chetney sets up one of the stools for her to sit on in the kitchen as she washes and Fearne makes the last couple of trips from the table to the sink so Laudna doesn’t have to.
There’s a bit of a scramble for the downstairs bathroom (Laudna and her cane trying to get around FCG’s chair plus a wet floor from Chetney’s overly-long shower that had resulted in an almost crisis, save for Ashton ducking in the door just in time to catch Laudna), a few outfit troubles (Orym’s favorite blue shirt is in the washing machine; the dress Imogen wants to wear brushes uncomfortably against the lightning scars on her arms, extra sensitive today, and she has to change several times; Fearne dropping one of her earrings into a vent and needing Orym’s smaller arm to pull it out again; Ashton breaking one of the laces on his boots and having to re-lace them with trembling hands, in an unnecessarily complex manner right next to the front door) but, by some miracle of the Dusk Maven, they manage to get out of the house, relatively on time.
The 7 of them pile into Chetney’s van. The thing is at least four decades old and has been retrofitted, so many times, for so many different purposes, no one’s entirely sure what it looked like to begin with. The wood paneling is still original though, Chetney is desperate to tell anyone who will listen.
They all fall into their usual places. FCG zips up the ramp in the back (having switched to their electric chair), Ashton quickly securing their wheels before vaulting the truncated back seat to take his place. Fearne and Orym take the middle row, shooting the empty seat excited looks as they buckle up, Orym in the middle and Fearne behind the driver’s seat where Chetney sits. Laudna uses the built in step to hoist herself into the jump seat next to Chet, taking her cane when Imogen passes it up and then follows.
“Let’s go get our blue boy!” Ashton crows from the back, thumping their hands on the headrest in front of them, the empty seat that is Dorian’s, and the others whoop in agreement as the van’s engine sputters to life and they pull out of the driveway.
The drive isn’t filled with the squabbling over the music or temperature or even the roads they take that it usually is. Instead, they put on the “Home Playlist” Dorian made before he left. Ashton shakes the whole car at every stop light, bouncing his combat-booted foot in anticipation.
The airport parking lot is as convoluted as always but Chetney pulls into a handicapped spot and Imogen puts on her headphones, pulling her long purple hair out of the way of the ear cups. They offload in a similar process to loading on and start to mob their way toward the entrance, Fearne and Orym leading the charge, Orym’s hand squeezing around Fearne’s fingers. Ashton, Letters, and Chetney keep to the middle.
FCG is running their mouth a mile a minute, gently reminding everyone that it’s okay if the group dynamic doesn’t return to what it was instantly. Things change over 7 and a half months, he reminds them, “What’s important is he’s back with us and we’ll learn each other again.”
Imogen and Laudna come last. While Ashton had caught her in the bathroom earlier, the slip had tweaked Laudna’s hip and she’s moving a little slower than normal. Imogen, never one to be excited about entering an enclosed, crowded building, stays by her side, their fingers intertwined.
Fearne somehow gets ahold of one of the airport’s wheelchairs and presents it to Laudna with a flourish. The woman in question squeals and folds herself into it with a sigh, cane across her lap, and asks Fearne to push so they can all hurry. Fearne takes on the duty like the master of ceremonies at a parade and clomps down the hallway toward the arrivals gate so fast that Imogen has to jog to keep holding Laudna’s hand. FCG zips around them, making zooming noises and checking to make sure Laudna was still comfortable with being pushed.
They arrive at the gate exactly the time Dorian’s plane is supposed to land. From the board Imogen and Orym had studied earlier, it was on time and the seven of them, miraculously, are too.
Fearne’s hooves set her tall enough that she towers over every one of her friends, which she seems to relish, even though Ashton pretends like they’re measuring up. She keeps a weather eye on the corner Dorian will be rounding any second now. FCG spends their time now reminding the group not to cross the security gate. Ashton eventually lays a solid hand on their shoulder, squeezing gently and they look up at them with wide eyes.
“I know I’m talkin’ a lot.”
“It’s cool,” Ashton shoots a smile down at them, finger’s tightening affectionately.
“I’m just so excited. And a little nervous if I’m bein’ honest. This is the first time anyone’s ever… y’know, come back.”
