20. Zenith VS Baby #2
Emre blushed, that fetching shade of pink all over his cheeks. Zenith’s heart swelled. And he closed the distance between them, sliding their mouths together in the gentlest kiss.
Emre gasped. Electricity sparked between them.
Then Emre kissed back, and Zenith was so happy, he could cry. Emre’s lips were soft and luscious; Zenith tasted peppermint tea on them. He swallowed Emre’s whimper.
“You’re amazing,” he growled.
Emre shivered against him, one hand coming up to clutch Zenith’s shirt. So Zenith kissed him again and again, nipping on Emre’s lower lip, flicking his tongue into Emre’s mouth. Emre opened for him, pliant and submissive, so eager to let Zenith have all of him.
“Mine,” Zenith said, winding his fingers into Emre’s hair to angle him better, so he could press more deeply into Emre’s mouth. Their tongues slid together, and Emre trembled against him.
Eventually, they broke the kiss, pressing their foreheads together.
“You’re gorgeous,” Zenith whispered.
“So are you,” Emre said, his face redder than before.
Zenith thought he might’ve gotten lost in Emre’s eyes for a while.
Then Abbie farted in her sleep, snapping them both out of it.
“Oh,” Emre said, laughing quietly. He looked around and seemed to realize where they were, and how late it was. “Bedtime?”
“Gladly,” Zenith said, aching to have Emre back in his arms. “And more of that kissing in bed?”
Emre turned pink, smiling so brightly that he was almost difficult to look at.
“Don’t forget to whisper sweet pickup lines to each other in the darkness,” Huxton said from somewhere in the mansion. “I have written some in glow-in-the-dark ink.”
“You—” Zenith groaned. Emre snickered.
“It’s on the ceiling,” Huxton added.
“Fuck off,” Zenith said. “You did not.”
“Oh yes, I did.”
Zenith sighed. It was Emre who stood up first, to tuck Bean into his spelled bed. Zenith followed close behind—they had Abbie and Bean sleeping in the same crib now, and Abbie was spending a lot of time curled up around Bean when they were both pups, licking Bean’s ears as he slept.
When the babies were both comfortable, Zenith took Emre’s hand and led him to their bedroom, scanning the walls and ceiling. “I don’t see anything.”
“That’s because you need to turn on the lights to charge them first. Then they’ll glow!” Huxton said.
Emre switched on the lights. After a while, he switched them off.
Bright pink writing shone on the walls and ceiling, several pickup lines that Zenith refused to look at.
He turned the lights back on. “Guess we’re wearing blindfolds tonight.”
“Both of us?” Emre sounded excited.
“Both of us,” Zenith said. “I guess we’re going to explore a new kind of kink.”
To Zenith’s horror, the poopnami happened.
It was supposed to be a routine diaper change. Bean was a few weeks old by this point, and Zenith had diaper changes under his belt.
Emre smelled it first. By the time Zenith brought Bean to the changing station in the nursery, he could smell it too. He undid the fasteners on the diaper and laid it out, turning away for one second to grab a clean one.
Except Bean’s stomach made a gurgling sound.
Then a squelching sound.
Fluid splattered.
When Zenith turned back, bracing himself, he was not prepared for the sight that met him.
It was as though someone had poured a bowl of tan-brown batter into a hose and sprayed it all out. Bean’s poop was everywhere. Bits of it had gotten on everything in front of him—his legs, Zenith’s clothes, even the supplies on the changing station and the floor around them.
Zenith regularly dealt with complex plots for his books, but to be faced with an epic mess of stinking proportions all at once—it was overwhelming.
He stopped and stared.
He despaired.
He took a few deep breaths and centered himself. “Uh, Emre?”
“Yeah?” Emre said from downstairs. He was in the kitchen with Abbie, and Zenith hated that he was interrupting Emre’s meal.
He sighed. “I just wanted to whine. It’s okay.”
“What happened?” Emre sounded concerned.
“The—The poopnami. It happened.” As he was saying it, Bean released a smaller wave of explosive poop. Thankfully, it didn’t go quite as far as the first wave.
“Oh, shit,” Emre said. He snickered. “Be right there.”
Zenith wanted to do something instead of waiting for Emre to get here. He carefully tugged off Bean’s diaper and rolled it up, dropping it in the trash. “I suppose you think it’s funny,” he said to the baby.
Bean kicked his legs and giggled. Zenith’s heart swelled.
He grabbed some wipes and started on Bean’s legs. By the time Emre got to the nursery, Zenith still wasn’t done, because it had somehow gotten between Bean’s tiny toes.
“Oh, Zenith,” Emre sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s not your fault. It’s just... my luck.” It would’ve been simpler to dunk Bean into a bathtub, probably, except neither of them was prepared to deal with a shifted merchild right now.
Emre stepped in to help. Between the two of them, they got Bean cleaned up and moved to the crib. Then they began the slow task of cleaning everything else.
“I would rather just burn this entire thing,” Zenith grumbled. “But—one, it’s not practical, and two, it’s fireproof.”
“Ha! I never thought fireproofing things would come back to bite you in the ass.”
“Me neither,” Zenith said, shaking his head. “It appears that Bean has thoroughly defeated me.”
Emre snickered. “Bean: 1, Zenith: 0?”
“More like Bean: 3, Zenith: 0,” Zenith said dryly. “That spitball in my eye, and the time he stuffed that toy in my mouth. Ugh!”
“Don’t forget the childhood stories!” Huxton yelled. “Scribbly Master has the worst childhood stories. I don’t think Bean will beat them.”
Emre perked up. “I can’t believe we haven’t talked about your childhood stories yet.”
Zenith cringed. “Ah. I was hoping to put that off for as long as I could.”
“There’s the one about the ring,” Huxton said meaningfully.
Emre gave Zenith a pointed look, and Zenith coughed sheepishly.
“I charge interest,” Emre said. “Now you owe me more than one!”
“Fine.” If Zenith was planning for them to stay together for a while, then Emre would find out his embarrassing secrets anyway, sooner or later. “But I think we should start with—”
BOOM!
Zenith froze. That sounded like it had come from the front of the mansion, beyond the hedges.
“Hux? Is that you fucking with Bruiser again?”
There was a pause.
“No,” Huxton said slowly. “We had no more explosive plans for him. I don’t know what that was.”