I should've been there (CW, TW)

He smiled lightly as he heard her chuckle, even though his eyes lids were too heavy to stay open, he could sense her smile. A small laugh left him, as she explained that she had heard stories, and this was a success. “Thanks,” he mumbled with a tired, satisfied smile on his lips. One day, I’m going to make it up to you.
He hummed lightly, agreeing, when she told him he should get some sleep and kissed her gently back – shortly after he dozed off, still with an arm around her.

It didn’t last long, before he woke up with his heart beating towards his chest like a gorilla and the thoughts about the message he had received earlier seemed to be the only thing in his mind. Haunting him. He sighed deeply and tried to suppress it. They had to sleep. The more he seemed to want to sleep, the more the thoughts haunted him. How was Tien even coping? Was she out and about or was she at home, making sure their siblings were alright? Could she even sleep like he had just done for a max of 20 minutes? Was Seraphina going to be alright? Did she blame herself? Had they been eating, or did they just go hungry to bed?
He tightened the grip around Letha burring his face in her hair. He didn’t wish to wake her up. She had a long day ahead of her; just like himself. They needed to be fully rested to work properly. Even though he was a certain plan, and thought he wanted to follow it, his tears didn’t wait for the morning and started to burn up into his eyes. No mercy. They ran out from his eyes and down onto the pillow. If Letha didn’t seem to wake up, he would tighten his grip around her even more. No response? He would give her a small nudge on the shoulder to wake her op. He was already sniffing.

He tried to pulled a smile, when she finally turned, but everything in his body resisted it, making his lip quiver a bit. What’s going on? He shook his head lightly, even though the pillow didn’t really allow it. “I just…” his voice was hoarse, low and interrupted by sobbing. Her hands were nice against his face, drying away his tears.
“No,” he protested against her chest, hugging her, but with no power to make it tight. He knew that she meant that it was okay that he woke her up and that he cried. But it felt like she meant that it was okay that she was gone. He was confused by his own thoughts and words. He could feel how her chest got wet from his tears. He sniffled and tried to collect his thoughts for a moment, which also paused the tears. He hadn’t had the possibility to say goodbye, it hadn’t been a progressive sickness, which slowly took Edens life. No, something had changed drastically resulting in her death. He looked up at Letha, sinking the lump in his throat.
“Letha?” he whispered, still with teary eyes and a hoarse voice. He waited for her to look him in the eyes. He cleared his throat, even though it didn’t really help. “I love you,” he said trying to think another lump in his throat. “Don’t ever forget that,” he said with a slight quiver to his lips. A tear escaped his eyes before he placed his head back to her chest and pulled her closer. He would never want to let her go. This love had been something so different than what he once thought was love. His heart was bleeding for her, and he started to feel like she was the brick wall who would hold him up through this tough time. Question was, how long would he be grieving?

I love you too, so much. Even though it was just an hour or two ago they had said it multiple times, it was still nice to hear, when you were grieving. The kiss on the forehead was calming and soothing.
I’m sorry that I woke you up in the middle of the night. No, he couldn’t say that, she didn’t want him to apologize for such things, he knew it. Once in a while, it felt like the thought of apologizing to her, seemed to pressure anyway. He felt weak, in any way possible. Mentally, physically, and social. Though he was quite independent, he somehow felt helpless. He sobbed for a while and kept Letha close.
He wondered what had happened, and he was both impatient and scared of knowing what had actually happened and whether or not his sisters needed some kind of help. From being in the military, he had had a psychologist before, to talk with and be guided by. He had thought it had helped him. He hoped that it hadn’t been anything too tragic, for their sake. His breathing seemed to get more and more under control. “Thank you,” he whispered slowly and somewhat muted by her chest. Except for him trying to control his breathing, she really helped by just being present and holding him. It helped to let his eyelids get heavier, once again.

Her humming voice was extremely calming, and almost soothed his soul. It made him feel more and more at peace, being in her arms and listening to her sweet melody. One thing, that was incredible was what something so simple could do for a person. He knew the ‘method’ very well himself, and had used it before on his siblings, whenever they felt absolutely ruined by something. Zadkiel had actually used it a lot the last month where he lived at home with Tien, while she recovered from her incident with Judas.