Ashton’s face doesn’t shift from the small, half smile but their eyes do soften and he leans down to drop an uncharacteristically gentle kiss on Fresh Cut Grass’s forehead, before taking a handful of their hair, and carefully turning their head so the two of them are eye to eye.
“Well, get fucking used to it. We’re all stuck the fuck together from here on out.”
5 minutes pass. Then 10. Still no Dorian.
“Where the hell is he?” Imogen mutters. The airport is crowded and the intercom is aggressive and waiting is getting harder. She flinches as another announcement echoes through the gate and the whole group can see the way her jaw clenches, even with her headphones on. Laudna presses in close, her cool face against Imogen’s wrist and the other woman unravels a little bit. Imogen buries her fingers in Laudna’s hair and Laudna kisses her arm gingerly.
“I bet they’re having to sit on the tarmac. It’s busy today, probably just a plane traffic jam.” Orym tries to reason but he sounds tense too, bouncing on his toes and occasionally jumping to get a better look through the crowd. Fearne is eyeing the other folks gathered round, tracking valuables and bags that aren’t being closely watched. She’s obviously getting ansty and bored and FCG reaches into their pouch and pulls out a Jacob’s Ladder. Fearne takes it wordlessly, flipping the blocks over and over in her hands, eyes now locked wavering from the corner.
“You wanna go outside?” Chetney asks, reaching up to pat Imogen's hip, “I could use a little fresh air, and walk.”
Imogen’s face falls a little, “I don’t wanna miss him arrivin’ though.”
“Give it another 5 minutes and then we can take a stroll?” Chetney pushes, still gently (for him), and something unspoken passes between the two before Imogen nods and goes back to twisting and untwisting her fingers around Laudna’s.
3 minutes laterad, it happens.
They don’t even get a warning. There’s just a flash of blue skin and hair piled on top of a head and then Orym and Fearne are gone, barrelling past the security gate which immediately starts wailing. Imogen claps her hands over her ears, thankful for her headphones but still grinning. She hears Dorian yelp and as she watches, the three crash into one another and then to the floor. Surprised travelers stumble out of the way, most looking annoyed, some amused but none of that matters to Orym, Fearne, or Dorian, pressed close together on the floor of the airport.
Orym leans up first, cups Dorian’s cheeks in his hands, kisses him just off the corner of his mouth while Fearne wraps him up in her long arms, almost too tight around his neck, squeezing his ears to “make sure it’s the real Dorian.”
They only get about 10 seconds of uninterrupted reunion before security agents are swarming the trio. Letters rolls through the security gate to try to patch things up which sets off the siren again and Chetney charges in after to be a part of the confrontation. Ashton’s bent double wheezing at the chaos while Laudna giggles along, scratching gently at Imogen’s back as she keeps her hands tight over her ears. She’s still beaming.
The five of their friends are escorted back out of the security gate, still being thoroughly reprimanded but whatever the TSA has to say is quickly lost in Ashton’s, “Ho-ly SHIT, Dor. Took you fucking long enough.”
And whatever Dorian’s reply is going to be is cut off by Ashton wrapping him up in a hug tight enough to crush the air out of his lungs. He’s smiling though and closes his eyes until Ashton lowers him to the floor again with a grunt. Dorian cups the side of Ashton’s face with a gentle slap and leaves his hand there as he turns to the others.
The security guards are still trying to give them a talking to but Orym is taking the suitcase and heading for the exit, an extra skip in his step. He only has eyes for Dorian. The man in question is leaning down to kiss Laudna on the cheek and squeezing Imogen’s arm just above the wrist. Imogen hums and Laudna babbles and FCG is trying to explain the importance of this reunion to their group's overall mental health and the guard they’re talking to, a tabaxi man in an ill-fitting uniform, looks suddenly exhausted.
Finally, he grunts out a, “Just. Don’t do it again,” and storms off.
Chetney mutters something rude under his breath but then takes off at a trot to catch up with Orym, but not before forcibly pulling Dorian down for a rough hug.
They drive home in a haze of chatter and yelling over one another that doesn’t stop once everyone has off loaded back at the house. Dorian drops his bag back into his room (the one he’s always shared with Orym and Fearne) and nearly runs back into the living room where the others are waiting.
