We headed into the dining hall just as Rian was coming in the back door with Kami and Brandon right behind him.

“Rian, inside feet!” Kami said sternly, Rian instantly slowed from a run to a walk, until he laid eyes on Alyce and then he was tearing across the hall again. “Thank- Rian!”

Brandon stifled a laugh as Kami threw her hands in the air in defeat. Alyce crouched to catch the whirlwind child, scooping him up into her arms to hug him before she narrowed her eyes at him, “What did Miss Kami just say?”

“Inside feets.” Rian lowered his gaze a little, knowing he should have listened.

“Exactly. And why do we use inside feet?”

“So we don’t twip and fall, or wun into someone on assident.”

“Ac-ci-dent.”

“Ac-ci-dent”

“Accident.”

“Assident.”

Mat and Cedric were snickering quietly, as were a handful of the staff finishing the clean up. Kami turned to face Brandon, muffling her laugh in his chest, and he was biting his fist to stifle his own.

“We’ll work on it. You’ll get there.” Alyce smiled at him and glared at the others. I was grateful to be standing just behind her, as I was currently mimicking Brandon’s pose.

We composed ourselves quickly as Alyce continued speaking to Rian. “Now, what should you do?”

“Use my inside feets?”

“Yes, and?”

“Wisten to the wules.”

“Mmhmm, anything else?” She tapped the tip of his nose lightly.

He thought a moment, before his eyes lit up with the answer and he wiggled out of Alyce’s arms. She let him slide to his feet and then he started to run a couple steps, before correcting himself to a walking pace. He went over to Kami and she crouched down to his height so she could look him in the eyes.

“I’m sowwy Miss Kami.”

“I accept and understand. We all get excited and sometimes it’s hard to follow the rules when that happens, but you showed that you learned from it when you corrected yourself coming over to me. Good job kiddo.” She was rewarded with a big smile and a hug from him before she stood back up.

It was then that Miss Maggie came out of the back, hanging her apron on a hook by the door on her way. She walked over to the group of us smiling down at Rian, “Did you have fun today Rian?”

“Yes! I even got ice cweam for dessewt.”

“You must have been well behaved to get a treat like that! I’m glad to hear it.” Maggie glanced at me, sending me a brief mindlink. *Does he know yet?*

*No, we’re going to tell him tomorrow.*

*Alright, I will say nothing then.*

I smiled at her and nodded slightly. Kami and Brandon were looking at me curiously. I motioned towards Alyce with a brief nod of my head and then they seemed to understand. Alyce would tell them later.

Alyce scooped Rian up and hugged him, “I will come get you from the daycare center tomorrow after I have taken care of a few things ok?”

“Okies!” He hugged her neck tightly and kissed her cheek before she passed him to me.

“Don’t give Miss Maggie any trouble ok?” I ruffled his hair a bit.

“I’ll be goods. Pwomise.”

“Good.” I hugged him and set him back down.

He and Miss Maggie headed out the back door to head home for the night. Alyce looked at the group, “Junk food and a random movie for background noise in our room, while we fill in Kami and Brandon?”

“We’ll get the snacks!” Kami and Mat said in unison, laughing as they ran off to the pantry.

I rolled my eyes a bit at the two. “Welcome to the madhouse Cedric, featuring Mayhem,” He motioned to me, and then towards the pantry, “Chaos and Destruction. We’ll have you join the pack officially in the next few days.”

Cedric laughed, rolling with it. “Don’t madhouses usually have those lovely jackets that let you hug yourself?”

“I’m afraid we’re fresh out. Seems like the shipment is always getting lost.” Alyce joined in.

“May-hem maybe have something to do with that?” He asked.

“More likely Chaos. He’s always up to no good.”

“Mmm, that makes sense.”

We waited for Mat and Kami to return with enough junk food to make someone sick from the sugar. “We heard that.” Kami huffed.

“Don’t mind her, she was laughing until she realized she’s Destruction. We can call her Des, for short.” Mat cackled, narrowly dodging the back of skittles Kami threw at his head.

“See? Destruction.” Alyce giggled and picked up the skittles.

We took the elevator up, heading to our room once we reached the fifth floor. Inside the junk food was put on the coffee table and Cedric found some mini-documentary series to put on in the background.

Once we were all settled in and munching on various snacks, Alyce filled Kami and Brandon in on what was going on. It was like a highlights, cliff notes version.

“This is so exciting!” Kami squealed, throwing herself at me to pull me into a hug.

