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Yeande stepped over the bouncy chair that currently held the slumped, sleeping form of Zhane. One hand dangled over the side, still wet with spit from where he'd had his thumb firmly implanted in his mouth before dozing off. He looked angelic like this... a far cry from how he'd looked when she'd discovered that he could get into the cabinets and make crumbly confetti out of the graham crackers. One bath later, he was finally dozing, and she'd taken the opportunity to go and grab the mail.

Making certain that she didn't wake the little sleeper, she dropped onto the couch and sat crosslegged with the mail resting beside her. "Bills..." she murmured, setting them aside. "Junk." She made a face as she saw the most recent deluge of 'YOU HAVE BEEN PRE-APPROVED!' and dumped it onto the floor to pick up after she was done sorting through the mail she actually wanted to keep. The last envelope was a pale pink and was addressed just to her. Sliding a clawed finger beneath the flap, she pulled it open and immediately felt her eyes go wide.

The Ijiuo's wings flared up a bit, shielding her from view as she read the letter. It was from an adoption agency that she'd contacted a few days before. Ever since Talon had finally gone through with the surgery, she'd found herself wondering if it had been a good idea at all. Granted, she'd been all for it right after Zhane's birth... when she had stitches in the one place no human being should EVER have them, and was feeling as though someone had taken a machete to her intimate areas.

Now, however, as she watched their son sleeping peacefully, she felt something tugging at her... something that overrode the remembered pain and made her want another child. Well, having one herself was no longer an option. Talon couldn't have children any longer, and she was NOT about to even consider having someone else father a baby. She supposed that the GMFC could find a way to do it in their lab, but there was no way they could afford that for quite some time.

So, she'd started looking into adoptions. However, she hadn't told Talon what she'd been up to, and was afraid that he would be angry with her for making him go through the surgery, only to want another child two weeks later. Sighing, she folded up the paper and slid it back into the envelope, her body leaning back against the couch as she stared at the ceiling. "He's going to kill me."

Talon arrived at Youko's doorstep the next afternoon, Zhane in the crook of his arm and dressed in a small black T-shirt Karma had gotten him from somewhere online. It proclaimed the legend "Sell your soul for a cookie" and bore the visage of a baby elder god.

Originally Talonfaust had sworn that it would be a cold day in hell before he'd put Zhane in it, but today Karma had confiscated the rest of Zhane's shirts for the laundry, leaving him with no choice (and he was quite sure it had been intentional).

He allowed himself in, having been told that he didn't need to knock anymore since he was married to someone inside...and that people were sick of having to drop what they were doing to let him in.

"Mu-muh!!" Zhane called into the housel clinging to his father's shoulder with his chubby fists.

"Shh." Talon said absently, heading for Yeande's room to see if she was there.

"Okay....okay!" Talon told his son, readjusting his grip on him to keep him from toppling to the floor. Wouldn't THAT be fun to explain? Zhane's interest momentarily wavered from making a racket to seeming to notice his father's wings for the first time and grabbed one of them, giving it a yank and giving a delighted squeal as it flopped and twitched in his grasp.

Talon's face contorted in pain, but he, nonetheless, opened the door to Yeande's room and slipped in. "Someone's been missing you." he told his wife, approaching and sitting on the edge of the bed with Zhane still half-over his shoulder.

"Bu'Fie!" he giggled.

"Its NOT a butterfly, and you're hurting me..." his father complained.

"Me? No. I'm fine." he assured her, the bags under his eyes saying otherwise. Despite the fact Zhane was finally starting to sleep through the night, old habits died hard. Talon still jolted awake at the slightest noise and got up to make sure it hadn't been his son.

Remembering the reason he'd come, he volleyed the question over her way. "What about you, though? I haven't seen much of you since the surgery."

Talon tensed noticeably all over at her statement. His first impulse was to be angry with her...SHE had been the one who had demanded that he get the operation done under threat of never being allowed to touch her again.

But then, the surgery really hadn't been an option. Either she or him would have had to have it done, but it had been for Yeande's safety. It was this point alone that kept his temper in check. "I've heard of it, yes." he told her, focusing on Zhane as well. "I'm sure a lot of women go through it."

He was comforted by the fact that even if she wanted to talk him into another baby, it wouldn't be a possibility. Not without surgical reversal and he would be damned before he'd go through with that. "Is that why you've not been wanting to see me? Because I had the operation done?" he inquired. If so, that was a silly reason to be avoiding him...

The bed jostled as Zhane's interest drifted from her tail to the pretty designs on the bedspread and he began to crawl across the blankets, clumsily tracing the pretty pictures with his little clawtips.

Talon listened to her, not believing what he was hearing. "I--" he faltered, blinking. "You just....made that decision without me?" he asked. Now it was his turn to wilt. He was trying his damnnest not to explode and it was hard. VERY hard. "Yeande, we're married now, you're supposed to TALK to me about stuff like this!" The repressed anger robbed the potency from his statement and it came out sounding like he was whining.

Zhane's earfins perked slightly at the change of tone in his father's voice and suddenly his focus was on his parents as he blinked curiously at them.

Talon sighed deeply and in disgust with the entire situation, running a hand over his brow and through his hair. He was not going to yell, he promised himself...at least not until he was safely by himself. In the car. With music blaring out of the speakers to drown him out.

But god damn it!!

"All right." he said quietly. "All right, you know what? Maybe we should talk about this again later tonight." Count to ten....deep breaths.....oh god, he didn't want another goddamned kid. ONE was enough...!!

Zhane fussed on the bedspread and pulled himself up, using Talon's shirt sleeve as an anchor and placed both hands over his father's mouth. No talking meant no more angry-sounding voices, right? Problem solved!

Zhane cuddled against his mother willingly, seeming to let it go easily enough, though he didn't understand what was going on. It was easier to be happy than it was to be upset anyway. Plus, he was satisfied that he seemed to have fixed the problem by himself.

"Great." Talon said in a tight voice. It had happened again....he was justifiably pissed about crucial information being kept away from him and somehow it had all been twisted around so that he looked like the bad guy.

Why was it that HE always had to be the bad guy? It wasn't fair.

He dared to look over at Yeande again, watching the way she was protectively curled around their son and the way the light of the room shone with unnatural brightness on her eyes. He was torn between reaching over to comfort her and storming out of the room in frustration.

At length, he simply sat there, looking stupidly down at his hands. He felt much the same way he'd felt when he'd found out Yeande was pregnant...useless, like he wanted to jump out of his own skin, and like there wasn't enough room to breathe.