Winter was always the busiest time of the year at the Sanctuary. The snow on the ground and forest being harder to navigate made for far more temporary inhabitants. Especially the closer it came to Yule, and food became a little more scarce. With this being his second winter here - along with several years of just winter back home under his belt - he was used to it now. While he appreciated the break from the snow that spring and summer gave, it was when he felt most at home, and comfortable.
He wasn’t exactly comfortable with a reindeer calf stepping on his kidney, but he was making do as he held the large bottle for the hooved baby to drink from. They were in the large barn, sitting with the calves two siblings and mom laying down nearby - she’d had triplets, and late in the year for this sort of thing. It had strained her to the point of needing extra rest and care, and she seemed to appreciate the help Atreus was giving with the bottle.
Only he didn’t have enough hands to make this work. He’d put out a call for a few extra supplies and could hear his friend approaching before Shiro even reached the barn. Just in time to get stepped on again by a hungry calf. “Ow- Hi, yes, I’ve got a bottle for you, and I know you’re only a day old, but if we’re going to work on learning how to share a little rather than stepping on my vital organs, okay?”
Shiro - unlike his strange Hallmark self - didn't mind cold weather. Space was cold, after all. And he preferred when the metal of his arm was a little too cold than a little too hot. But he also knew it was a time of scarce resources and the need for diligence in regards to the stresses the weather could cause. He'd come to the Sanctuary to check in, see if Atreus or the animals needed anything, and spend some time catching up. Their weekly lunches had been scattered lately and Serendipity Hills had left Shiro eager to remind his loved ones that he was not so self-involved.
Even knowing the odd things Atreus got up to, he was surprised to find his friend in such a state. He snorted and shut the barn door behind him. "Patience definitely takes more than a day to learn," he teased. "It takes some decades."
Moving closer, he was careful where he stepped and watched the calves with a warm and curious gaze. "You look like you could use an extra pair of hands."
“I’m not sure if you’re calling me out or what.” Atreus quipped right back, knowing full well he didn’t have patience half of the time and his own father was prone to lecturing him on this same level. He was at least at the point where it would take more than a little teasing to rile him up. He still shot Shiro a smirk and gestured to the full bottle that was resting next to his leg.
“Settle in. Have you ever fed a day old reindeer before? It’s surprisingly pretty easy, they’re bossy.” The bossy one in question unlatched from the bottle long enough to honk at Atreus. His sibling wobbled over to where Shiro was standing, echoing the honks with his own bossy tune. “Triplets, and mom had them way later in the season than normal. I don’t know if it’s a weird Yule thing for Vallo or what, but she’s tired and three’s a lot to put on her.”
“I’ve never even seen one outside of movies,” Shiro admitted as he lowered himself to sit next to Atreus and he petted the baby that honking at him. “They’re adorable.” The reindeer stumbled on one knobby leg and fell half into Shiro’s lap. “And adorably awkward.” Once the reindeer wasn’t kneeing him in the thigh anymore, he collapsed sideways next to Shiro’s hip, mouth open and noisy. Shiro grabbed the bottle and guided it to the animal’s mouth.
“Is there anything else the mom needs?” he asked, looking over at the exhausted looking reindeer in question. She looked to be dozing. He had no idea if they were like horses or more like moose, but it wasn’t as if he had any knowledge about either of those things either. His experience was with one solitary milk cow in space, which in itself was a weird thing.
“Aw, really?” Atreus grinned at the idea that this was Shiro’s first encounter with reindeer, deeply pleased that he was immediately being put upon for food. “They’re really common where I come from, when I was younger my mother and I found a calf that had been left behind, and we didn’t have modern bottles? So we had to come up with a makeshift one and hope that milk from our cow would work and-- it was a mess, but that reindeer left us the next spring and went out on its own.”
He was smiling fondly, with the touch of sadness just reaching the corners of his eyes as he gazed down at the wiggling newborn in his arms. This felt a lot like that moment, only he wasn’t seven and still clueless to most things in the world. “Just rest, and then I’ll get her some extra food when these guys are sated.” As if on cue, the reindeer on Atreus’ lap honked loudly. “And names. I’m tempted to call this one “Noisy”.”
Shiro smiled softly at the mental image of a young Atreus saving an orphan calf with his mother. He knew enough about Atreus's mom to know Atreus was very young when she passed. It was a bittersweet memory and it made Shiro feel oddly protective of the calf drinking from the bottle in his hands. He scratched under the animal's jaw as he ate. Messily.
"Unlike you and your crazy winter, I spent most of my life in warm places. Not a lot of reindeer in the desert. Or space." He smirked at Atreus and then eyed the loud reindeer. "Noisy does seem fitting. Maybe you could fancy it up…Rowdy the reindeer," he suggested, shameless about the cheesiness of it. His own calf leapt up and stepped on Shiro's bent leg. That was going to bruise. "Oof. Rowdy and Riot? Ease up on me, buddy." He tried to carefully shift the reindeer back to a less painful position.
“Space is cold!” He assumed, at least, from the conversations they’d had about in the past. Traveling along the Yggdrasil was as close as Atreus had ever gotten to space, of course, but he’d picked up a lot of information about it over the last two years. “And besides, you guys have a space cow, so I feel like anything is possible here.”
He still laughed at Shiro’s names and glanced down at his reindeer in question. “Rowdy? What do you think?” Baby animals were always as chaotic in their heads as they were outside of them, deeper conversations usually came later, but when he got a positive reaction, Atreus grinned. “Rowdy, Riot, and---” He leaned over to pet the soft flank of the runt of the litter, who had gotten first dibs on food and was now sleeping next to his mom. “Rebel? You guys could form your own band.”
