InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "one day there came a letter,"

Being in the past for a while wasn't the worst thing Vallo had thrown at Lance over the decades. Far from it. Sure it was weird and if he thought too much on how it all worked and the long term ramifications of time travel it really started to hurt his brain. But it was workable.

And while he missed their house, and the routines inherent in it, taking up in the Castle had provided its own fun. Exploring with the kiddos and showing off all the best spots (that he could remember at least). They were outside that afternoon, enjoying the warm fall day. Lance had found a stash of puzzles and toys, brought them into the little garden area.

He smiled watching Franci push Max around on a tricycle looking toy, and couldn't help but let his thoughts drift to wondering if it had once been Allura's. But the thought didn't come with the same gut punch as it would have decades earlier. Instead a soft little feeling, a warmth at knowing this would have been what she would have wanted for him. For all of them.

"Watch out for the steps!" he called out as the pair got close to them (close being still several feet away), but Franci turned it around and Lance leaned back into the patio chair once more.

"How's your trip to the past going?" he asked Eilan and turned his gaze away from the kids playing to Eilan across the patio table.

Eilan had been through a whole mess of emotions since he woke up at Boyd’s on day one of this mess. Their parents had been telling them for awhile now that there would be time shenanigans in their future, but no amount of telling them this prepared him for the actual experience of it all.

Everything was just so different from what he knew of Vallo in his own time, but it didn’t necessarily mean it was bad. Relearning how things worked at Boyd’s, meeting their parents while they were still young...it was a trip and a half.

But at least no one had freaked out (too much) and everyone was safe and happy. It was just a little vacation from their regular lives, that was all. Watching the little ones run around now with his dad in the backyard, Eilan considered the question he was being asked. There was the overshare of an answer that threatened to leave his mouth, but he stuck with the superficial one, not really sure if this was the time and place to get into it all.

“It’s...going well?” He offered, lifting soda can he had been drinking from and paying with the tab. “It’s a lot, but it’s kind of cool to see how things and people were before.”

Before was a weird concept. And honestly memory was a fickle thing and Lance would be hard pressed to have said much in the way of details about this particular segment of his life. It was really only that Shiro as the age he was supposed to be right now was without an arm that had even jogged things into place. That he'd been in Vallo all of roughly six months, barely past the prologue if it were a book.

"Just well?" he asked with a teasing grin. "Yeah, I get it though - the a lot part," Lance added. He knew his younger self had no doubt had it worse those first couple days, but it was still hard to be on eggshells, not sure what to say to some people, what to give away. Add in throwing a wrench into routines? Yeah, it was a lot.

Routines which prompted the next bit. "Hoping we all just slip back into our normal timeline without missing days - I'd hate for you and Kai to miss that much school." He'd found his younger self's books in the apartment, emailed what he could find and had spent the past couple nights trying to tackle what he could - but he hoped his kids didn't have to wake up to a damn mess in that regard when all of this reset.

Oh yay, there was that horrible feeling in his gut again. The one he got whenever he was lying to his father.

Okay, well, he wasn't exactly lying really, but Eilan was certainly not telling the truth about school and what he was actually doing with his time. Honestly, it wasn't even that he had set out to not tell Lance that he had dropped out of college, but every time he had tried, he couldn't get the words to leave his mouth. They seemed to get stuck and he'd simply let whatever opportunity that had presented itself to naturally tell Lance, go by.

And the way his mouth clamped shut and his fingers tightened around his soda, it was about to happen again. But then he remembered how Ymir (of all people!) was the one to offer stupidly sincere words in regards to the whole situation. Everyone had to follow their own path and his, simply, was not college at this point in time.

"The University is pretty good about letting us make up for time we miss because of Vallo being a dick. Kai will be fine," Eilan explained, rubbing the back of his neck. He waited a beat, gathering his thoughts before deciding to just go with it. "And considering I dropped out after last semester, I think I'll be fine." He was looking down at his knees now, hoping to avoid that flash of disappointment that may or may not make an appearance on his father's face. Because as understanding and kind as the older man was with them, this fear was present in most kids.

Kai will be fine. And Lance was just about to question that when Eilan continued and answered it before he could ask. It wasn't disappointment that showed in his face, but there was some surprise. Mostly at the timing, that classes had been in for two months now and this was just being brought up. Lance wasn't angry though about it, Eilan was nineteen. An adult really (even if well into that now himself Lance had trouble associating the word with anyone under twenty five, it was funny how that perspective changed).

"Oh," he got out after a moment. "Not your thing?" he followed up with. It wasn't accusatory or judgy, just a gentle curiosity as to how Eilan had come to the decision.

