Tawdry Little Affair {boyxboy}

Chapter Thirty-Two

"Y'know, it's Christmas next week, I completely forgot," Fionn said quietly as he lifted his slumbering son from the car. It had been a long drive back, which Arlo had slept through since they had set off.

"Oh wonderful," Dante murmured sarcastically, lifting the bags from the car with the help of Kastor. In the end, Kastor had chosen to skip his graduation, opting to get his PhD in the mail. He was beginning to crave Venice's blood and didn't want to cause any sort of scene in front of the humans.

"Don't you celebrate?" Fionn followed Dante into the house, careful not to wake Arlo.

"I knew Jesus, he was exceedingly boring. And Christmas isn't even his birthday, it's a pagan festival that Christians stole," Fionn chuckled, kicking the door shut gently with his foot.

"I don't think you're allowed to say Jesus was boring, I'm pretty sure that's blasphemous," Dante shrugged, a wry smile on his lips.

"I couldn't care less, come on, we should put Arlo to bed before he wakes up," Dante led Fionn upstairs and toward a room he had yet to have seen. It was a child's room, a very new looking child's room.

"Were you expecting more kids?" Fionn asked, laying Arlo down in the bed and tucking him in with a kiss on his forehead.

"I may have had a few renovations done whilst we were away," Dante bent down and flicked on a little blue nightlight by the window, tugging the curtains closed as he did so.

"We were gone three days, how much did you have to pay for this to be done so quickly? In fact, we only chose to keep Arlo late the first night, you only had two days for this," Fionn allowed himself to be dragged from the room to ensure he didn't wake the child.

"It's your wedding present," Dante led Fionn into what used to be the vampire's room, simply housing his clothes and nothing else.

"Oh my God," Fionn marvelled at the room that no longer looked like a walk-in closet but had been transformed into a beautiful bedroom. The dark oak bed sat prominently in the middle, intricate carvings in the wood that looked as though they had taken years.

"I thought since we're married now and we have Arlo that you might like to move in with me. If not you at least-" Fionn cut off Dante with a hard kiss, clutching onto the lapels of his suit.

"You're amazing," he whispered, a smile on his lips, "amazingly stupid, I have a carpentry business, I could have had this done for free," Dante mirrored Fionn's smile, peppering a few more kisses onto the wolf's lips.

"But then it wouldn't have been a surprise, I don't care about the price. You're worth it," Fionn rolled his eyes playfully.

"I love you, Dante."

"I love you too, puppy," Dante glanced toward the staircase, his brows furrowing, "someone is at the door," the two walked hand in hand down to the front door and opened it, revealing Sev and Nya, both adorning grim expressions.

"We heard that you were back," Nya began, "we were coming to welcome you home but we got some pretty awful news along the way. Elik is dead, Kadeem found him about three hours ago, decapitated. This was found on him," Nya held out a small piece of paper, folded in half and spattered with blood.

"Mr Blue was just the beginning, a beginning you ended too quickly. I'll be seeing you soon, Delta," Dante read the note aloud.

"Venice," Kastor gasped from behind Fionn and Dante, darting past them, disappearing into the treeline.

"He told Elik to watch Venice whilst we were looking for you, I imagine he probably didn't tell him to stop when we got you both back," Ocie confirmed when Dante and Fionn regarded one another with bemused looks, lingering in the living room doorway.