Shiro laughed. "I guess you do have a point. The cow was not a normal thing in space, just for the record. Intergalactic travel and landing on alien planets involves a lot of environmental differences that require a space suit and helmet. Can you imagine trying to outfit reindeer in those?"
The temporarily named Riot seemed to take offense to that because he jumped fully into Shiro's lap and drove him back into the hay behind him. He steadied them both with his metal arm and a cooed whoa, easy there. The animal calmed, more because he had a good grip on the bottle now than anything else. Shiro huffed a laugh and relaxed a bit himself. Atreus and his gentle care for the runt made him smile.
"How long do you think you'll keep them here?" he asked. "All the way into spring?"
“Shiro,” Atreus laughed, both at the picture of a reindeer in a space suit, and the idea of any animal in a space suit. “I have a hard time picturing a cow in a space suit too. But I appreciate just how space nerd you’re being right now.” It wasn’t the first time and he likely never would’ve asked Shiro to stop, not in a million years. Even if the idea of animals in space was a weird one. Despite having a squirrel that could likely travel through time and space on a whim, when outside of Vallo.
But now his friend was being beat up by a tiny reindeer and the amusement turned it’s attention. The now-named Rowdy opted to settle a little, probably from his stomach getting full and satisfied, or maybe because he just wanted to prove he could be better than his brother. “If they continue doing well, I probably won’t have to keep them that long, but it depends on how well they eat from mom. Fawns depend on milk for a few months. We’ll see how the next couple weeks go.”
He tipped his chin behind him, towards the closed-off barn that wasn’t far away. “I don’t think they’ll be here as long as the Simurgh’s, at least. Those guys are also a handful if you want to help me feed them next.”
"That was my point!" Shiro laughed. He wasn't embarrassed about the space nerdiness. Atreus was certainly used to it by now. And at least he wasn't staring longingly at the sky and waxing poetic. He'd save that for New Year's.
Riot looked progressively sleepier as the bottle emptied, which was both a blessing and a curse. Shiro needed to not be under the gangly-limbed infant when he fell asleep or he'd be there until the animal woke up again.
"I'm happy to help wherever you need me. You sounded like you had a lot on your plate and I wanted to spend time with you anyway." He tried to carefully shift out from under the reindeer as he frowned towards the barn door. "Are they settling in okay? The Simurgh?"
Atreus had no such qualms about making sure the reindeer on his lap didn’t fall asleep there, he just let it happen. But he was a sucker, and more often than not ended up in the barn with some kind of animal sleeping on him. He liked it - made him feel useful and calm, like he was doing something right with all of this even though the proof was in everything around him that he was.
“It’s a busy week,” He admitted, letting himself sound a little tired, but with a grin. “Worth it, but busy. They’re good, recovering from being alone, learning to trust. Lore’s basically decided they’re his, and so far they like Lance more than they like me.” That made him grin a little wider. “He’s been spoiling them though.”
Huffing a laugh, Shiro smoothed a hand over Riot's flank as the reindeer drifted into sleep, still half-heartedly suckling at the bottle. "I guess that's one way to build trust. It's good Lore is fond. He'll keep an eye out for them, I imagine."
The reindeer stopped drinking and Shiro sat as still as he could not to disturb his very precious sleeping. "You and Lance…" He glanced sideways at Atreus, one eyebrow lazily lifting. "It seems like you've been spending a lot of time together. Are you going to give him a real job around here?" He wished he had a coffee cup to sip right about now. So he could give his friend a teasing stare over the rim. He had to settle for a crooked smirk and smiling eyes.
“They might be his now, in all honesty.” Atreus wasn’t mad about it, and he didn’t specify if he meant Lore or Lance. Either one was good with him, socializing animals or having protections made him feel warm and fuzzy when others connected to animals.
He caught that eyebrow raise, though, and looked up, a little surprised. Then he felt his face flush, and he immediately looked back down again. Between the times Lance had crashed over here and all of the Serendipity Hills stuff, he’d been able to dodge and avoid questions so far. But Atreus wasn’t stupid, and he certainly wasn’t blind. He just didn’t quite know how to navigate it.
“If he wants one, he can have one. But the pay is terrible. I know school hasn’t been quite what he’s wanted.” He could still try and avoid the obviousness of Shiro’s hints, though.
Shiro gave Atreus an amused and suspicious look. "Well. Lucky then that I think he'll happily keep spending time here for free." He wasn't keen on pushing his friends into anything - whether he thought there was something there or not. He was mostly just a little nosy. And he wanted everyone to be happy. Awkwardness between two of the people he loved most would be terrible for all of them. But he'd risked it with Keith and he had no regrets, so he could only hope for the same magic with them.
He dropped his eyes to his charge and set the bottle aside. "Think we can slip away to see the Simurgh now? I still only know what they vaguely look like because of the internet and now I'm kind of dying of curiosity."
“Yeah.” Atreus could read between the lines, but he was grateful that Shiro didn’t push, and he wasn’t wrong, anyway. Lance was always welcome, and Atreus could and would put any potential feelings to the side for as long as he needed to keep things from straying to an awkward path, given how well he’d handled his last relationship. Stopping the potential of screwing it all up again was his best bet.
But if he could distract them both with cuddly puppies with wings, he would. Atreus looked down at the reindeer now passed out against his hip and smiled, before gently moving him so he could cuddle next to his brother. “We can, but you’re going to have to be really stealthy.”
The demi-god was up and moving already when he tossed a shit-eating grin over his shoulder. “Race you.”