Eilan still wasn’t looking Lance in the face, but he nodded to his knees. “Yeah, I guess. It was just...I kept drifting off in class. The subjects weren’t holding my attention and I felt like I was just going through the motions. I moved to full time work at Boyd’s during the summer and when it came time to register for classes and cut my hours again...I just didn’t. Kai made me officially take an official leave once I told him, but yeah.” He looked up now, biting his lip. “Sorry? I just didn’t think it was the right place for me, right now.”

"There's nothing to apologize for, Eilan - if it wasn't for you then it wasn't for you," Lance said simply. Maybe the sentiment would be different if Eilan had dropped out and was doing nothing with his time, and even then it would be more concerning than a reason for being mad. But Lance knew what it was like to struggle in school. Hell he had barely made it into the Garrison in the first place.

"Look - I just want you to be happy, you know that right?" he added as he looked at Eilan. "You don't need to push yourself through college if you hate it."

The more logical part of him knew that he had nothing to worry about - Lance had been nothing but supportive since he had come into Eilan’s life. Never once had he raised his voice at him, except for that one time when he got into that motorcycle accident and nearly killed himself. And that had been more out of concern than anything else.

Still. Eilan had been through enough trauma and disappointing adult figures in his early life to be worried about this. Some things, you couldn’t shake with logic. But you could, when your father was actually telling you it was okay.

So he finally took a breath and looked up at the man. “I know. Thank you for understanding. I promise I’m doing something with my life that I love. And I’ll do more, once I can.” Then, eager to change the topic to something less nerve-inducing, he asked, “Can we talk about your and Atreus now?”

Lance knew where Eilan was coming from. Where they all were really. There was baggage his kids had that he would never hold against them. So even if he was a little hurt that the conversation was only happening now, he didn't take it too much to heart. They were having it and that was all that mattered.

"I'm glad you've found something you enjoy though," he said with a smile. Lance could easily remember when Eilan started at Boyd's - the excitement when he'd come home, how it really seemed to click and be a source of joy.

The shift in conversation though caught Lance a little off guard and he shot Eilan a smirk when he caught up to it. "Wow, I feel so called out right now." He paused for a quick moment. "What do you want to know?"

“Are you guys dating?” Eilan asked, blunt as a hammer. He didn’t have Kai’s patience or Clare’s thoughtfulness when it came to delicate matters and, honestly, Eilan really wished he didn’t have to ask. It was awkward, but their dad worked so hard their whole lives and provided so much for them that they had all been worried when it seemed like his relationships hadn’t worked out.

Except for Atreus, who always stuck it through no matter what else was going on and was so good to them. It was obvious to all of the older kids that something was going on between their dad and their “uncle,” but over the last couple of weeks, it seemed like something had changed and now they all had that burning desire for answers.

So Eilan was finally asking, even if he wanted to melt into his chair. “I mean, I don’t care or anything, but are you happy?” And that’s what it came down to. Was their dad happy in the way their various uncles and aunts were?

He'd been expecting some version of the question, but the absolute bluntness brought a soft laugh. Which was followed by a wrinkle of his nose at the word dating. "Dating sounds like I'm fifteen and taking someone to the movies," he said lightly. But he got the sentiment behind the question of course, and his answer wasn't exactly a no either.

It was his turn now to fiddle with his own pop can, taking a moment to try to put his thoughts into something more coherent. He wasn't entirely surprised by the question, he knew they were old enough to notice things.

"You know this is the first time in at least a decade there's more of you that are over the age of twelve than there are under?" he started, a little shrug of his shoulders. "And don't take that as me regretting the way I spent my life, Eilan - I don't at all. This family was the best thing that happened to me. But I know between focusing on you kids, and my own hang ups I put a lot of stuff on hold until recently." Fitting into a more traditional sense of relationship being one of them.

"But to answer your question - yeah. I'm happy, Eilan"

Okay, so not as painful as it could have been, but Eilan wasn’t going to count his chickens until he was as far away from this conversation as possible. “Alright. Good.” He nodded to himself, before chugging the rest of his soda and crumbling the can. “That’s all I needed to know. I’m going to toss this and find Kai and Clare. You got a handle on the littles?” He asked, nodding over at his younger siblings who were zipping around like they had done a line of pure sugar just seconds before.

Lance figured it'd probably come up again with the others. If Eilan was asking, they were all asking really. But it could wait until this whole thing righted itself, and he'd been planning on bringing it up soon anyways.

He finished off his own drink and tossed the can at Eilan to take with him. "Yeah, I've got them," he answered as he settled back into the chair. "Ask the others what they want for dinner and shoot me a text," he added with a wave as Eilan headed out.