“Don’t you wanna unpack? Get settled in again?” Letters asks from where they’re sprawled on the floor, wheelchair forgotten in the corner for the time being, “I know travelin’ can be quite an ordeal and if you need some quiet time, we’d understand.”
Dorian throws himself down on the couch next to Ashton, expression unreadable. He doesn’t answer right away and no one presses him. Laudna is sprawled across Imogen’s lap on the armchair in the corner, tracing the outline of her girlfriend’s fingers but her eyes are locked on Dorian. Fearne stands behind them, braiding Laudna’s hair, watching Dorian just as closely.
Fearn finishes plaiting Laudna’s hair and Laudna shifts to lay her head beside Imogen’s on the back of the chair, gaze still fixed on Dorian, “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to, dear. We all missed you very much.” Imogen nods along with her.
“No,” he forces a laugh, “No, it’s… it’s fine. I… I missed you all too. I was just figuring out how to put it into…” He huffs out another breath, bunching up his mouth as he searches for the next words.
“Where I’m from is very quiet and very cold,” he starts, finally, glancing at Chetney, leaned against the window sill, before continuing, “And I know why I had to go back and it was an obligation and the right thing to do… The whole time I was there, all I could think about was being home with you all, though.” He swallows hard and Orym sits down next to the couch to lean on his shins.
“And when I thought about it, it was warm and loud and bright. And I’ve been gone for so long that I don’t want to miss a moment of it now.”
Ashton’s hand has migrated up to scratch the underside of Dorian’s hair affectionately, “Like fuck are you going anywhere without us for long-ass time.”
There’s a murmur of agreement that ripples around the room and Dorian huffs, trying to surreptitiously dab at his wet eyes as he chuckles. Orym relocates to the couch next to Dorian and takes his hand.
“Well, shit, let’s all go sit in your room while you unpack then,” Chetney calls, already halfway up the stairs, “You can’t keep living out of a suitcase because you’ve got a mushy little heart, Storm boy.”
Letters and Laudna send the motorized chair lift up and down to one another and everyone files into the biggest room of the house. Ashton comes up last, using the motorized chair in privacy, even though the other can hear the whir of the engine. No one mentions it because it’s not often he uses it when he needs to and if they draw attention to it, he’ll do it even less. Baby steps.
Fearne brings up a speaker and cues up the “Home” playlist again. Dorian smiles gently and starts telling them about the band that came through town and how Cyrus had covered for him long enough to go see what they were about. (Funk Punk was not a combination anyone had been expecting but Dorian swore it worked.) Orym helps him put things away, dealing with the lower drawer items while Dorian hangs his clothes up, and Fearne pokes around, asking about any new items in his suitcase. Most of the little baubles end up on the top of her chest of drawers but Dorian doesn’t seem to mind, having secretly brought them back for her anyway. Chetney starts talking about building them each a little shelf for trinkets and Fearne is immediately distracted and throws herself down next to him to watch his sketching.
FCG starts making plans for dinner and coordinating pizza orders on Dorian’s computer from the middle of the California King that Dorian, Fearne, and Orym share. At one point he’s shouting over people’s heads and forcing Chetney to add a vegetable to his pizza. Imogen lays in the middle of the floor with her eyes closed, a small horse figurine twirling between her fingers, and a gentle smile on her face while Laudna starts mending any new holes they find in Dorian’s clothes. When that’s done, she starts on Fearne’s.
They don’t realize Fearne has a security guard’s badge until about halfway through movie night several hours later, when she starts fidgeting with it. There are several boxes of pizza open on the coffee table. Imogen is asleep with her head in Laudna’s lap and Laudna’s attention is only on the purple hair between her fingers now and tracing Imogen’s peaceful feature. With a sigh, Orym starts researching the next closest airport on his phone, squished between Dorian and Letters. Fearne and Chetney are still talking about the trinket shelves, bundled up under the same blanket. Ashton shoves another bite of pizza into their mouth from the floor and leans back so his head is in Orym’s lap to continue the airport search, veto-ing the next closest one on account of, “The TSA there are assholes, and I’m too recognizable.” All is as it should be.