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"Wait!!"
One little word has Sylus and Zayne stopping completely, all attention fixed on Kieran. He's looking all around, frantically searching the nearby ground, peeking through the legs of everyone going by.
"I lost Mephie!!"
"Mephisto is with mommy today, sweetheart," Sylus says calmly. Luke sits solidly on his shoulders, peeking over his head to watch his brother.
Kieran shakes his head. His face is getting redder, breaths becoming choked and tears starting to well up in his eyes. "No! My-" He emphatically squeezes something invisible with both hands multiple times. "My Mephie!"
The fathers both share a quick look. The Grumpy Crow plush took nearly an hour to win from the rigged fair games, but Kieran was determined, and Sylus and Zayne did their best not to get caught cheating to help out. Luke was just happy to play alongside his brother, insisting that his wins were his bother's wins, and that they should be counted together. The bored teen behind the stall was helpless to argue.
Zayne kneels down and rubs his back. "Shh, it's okay, darling. We'll look for your plushie."
Sylus scans the fairground. There's no telling where Kieran dropped it, and there's too much ground to cover alone. "We can split up," he tells Zayne as he rises back to his feet, child in his arms. "We'll find it, baby, I promise." He doesn't say how likely it is for another child to have picked it up by now.
"I'll go back to the game area."
"We'll check the food stalls."
"We'll find it, Kier!" Luke calls enthusiastically. He leans over Sylus's head, face rounded in childlike determination. "We will!"
Kieran blubbers, on the verge of a breakdown. Zayne holds him closer. They both go their separate ways, off on the hunt for the missing crow plushie.
-
Zayne frowns, biting the inside of his cheek as they reach the end of another row of tents. They're near the animal barns now, and there's no way the plush would be there since they visited the animals first. Kieran hugs his little arms around his neck. His little body shakes with his emotions. A wet patch soaks into Zayne's shoulder.
"Let's try to find Papa," he says softly by the boy's ear. "Maybe they found it."
He steps off the path to slip his phone from his pocket and he presses the button... And again. The screen stays dark.
He sighs, slipping it back in his pocket. The best they can do is head back the way they came and hope to find Sylus amid the chaos.
The speaker overhead crackles to life.
"Will Zayne Li-Qin and-"
A loud feedback squeal and a thud, and another voice comes through, yelling.
"Baba and Kier!!! We found Mephie!!!"
Kieran pokes his head up, looking around for where the familiar voice of his brother is coming from. His eyes are glossy, but shine with hope and excitement. Zayne smiles, relieved.
"We at the blue tent by the big wheel!!!"
Another thunk and what Zayne recognizes as Luke whining, and the first voice speaks again. They clear their throat.
"Please come to the lost child tent beside the ferris wheel. Thank you."
-
Sylus can't pretend to hide his smile as he reels Luke back into his arms. The boy had climbed over his head to grab the microphone from the attendant, nearly falling off onto the floor if it weren't for Sylus catching him.
The attendant looks quite put-out by the whole ordeal, embarrassed and angry. He can only offer her a slight shrug and half-apology; Luke will always find trouble.
Luke squeezes the toy to his chest with a pout. He wasn't done calling for the rest of his family yet, obviously.
"C'mon, sweetheart. Let's sit while we wait, hm?"
Sylus, too big and too long-legged, sits awkwardly in a cheap plastic chair lined up on one side of the tent. Fortunately, no other lost children are waiting for their parents to find them.
It takes a few minutes. Luke's pout dissipates into anxiety. He fidgets and shifts and bounces in Sylus's lap. Sylus isn't worried; Zayne is capable, and his son's message would have reached the very furthest car in the parking lot for how loud it was. Luke doesn't understand how microphones work yet.
Zayne ducks inside. Luke leaps from Sylus's lap before he can even fully let go. The child stumbles, almost falls, catches himself, and runs over to Zayne's feet. Kieran squirms from his arms, also almost falling and face-planting, just as Zayne sets him down.
"See? We found Mephie!" Luke cheers. He practically shoves the plushie into Kieran's arms.
Kieran rubs his face into the plushie's head. Zayne tries not to let his medical side scold him for it, and makes a mental note to wash the plushie as soon as they get home... Or as soon as Kieran is asleep and he can sneak it from him to wash it.
"Thank you!" Kieran sputters, over and over. He holds the plush in one arm and hugs Luke tightly.
Sylus stands with a grimace. His ass feels flat as a board after sitting in that garbage chair for so long. He smiles at Zayne. Both of them are relieved they don't have to go home with a crying, inconsolable child in the back seat; it would hurt them too much to have a nice day at the fair tainted by this experience. "I tried calling."
"My phone died," Zayne says. "Where did you find it?"
"Underneath the table we ate our funnel cakes at," Sylus answers. He smiles. "Luke disturbed the family there now, crawling under the table as soon as he spotted it."
Zayne bristles slightly at the thought of their son crawling on hands and knees in the dirt and grass. He sighs softly. "We have to bathe them when we get back."
"You need a bath, too, doc," Sylus teases. He leans in, whispering in his ear, smirk audible in the way his lips curl around the words. "You smell like cow shit."
Zayne huffs and shakes his head, but his own lips curl into a slight smile at his husband's antics. "Come on, darlings. Let's go home."