Of course, his mother had done something similar while Zadkiel was young and fragile, but he had simply forgotten how much it could do. His experience firsthand was rusty. The feeling of peace and closeness help a lot. Always. It landed heavily on his heart, but not into the pile of grieve. He felt very loved, and comfortable in her arms. He wished to tell her jus how much this mean to him, but he felt like his brain was fried, eyes burning and his throat continued to be blocked by lumps – and maybe it was too early to say such a thing?
He nodded lightly, as she told him to sleep if he could. His whole body started to feel heavy, and his sobbing, sniffing and crying was lowered a whole lot. It wouldn’t take long before he would fall asleep in her arms with his face towards her chest.

Zadkiel felt how Letha left the bed, but he didn’t really pay much attention to it. He was so tired from all of the emotions from the day before. It was first when he spotted the clock said it was past seven that his eyes suddenly widened. He was late. He quickly grabbed his phone to call his superior, that he was late, and would be there as quickly as possible, but as soon as he unlocked the phone he realized that he had received a text message from his superior. He frowned lightly. Apparently, they had booked way too many for the shift today and was asked to take the day off. He texted back, that he appreciated the offer, but that they had to text him, if they needed any extra help.

As he finally relaxed a bit of being called of duty for the day, he realized how something smelled burnt. He frowned and looked around. There was no smoke and the fire alarm hadn’t gone off. Still slightly alarmed he got out of bed, only wearing the boxer he had put on before he went to sleep. Slowly and ready for any kind of surprise, action and alike, he moved down the stairs; alerted. He could hear something that sounded like something being poured onto a hot pan. As he got into the kitchen, he realized that the smell had been Letha’s failures of pancakes. A slight smile crawled upon his lips as he approached her. She looked like a complete mess. He stopped next to the plat with the four pancakes and leaned upon the kitchen counter. “Looks like a success,” he chuckled. Flour, sugar and dough was everywhere. He slowly approached, snaked an arm around her waist and looked over her shoulder to see what she was doing. “You are the best,” he whispered before he planted a tired kiss on her neck and let his free hand find it’s way to adjust the heat of the pan.

He pulled on a slight chuckling smile, as she explained she had never made pancakes herself. It certainly didn’t look like it, when he looked at the kitchen. It was somewhat comical who different the two of them were. He was so neat and did everything to perfection, even if it didn’t matter – like folding dirty laundry in the laundry basket. And she could barely control herself when she was handed a bag of flour. Even though he could sometimes grind his teeth about the mess she made, he loved their differences. He didn’t really express the frustration it sometimes made, because he just cleaned it up, if he was unhappy with how it looked. Since, you know. He pulled on a less satisfied smile. Even though he couldn’t really see her eyes, his eyes too traveled over what seemed to have been a battlefield between Letha and almost any ingredient.
I try. The smile reappeared on his lips. “And I would ask nothing more of you,” he commented. He couldn’t ask for her to do everything perfectly. Zadkiel wasn’t even perfect himself, but it just happened to be, that tasks he didn’t know how to handle was tossed away, like overwhelming bad feelings. Things that he could handle with ease, was taking into care and used almost daily.

His eyes followed hers as she looked towards the plate with four pancakes. Maybe you could help me? He took his head of her shoulder and stretched an arm towards the pancakes to grab one of them. His eyes looked towards her, while she spoke, and he brought the pancakes up to his nose, to smell whether or not he thought something was missing or not. He took a minimal bite. It tasted like flour. He looked at the pancake, while he tried to keep a somewhat good façade up about the extremely bad taste of the pancakes. He chuckled lightly, as she mentioned taking over. He threw the pancake back onto the plate, light and elegant. “What about I show you what to do?” he asked giving her a slight smirk and kissed her back. Supressing the bad news seemed to be his way to go. He just wanted to feel at peace.

How are you? It was a difficult question and therefore he tried to answer it, by not answering it. “Well Kevin texted me that they had too many on today’s shift, so he asked me to stay at home,” he said, looking to the left once and pulling on his shoulders, before he looked back at her. “Did you have any plans for today, my love?” he asked softly and almost whispering. Not that he was believing that he could repeat the event from last night, but just laying together, watching something on the TV could be nice. But he believed that she had to go to the office. They were busy people.

