 Hello lovelies! *randomly tagged* | Norbert(a) | The Wandmaker (tm)
Valentin hated sand. It wasn’t because it was dirty so much as because it stuck to everything and crept into places sand shouldn’t be. He could handle beaches only because you could go into the water and rinse off the sand. Swimming, however, usually made him get sandier which led to more swimming and more rinsing… It wasn’t a pretty cycle. So why was Vale walking towards the sandbox? Because his husband maintained that sand was perfectly fine for Cassian to play in. In fact, Elian insisted that Cassian be allowed to play in the sand and get dirty. It would build up his immune system and help is fine motor skills, Elian had told Valentin the first time Cassian had been plopped down on a beach.
[”Your father is going to be the one to bathe you tonight,”] Valentin told Cassian in French as they approached the sandbox. It seemed like a fair enough trade for making him get dirty. He was two steps from the sandbox when he noticed a familiar head of dark brown hair. [”Great, just great…”] He was still muttering in French as he realized Sachin was there. The two ambassadors didn’t exactly have a great history of getting along and Valentin certainly did not feel like butting heads with anyone today.
He stopped walking for a moment and got his face smacked by Cassian’s pudgy little hand as a result. [“Alright, alright,”] Valentin replied giving the blond boy a little jiggle in his arms. The result was Cassian fell over forward arms reaching out for the sandbox. [“I get it….”] Valentin sighed as he set the little blond boy down on sand. ”Bonjour,” He straightened and gave Sachin one of his charming smiles. ”Eet ‘as been un moment, oui?” If he was correct, the last time he and the Indian Ambassador had spent any amount of time together it was at the Leaky Cauldron when a hooligan had decided to turn their lunch into a food fight. Vale’s fingers twitched against his thigh at the memory.
Sand! Sand… sand! He didnt care about baths. Dada had said he was going to play in sand! Why was papa moving so slow? Cassian’s fingers tugged on papa’s shirt as he sang happily to himself; others might say he was just making noises, but no, Cassian was singing to papa just like dad liked to do. Usually papa seemed to enjoy it, but papa seemed intent on getting them to the sandbox. Which was fine by Cassian. He wanted to play in the sand! And as the sandbox came into sight, he made a very loud squealing happy noise, then pointed and then –
The sandbox didn’t get any closer. He looked down at papa’s feet, then up at the sand. Why did they stop? ”Pa!” But papa didn’t look at him. ”Pa!” He smacked tapped papa’s cheek this time. It made a weird noise and he giggle and did it again. Would he get to do it a third time? Nope – because the second smack tap worked. Papa jiggle Jim. He laughed and flopped over reaching out for the sand.
And then he was in the sand. He looked up at papa for a moment as if wondering if he was going to play with him and then he heard something else and his head swiveled towards the noise. His blond curls bounced and then fell in his eyes blocking the other boy for a moment. ”Sab?” He tilted his head back to look up at his papa. He fell backwards on his butt with a plop giggling.
”Oui, sable.” Vale completed Cassian’s word in French, unknowingly mimicking Sachin a few minutes earlier.
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