If the shrill keening of Gabriel was any indicator, Dreogan had had his hands full this afternoon, watching his son all alone.  With a shake of his head, Adon kicked the garden gate closed with his foot, crossing the brick walkway as he dug through the somewhat bottomless pockets of his robe.  Finally, he grasped the key and shoved it into first the door knob, then the dead bolt.  He rested the palm of his hand upon the glossy wood a moment, waiting for the final click of the three-part lock before pushing his way in.

Adon could hear Gabe’s wails even more clearly from the living room.  That was one angry baby.

Gabe was already exhuding the full Eleor emotional spectrum, Adon thought with a swelling of pride. He called up a cheerful “Dree! You’re supposed to bounce, coo, rock, then cradle,” Adon teased.  Akiva had given the particulars so many times--coming just short of supplying helpful diagrams or infographics--that both Eleor brothers ought to have had the mantra down by now.

There was no response, other than a redoubling of Gabriel’s screams.  No soft, cooing sounds from his brother.  Nothing at all.  Total silence.  His breath caught in his throat.

Adon was bounding halfway up the stairs before he knew it, singlebound and focussed upon the door of the nursery, which was given less careful treatment than the entry door.  Ripping into the room, he found Gabriel alone on his back in his crib, howling and red-faced.  The baby paused a moment, gaining more momentum with a preparatory gasp for another scream.  As he recognized his tallest caretaker, he held out his arms eagerly before loosing a long, piercing shriek that shook his body.

“Harah,” Adon cursed, in spite of himself as he roughly picked up the babe and bounced him on his hip.  The sick feeling in his stomach had only grown, even though his nephew was quieting.  “Dree?” He called, crossing quickly into the bedroom, babe in arms.

By the time he reached Dree's study, he’d practically kicked the door down.  No one.

“DREE!” he shouted, taking the stairs slower than he would have liked.  Gabriel, beginning to tense in the crook of his arm, let out a fearful gulp, screams forgotten for the moment.

Adon’d already checked--carelessly--the living and dining rooms when he’d entered.  He hadn’t known beforehand, though he should have maybe suspected, that he’d need to actually… the thought of Dree disappearing again...

Tearing into the kitchen, Adon saw there, back turned and focussed over a boiling kettle, the God-damned curly head of his brother.  Adon felt his stomach clench in anger.

“Ssssssssss-emec!” he hissed, opening up the torrent of Hebrew curses, which were joined by Gabriel’s returning whimpers. Adon spoke louder, letting his brother know the extent of his scare.  “Moloch! Zine beh-sechel! Ahni neesh-bah ratsach[1]--”  he broke off as his older brother moved abruptly, slamming the copper kettle against the counter as he did.  Adon could feel the anger--not all his own--simmering in the air.  Well, kettle was ready.  And more than the kettle was ready to boil.

Back still to him, Dreogan stalked over to the back door.  “Dree--” Adon said, pressing Gabriel’s forehead against his cheek, and he felt the toddler give great, shaking breaths as he settled, slowly. “I’m sorry.”  Adon didn’t know, what, exactly, he was apologizing for just yet, but he was sure that’d be clear eventually. “I just… I thought you were gone.”

The silence was now filled only with Gabriel’s sniffling.  Idly, the boy’s chubby hand made its way under Adon’s throat, where it began to run absently over the stubble there, a gesture Gabriel had adopted as a self-soothing technique.  He heard a wet squelching as Gabriel also, for good measure, began to suck his fingers.  “Dree, can you just at least turn around?”

Still nothing.

Adon could only be so patient.  “Now, dammit,” he ordered between clenched teeth.

Dree’s face looked both peaky and splotchy from what had obviously been crying, in contrast to his extreme pallor everywhere else.  Despite being home over a month, Dreogan seldom went outside.

“Say something. Please,” Adon input forcibly.  The tension in the air felt like a wrapped coil, waiting to snap.  Dreogan looked at him with a mixture of sadness and, dammit that was anger! Adon took a deep breath to unleash another stream of choice words when, finally, his brother moved.

Dreogan rubbed a hand over his face, looking pained, and Adon was instantly sorry. But Dreogan needed to say something soon, or he didn’t know how long he’d be able to keep from shaking some sense back into him.

Three…
Two…

“...I need to explain,” Dreogan said.  The words sounded gritty in the air, hang-heavy and hoarse.  He looked furtively at Gabriel, looking apprehensive or…

It seemed quite definitively for a moment that Dreogan looked scared of his son.  But the expression was passing, and Dreogan had moved on.

“There is a lot to say.” Dreogan’s voice had shifted once more. It was authoritative.  “Can you keep him from crying?” he followed-up.

Adon rubbed a rough hand over Gabriel’s back, feeling the drool--or snot, probably--seeping through his shirt. He was grateful that, at this point, Gabe had been guided through anger, loneliness, and fear and was now exhausted, resting heavily against his uncle's chest. 

Adon’s mind raced back to introductory Auror training.  To military response training.  The sorts of lessons he’d learned on how to deal with trauma victims who had been interrogated, tortured, driven out of their minds by crucio or even quiriatio nex--the curse that surrounds the victim with the dying screams of loved ones.  Was that why Dree could not bear Gabriel’s crying?  “Dree,” he wet his lips.  “If you don’t want to, I think I can gu--”

“I need to say it.” His brother’s expression was now nearly pleading.  Adon could not keep up.

“Okay,” Adon nodded, tilting his head towards the dining table.  Dreogan did not move, and, biting back a sigh, Adon instead braced himself where he was, resting against the doorjamb, holding a fidgety Gabriel.  He felt something driving between his shoulderblades and looked back, feeling a sense of relief as he saw that it was a mezuzah. It was so Jewish, so staunchly traditional and Dreogan, that he shifted, feeling the metal plaque--and its scroll inside--press uncomfortably, and reassuringly into his back.

1.	It profits the reader little to know the precise language the younger Eleor uttered at this moment.  Suffice it to say it was both angry and sufficiently explicit.

“When I was in Turkey,” Dreogan began, with the hoarseness to his voice that he’d grown accustomed to in the past month since he’d returned.  He tried to think of how next to phrase this.  He'd avoided thinking about this conversation at all costs.  “What they did…”

He was making his brother nervous.  Adon looked at him, and Dreogan could see the tension in his neck, feel the nervous shifting of Adon’s hands on his son’s back. He gave a sigh.  This was pointless.  He pressed his fingers into his forehead, closing his eyes in exasperation.  “Forget it.”

Adon didn’t protest, didn’t insist.  When Dreogan opened his eyes, Adon was there, just looking at him.

Dreogan sighed.  “I can’t explain it.”

“You can try.”

“But I don’t want to!”  Dreogan’s hand struck the edge of their counter and he winced, rubbing it roughly. He bit back a curse. “I already have to live it every day. I don’t want you, I don’t want Akiva, I don’t want everyone else to think about it, too. I don’t want that to be what they think about when they’re with me. I don’t want… Akiva shouldn’t see that.”

Again, Adon was only there, looking at him with an open expression.  It was neither harsh nor relenting.  His words, when they came, were firm.  “Well, that should be her choice, I think.”