Zadkiel kept a wide smile on his face and chuckled lightly. “I think I just might do slightly better than you and your Youtube videos,” he teased and gave her a small peck on her cheekbone. As she mentioned a book for dummies he laughed, before he pulled slightly away so that he could look into her eyes, “You’re lucky that there’s a long time till it’s your birthday,” he teased “But do you have another idea for a birthday present?” he asked smiling lovingly at her. He really enjoyed just being the two of them. It gave him some peace of mind.

As she snaked her arms around him, he let his hands find their way lovingly up to her neck. “Mhm,” he almost hummed. It almost seemed like a coincidence that they both had a somewhat free day. A day to spend together. A small smirk appeared on his lips, as she said they could do whatever they wanted. It almost seemed like her words were lingering of something from the night before. She took a step back, and he was about to follow her, until she mentioned the pancakes. Yes. Of course. He chuckled lightly. “Sounds like our first task for today,” he laughed. “What’s in the dough?” he asked and looked towards it whisking it a couple of times to determine whether or not it needed to be more liquid or more solid.

He lifted a wondering eyebrow as she started to explain that it was nothing that he could by. We just work on that stamina. He opened his mouth slightly, not really knowing if he should be offended or excited. Clearly, his stamina hadn’t been enough for her, and he already knew that. But her wish also meant a lot of practice – and he wouldn’t mind that. The open mouth turned to a half smirk and a slight chuckle as he breathed out and received the small peck.

He nodded slightly as she explained what was in it and let his gaze follow her hands pointing in the direction of the flour-covered laptop. He clearly had a lot to clean up later, but he didn’t mind it. He chuckled lightly as she mentioned her cooking skills and what the reason was for starting to date her. He approached her slowly and comfortable, letting a hand wrap around her lower back, so he could pull her in for a short peck on her cheekbone. “I got high hopes for you,” he whispered, “I believe in you,” he added with a last peck and a slight smile.
He let his gaze look at the dough and on the bags of ingredients. “Well, do we have any eggs left at all?” he asked and looked back at her. “We can just even out the amount of sugar you put in and…” he started to wonder if they should put anything else in the pancakes.

Zadkiel let his gaze follow her occasionally while she looked for eggs. He did try to see if he could spot them anywhere himself, but everything just seemed like a mess. Suddenly she found the box of eggs, placed them next to him and started cleaning. “You’re such a darling,” he said with a wide smile on his lips. He knew very well that she didn’t really like tidying up, but it made him happy that she did it anyway. He also tried no to be too tight with how things should be, even though it once in a while could trouble him not to correct things anyway.
He cracked both eggs in the bowl – no shells - and started whisking. He looked over his shoulder as she asked if there was anything she could do other than cleaning. He observed how she placed everything he needed close by him, so he wouldn’t have to search for it. He grabbed the milk she placed on the kitchen counter. “Thanks,” he said just before she put her arms around his waist. We should have more mornings like this. A slight smile appeared on his lips. “I love you too, Letha,” he said calmly back.
He continued to whisk for a bit, “Well the dough is ready to be baked soon…” he said and turned around to face her while she was cleaning the countertops, “If you want to do the honor?” he said and reached out to grab her shirt to pull her closer. “You are so dirty,” he whispered, slightly seductively before he took the  cloth from her hand, turned it around and started to clean her face.

The surprised sound she made when he pulled her closer made him smile. It was such a lovely sound and even followed by her giggle. It was all he needed. She felt comfortable with him, just as he felt comfortable with her. The passion from her eyes made him feel secure and somewhat energetic. “Mhm,” he hummed as a reply while he cleaned her face. He studied every mole, freckle and minor details while her eyes were closed and more and more of her skin got clean.

He was almost done when she started ‘complaining’ about him not liking anything dirty. “Hey, that’s not fair,” he chuckled and leaned against the kitchen counter as she grabbed the bowl. Or were you hoping for some other kind of dessert food? He still had a slightly teasing smile on his lips and closed his eyes once, shaking his head. She was smart. Very smart. “Well now that it’s such a big batter, we just have to make sure that I’m not too full,” he said and laid his hands on top of hers around the bowl. “I wouldn’t miss eating you,” he teased. “So, pancakes,” he said raising his eyebrows as he had made the decision. He had after all asked her if she wanted the honor of baking them. He would gladly stand by her side and help her, so not too many would go to waste.

