Chi cracked his neck as he walked through a portal back to the house. He had planted the trackers where Dio wanted, and spent another two hours watching the spot, until a spook in a suit got too close to the hiding spot behind a stack of crates, causing the whole thing to go boom. It was a sizable explosion. And those bombs had been inside the heads of four children. 

He just wanted to take a nap. Though it had only been six hours since discovering Deimos tearing apart the playground equipment, it felt like a month of energy was extracted from his body in that time. He opted to open a portal into the living room rather than use the front door. He didn’t want any of the kids to try to make a run for it, and even with Dio’s soundproofing, the door opening was loud enough to wake those in the household with more sensitive than human hearing. Which, as Chi and his siblings had that, no doubt the children did as well.

Sighing, Chi walked into the living room, hoping some tea would help settle him. He blinked at the aftermath of destruction he saw there.

The couch was flipped over, the entertainment system gutted, wires and screws and plastic parts scattered all around, fallen food left on the floor, other furniture pushed way out of place, a broken lamp and a few trinkets swept hastily into a corner, and in the center of it all…

Seven exhausted dragons.

The kids were already asleep, curled up and tangled together. Deimos and Perses took up the outside of the little wyrm pile, with Icelus and Moros tucked in between them. 

The explanation for the chaos revealed itself, in the stack of dishes and cake tins piled in the sink. Chi rolled his eyes. He strode over, kicking bits of electronics across the floor, to settle by Dio on one of the surviving kitchen chairs. 

“Exciting night?”

His twin nodded, not looking up from his wrist computer. Lamis laboriously dragged herself to the kitchen, and started to load things into the dishwasher as quietly as she could. Pom lay by the main entrance to the house, eyes half closed as he stared at the front door, guarding.

“Any trouble?” Chi kept his voice low. 

“Nothing I could not have predicted,” Dionysis murmured back. “They appear to have no food allergies.” His fingers clenched, and Chi took note that the kids must have had allergies to something else. “However, I would like to check them over more thoroughly tomorrow, to ensure they are not suffering any form of malnutrition, or other ailment.” He paused. “They were so hungry.”

“Hey, they’re going to be okay. They’re here, we can take care of them now.” 

Dio glared over at Chi, hissing. “I know that! We are in no immediate danger.”

“Good.” Chi hoped that was true, he really did.

Dio huffed. “Any issues with the PSS?”

“One of their spooks got blown up, but other than that, no.” Chi tapped his claws on the table. “This was too easy.”

Dio raised a brow at the destruction around them. 

“No, not that. The operation, the trackers. It was too easy. If this Knight guy was good enough to keep them a secret for this long, then he’s good enough to know when that secret tries to escape.”

A low growl issued from the back of Dio’s throat. “He cannot have them.”

“Of course we won’t let him take the kids,” Chi soothed. He rubbed a hand over his muzzle. He needed to think about this. “Have you found out anything else about the PSS?”

“Nothing more than the last time you inquired.”

Chi nodded, and stood. “Keep looking. I’m going to grab some blankets for the kids. They can sleep here tonight. We can put them in the game room on the ground floor. Icelus doesn’t like heights.”

Dionysis waved him away, tapping over their computer. No doubt trying to break more firewalls and government systems to find out more about where they had been hiding their child. No doubt he would know the location of the PSS by morning, but knowing where your enemy was was only part of the battle. An important part, but still only a part.

Sighing, Chi went to Pom’s room, and grabbed an armload of blankets and pillows from his brother’s sprawling nest. He hesitated by the door to his own room, before grabbing a knit blanket May gave him years ago for Christmas. He crept towards the pile of sleeping children, gently laying the blankets over their backs.

Deimos’s tail twitched, latching immediately onto Chi’s leg as his eyes snapped open. The yellow of his eye had expanded, the pupil a small dot in the center. Chi froze. Then Deimos’s eye relaxed back to normal, and his tail fell limp. He let out a quiet sigh and snuggled more around his siblings.

Chi didn’t move for a long time, trying to get his heartbeat back under control. For a moment he thought… Letting out a breath, he finished tucking the blankets around the sleeping children.

He looked at them for another several heartbeats, before turning away to help Lamis with the dishes.

“They’re sweet kids,” Lamis murmured as Chi came to the sink with a new load of dishes.

Chi waved a hand, indicating that they should speak in sign language. Dio had trouble speaking when they were children, prompting the whole family to learn. Signing remained a constant in their lives, mostly as a way of sneaking past their dad as teenagers, and speaking discretely as adults. 

“We don’t want to wake anyone up,” he signed. 

“It’s hard to sign with soap on your hands,” Lamis signed, flicking said suds at her older brother.

Chi stuck out his forked tongue, immediately regretting it when Lamis’s next swipe ended with his mouth full of soap. He made a face, spitting dramatically into the sink. Lamis muffled a cackle into her forearm. 

“You’re just loading the dishwasher, not even scrubbing,” Chi signed, before flicking a rude gesture that still conveyed his meaning, even with four fingers.

“Serves you right,” Lamis signed. “Making signs like that, you’ll teach the kids bad words!”

Chi covered a cake tin with saran wrap and navigated its place in the overfull fridge before replying. “We should talk about them. What we need to do.”

“We need to be their parents,” Lamis signed sharply.

Chi raised his hands defensively. “We will talk about it.”

“What is there to talk about?” Lamis frowned. “They’re our kids. Our sons. What else would we do? We need to keep them safe.”

Chi tapped a claw against the side of a trifle tureen. “Yes. We do need to keep them safe.”

Lamis stared at him with assessingly. Chi carefully kept his attention on covering deserts, facade placid.

“You seem worried,” Lamis signed finally.

Chi huffed. So much for that. 

“We don’t know enough about all this.” Chi waved his hand. “The PSS, the kids. I don’t trust it.”

Lamis studied him a moment longer, then finally reached over and hugged him around his shoulders. 

“No matter what comes, we’ll deal with it together,” she whispered. “Like always.”

Chi squeezed his little sibling, lifting her off her feet in a hug. “Of course we will,” he whispered. “Remember? We got our family here to help us.”

“Always.” Lamis smiled down at him, propped up so her nose could finally reach over his head. She wiggled free and went back to loading the dishwasher.

Chi rubbed a hand over his face. No matter what happened, the children were their responsibility to take care of.

Like he said, it was important to know where your enemies were.

…