The couch had never felt more judgmental.
Salvar sat on it at six in the morning wearing sunglasses indoors, which was either a fashion statement or a cry for help depending on how charitable you were feeling.
The dark circles underneath them had been developing since midnight when packing revealed itself to be less of a task and more of an archaeological excavation of his entire existence.
And the honorable bodyguard stood before him.
He was younger than Salvar expected. Clean cut, no tattoos crawling up his neck, no piercings catching the morning light, no beard growing with the ambition of a forest. He looked like someone who drank water regularly and slept at reasonable hours.
He introduced himself with both hands at his sides and a professional straightness to his spine. "Skyler"
Salvar stood and shook his hand. "Salvar."
He smiled.
The smile was completely fake.
Somewhere behind him small feet thundered down the stairs with the energy of someone who had not been awake until 3am packing and repacking the same bag four times.
Milo arrived at the bottom of the stairs already dressed, backpack on, face carrying the specific brightness of a child who believed he was going on vacation and had not yet been informed that life was more complicated than that.
He looked at Skyler.
Skyler looked at him.
Milo looked at Sky's clean face, his neat clothes, his complete absence of anything that a five year old would categorize as scary but his pace slowed.
Then Milo approched Salvar and grabbed his legs with both arms.
"Uncle Sal Uncle Sal we are going on vacation!" He bounced against his knees.
Salvar looked down at him.
Something in his chest did the thing it always did when Milo looked at him like that.
Like he was the safest person in the room.
Like the world was simple and good and contained mostly snacks and cartoons and his legs to hang off.
He reached down and ruffled his hair.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Our life is going to be fun."
Milo beamed and ran off toward Derek who had appeared in the doorway holding two bags and an expression of someone who had also not slept.
Erek called from the porch and Salvar picked up Milo and walked ahead.
The drive to the airport was a Beladore family production.
For the first time in longer than Salvar could honestly remember, all five of them were in the same car going the same direction. It felt like the family photographs from when he and Alex were small. Before everything got heavy.
Salvar remembered Alex and he always fought to get the passenger seat.
And as he expected Alex was in the passenger seat.
Salvar stood outside the car and knocked on his window.
Alex turned his head approximately two degrees. "No."
"I want this seat."
"Get lost."
"It has always been my seat."
"Never, it's your amnesia speaking." Alex didn't looked at Salvar and ignored him like a discarded garbage.
"Hell nah."
"Get lost."
Salvar knocked again. Alex's jaw tightened. Neither of them moved. The silent standoff had the energy of two people who had been having this exact argument since they were eight and eleven and had never once resolved it.
Erek's exhausted voice came from the other side of the car, "I swear you two never matured. Do you two realise that one of you is a father and other is an uncle?"
"Alright, since Alex won't budge from my seat, I have no option but to drive."
Three seconds of silence followed as Erek's eyes scanned his face.
"Dad," Salvar said pleasantly, "why don't you enjoy the ride with papa today and enjoy some scenery?
A few moments later...
The scenery was a residential street at six thirty in the morning. There was no scenery.
From the backseat, Erek's hand shot forward and planted itself firmly in front of Milo like a seatbelt made of pure parental instinct. His eyes locked on the road ahead and did not blink.
Derek, beside him, had gone very still in the particular way of someone who wanted to look out the window but had decided that looking out the window required moving and moving was not currently safe.
Alex's face, which maintained nonchalance as a lifestyle, had developed a visible tension around the jaw.
"Will you all stop looking at me like that," Salvar said. His voice was tired. "I know how to drive."
"I have enough trauma with cars," Alex replied. The words were light. The meaning was not.
Salvar said nothing.
Derek cleared his throat gently. "I trust you. I just prefer to look ahead."
"I don't trust you," Erek said, completely flat with no decoration. Just a fact he was presenting to the room.
"What about Milo?" Salvar asked.
Everyone turned to Milo.
Milo was watching rhymes on the tablet, completely unbothered.
The wheels on the bus goes round and round. Round and round. Round and round.
He was not looking at anyone but replied with in a singsong voice, "We are going all through the town."
The hour and a half to the airport passed with Erek's hand never fully leaving its protective position in front of Milo and Derek narrating the view with the dedicated energy of someone filling silence before it filled itself with something worse.
Alex stared forward and said nothing.
Salvar drove and said nothing.
They understood each other perfectly.
The private terminal was quieter than the main one. Their plane was already waiting on the tarmac, small and clean against the pale morning sky.
Skyler handled the luggage and the check in with the efficiency of someone who had done this many times and did not require supervision.
Salvar watched him work and revised his assessment slightly upward from fake smile territory to provisional tolerance.
He turned back to his family.
Alex had Milo.
Erek was holding him from the other side supporting his weight and Alex's arms were around him, his face pressed into the top of Milo's head. His eyes were wet. He blinked and blinked and it did not help.
Salvar stood still and watched his brother hold his son.
Alex could not lift him. Could not chase him. Could not crouch on the floor and wrestle him the way fathers did.
He held him at this angle, this specific careful angle, and made it enough because it had to be.
Salvar felt something press behind his sternum.
Then Erek turned and pulled Salvar into a hug.
It caught him completely off guard. He blinked into his father's shoulder before his arms came up automatically and he patted his back.
"Why are you acting like I am on a mission?" Salvar asked.
Erek said nothing.
He held on for another moment then broke the hug and stepped back. His face was composed but his eyes said something else entirely.
Derek waved from beside him. Bright, cheerful, the wave of someone choosing optimism as an act of will.
Milo waved back with his entire body. "Bye Grandad! Bye Grandpa!"
Skyler followed them through the gate. The air hostess smiled and closed the door behind them with a soft definitive click.
Salvar settled into his seat.
Milo pressed his face against the oval window and watched the ground crew move below with the focused attention of a nature documentarian.
The engines rose.
The tarmac began to move.
Salvar looked out his own window and watched the city pull away beneath them, familiar streets shrinking into patterns, the house somewhere back there with the pendulum clock and the butterscotch memories and the fathers who waved until they couldn't be seen anymore.
Thornvale grew closer with every second, so his brand new destiny.