She seemed quite satisfied with his answer as she let her eyes wander over his bare torso. Zadkiel chuckled once, to the ‘challenge’. He was just about to ask if it was a challenge, but as soon as she let her fingers slide down to his underwear and pushed him back he chose to stay silent, even though he couldn’t really close his mouth as he smiled to her – almost daringly. Her strength had surprised him, but he knew where it came from and trusted her enough. Or at least she didn’t hurt him. Well… She hadn’t yet.

His hands found its way to grab around the countertops. He stammered slightly as she let her tongue glide down his throat. His heart rate rose. Was she going to… Maybe I should just eat you up. He felt nervous. Goosebumps spread over his arms and back. This little game had already turned him on. He held his breath as soon as he felt the sharp edge touch his skin.
His phone rang. If it wasn’t because his heart rate was high enough already, it jumped just a tad more. He breathed out as she stepped away. “Yeah,” he said slightly out of breath. The tune had awoken slight panic. What if it was more bad news?
He lowered his shoulders slightly, as he had tensed up while she ‘threatened’ him. “I-I’ll be right back,” he said slightly nervous before he turned away from the kitchen and went back to the bedroom to catch his phone.

"Hey Zad," It was Cecilia. She sounded a bit worried.
“Hey Ce,” he greeted slightly out of breath and with a sigh.
"I'm home with Tien, Sera and Kemuel. I stayed the night,"
“Oh, thanks. I…” He shook his head lightly. He shouldn’t have listened to Tien when she had said no about coming over. He should’ve gone to them and taken care of them. “Thanks,” he breathed out and let a hand run through his hair before he sat down on the bed, with both of his elbows leaning on his knees. "Whenever you are ready, you should come home. I will be here for a while, and we can... talk about what we need to do. I won't let you carry all the heavy stuff alone; I hope you know that,"
The lump in his throat was back and he shook his head while he felt how tears started building up. He had buried the fact that his mother was no longer alive with Letha filling the void that had been carved by Tien’s phone call last night. “Yeah… Sure,” he nodded slightly, “Thanks Ce,” he added and breathed out. It was like a heavy stone had been brought onto his shoulders again and it made him tired.
"I'm so sorry this happened Zad," She sounded so sad, and he could feel how she was also grieving. It was heavy on his heart that it effected that many. But of course, his mother had been such a lovely person. The two of them had tried to glue things together for such a long time. When Zadkiel moved, it had taken away some of that glue, because shortly after the family split and moved out. Now that his mother was gone, he had to be the glue by himself. Keeping the family together. Keeping their lives whole, making sure they make it out alive. Oh, all of the worry. He had no words.
"I will call your father and Laila... Get them to come over... I don't want them to get the news over the phone. I'm a bit worried about Seraphina,"
He understood why she didn’t want them to receive the message by a phonecall or text – it had been wrong, he knew that, but he didn’t blame Tien for doing it. Tien had her reasons. She had tried to seek help… And yet he didn’t leave. What a good big brother he was… As soon as he heard she was worried about Seraphina he stood up with worry painted on his face. He hurried to his dawer and pulled out a shirt and some pants. “What? What’s going on?” He certainly hoped that she hadn’t run off or done something worse than that. He couldn’t lose his little sister again.
"she hasn't moved since she got home, and I can't reach her." - "Just text me whenever you will be here, okay?"
He hurried down the stairs, almost tripping over his own feet, “I’m on my way,” he said before he cancelled the call.

He stopped in the kitchen and dropped his shirt on the floor to take on his pants. “I have to go,” he said forgetting to breathe properly since he had his focus on his legs, so he wouldn’t trip, and about all of the family things. He even had some trouble getting the third leg to lay properly, and he hoped that the trip in the car would help just a bit more.
He bowed down and took his shirt from the floor. If she hadn’t been listening to his conversation, it would be certain that he was worried. While he was fighting his shirt, he walked over to Letha. As soon as he reached her he let go of the buttons on the shirt to let his hands wrap around her jaw and the back of her head to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I wish the morning didn’t have to end like this,” he whispered before he gave her another kiss, followed by multiple close to her ear. He did his best to cover up the slight panic he had gotten from Seraphina’s behavior.