I laughed a bit, Tristan shaking his head a little at her as he spoke, “We’re pretty excited too.”

“I have to admit, with the blood bond and the obvious natural affection between the three of you, it does seem like with you two is the best place for him.”

“Maybe Rian will like shopping with his Auntie and Uncle!” Kami’s eyes got wide with excitement. Mat nodding in support of this idea

“Hey now, let’s not spoil the child.” Tristan sighed at Kami.

“Don’t hold your breath Tristan. She and Mattie are going to be hopeless on that front.” I giggled softly, knowing exactly how those two were going to be.

“We won’t be -that- bad!” Mat defended.

“Sure you won’t, not if the shopping is supervised anyway. It’s the unsupervised shopping I’m worried about at this point.” I snickered.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” Kami gave me an innocent look.

“Uh-huh. None of us are buying that story Kam.” Brandon chuckled.

Kami pouted at him, “Whose side are you on here?”

“The winning side in this case, duh.”

She scoffed and grabbed one of the cushions off the couch, and thwacked Brandon in the chest with it, knocking him off balance. As he was sitting on the arm of the couch and caught off guard he fell backwards, landing on the floor.

“OOF!” We heard him hit with a thud.

“Brandon!” I exclaimed, laughing as I did so.

“Sorry, but only kinda!” Kami giggled.

“Are you alright Brandon?” Cedric asked.

I leaned over across Kami’s lap to peek over the arm of the couch, “He’s fine. Is his face supposed to be blue though?”

I could see the amusement on Brandon’s face as he kept perfectly still and quiet, playing into the ruse I had just started.

“What!?” Kami started to panic a little, trying to shove me off of her. I did not make that an easy task and she had to struggle to shove me off her.

I nearly slid off the couch myself, but Tristan caught me in his arms and pulled me effortlessly into his lap, whispering in my ear, “You’re terrible, Half-Pint.”

I tried desperately not to giggle as Kami scrambled to the arm of the couch to look at Brandon. I failed to not giggle as her hectic momentum carried her over the arm of the couch and right onto Brandon’s chest.

He caught her and I was instantly in a giggle fit, his own laughter soon sounding out with mine.

“Worried about me, Kami?” He still had his arms wrapped around her, and I don’t think either of them really noticed, or minded for that matter.

“Of course! Tristan might kill me if I were responsible for something happening to his Gamma. I’m too young and pretty to die! Now let me go you big lug!”

He reluctantly removed his arms from her, “Well I can’t really argue with that statement.”

Kami blushed a little at his implication and climbed off him, taking the hand Cedric offered to help her keep her balance.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t kill you.” Tristan said.

“Yeah, we could just promote Cedric, it’d be fine.” Mat teased.

“I can feel the love around here.” Brandon laughed as he sat up and then got to his feet.

“I would make sure we threw one hell of a party in your honor.” I snickered.

“Oh well then, someone push me off the couch again would ya? I’ll fake my death and attend the party.”

“My turn!” Tristan volunteered.

“I dunno, if you do I might actually not get back up.” Brandon laughed.

“Well I could always do it then.” I glanced sideways at him with a smirk.

“That’s even worse. I watched you in that spar.”

“Just what are you implying hmm?”

“That I might not get up again if you did it either.”

I laughed. Cedric was laughing too. “She is a pretty tough cookie.”

“That’s an understatement.” Mat agreed.

“Who was it that decided cookies are tough? Good cookies are anything but.” I pondered, laying my head on Tristan’s shoulder.

“You have a valid point.” Kami said.

“Perhaps a more accurate statement would be, tough coconut?” Cedric suggested.

“Or just a tough nut.” Mat shrugged.

“Tough as nails.” Brandon said.

“That one seems appropriate.” Tristan said.

I rolled my eyes at them a bit. “Now I’m the one feeling the love.”

“We can kick them out and I’ll show you some love alright.” Tristan murmured, but not softly enough.

The others started snickering and my face turned as red as a tomato.

“Oo-la-la.” Kami wiggled her eyebrows at us.

“Bow chicka wow wow.” Mat was right there with her, teasing me.

I grabbed a couple of the couch pillows and chucked them at the two of them. I hit Kami square in the face and Mat managed to dodge the face hit, but still took it to his shoulder.

“Assault! Assault!” Mat cackled as he threw the pillow back at me.

I caught it and flew out of Tristan’s lap, tackling Mat to the floor. “I’ll show you assault alright!”

Mat and I started rolling around on the floor, each of us trying to get the upper hand on the other.