Chapter 580: We forgot…

The weeks after Otto announced his retirement disappeared into paperwork.

Not ordinary paperwork.

Imperial paperwork.

The kind that multiplied overnight, required three signatures for decisions everyone had already made, and somehow generated another committee every time Arion asked whether something could simply be transferred from one office to another.

By the beginning of November, Dean had stopped pretending he knew what day of the week it was without checking his schedule.

Otto’s retirement had not been announced publicly yet, but the internal transition was already moving.

Council briefings shifted gradually toward Arion. Ministries that had once reported directly to Otto began including him in every consultation, and the palace legal office produced a transition calendar detailed enough to make Dean wonder whether the empire expected Otto to abdicate one individual responsibility at a time.

Military authority.

Appointments.

Foreign correspondence.

Budget approval.

State seals.

Ceremonial powers.

Emergency powers.

Then came Minerva.

Dean had assumed her part would be easier.

That had been a mistake.

The imperial consort’s office apparently controlled half the functions nobody noticed until someone stopped doing them.

Hospital patronages. Education foundations. Palace welfare funds. Cultural boards. Military-family support programs. Charity audits. State dinners. Foreign consort correspondence. Ceremonial hosting. Social schedules involving enough old families to make Dean briefly consider faking his own death.

Minerva sat across from him one afternoon with three folders and the serene expression of a woman dismantling her professional life piece by piece.

"This one is straightforward."

Dean looked at the folder.

It was thick enough to stun someone.

"You have a hostile definition of straightforward."

"You’ll manage."

"That is what everyone keeps saying immediately before handing me another institution."

Minerva smiled and pushed the folder toward him anyway.

Dean accepted it.

He always did.

That was the problem.

By then, Arion had acquired the habit of arriving for dinner with council documents tucked under one arm while Dean carried foundation reports under the other. Theo had begun asking whether the dining table was still for food.

They made a point of proving that it was.

At least once a day... Most evenings... Sometimes.

The household adapted around them.

Theo continued sleeping with the wooden dragon from Draxil and carrying it through the palace whenever he remembered it. The ancient presence remained behind Arion’s barrier, quiet enough that Theo rarely mentioned it anymore. Boreas tolerated the wooden dragon being balanced on his back. Ducky had attempted to steal it twice and learned that Theodore was considerably less forgiving about this possession than he was about socks.

The second child vanished from conversation entirely.

Not because either Dean or Arion changed their minds.

They simply forgot.

Seven had sent a preliminary appointment schedule after their return from Draxil.

Dean had read it.

Arion had read it.

Then Otto’s transition calendar arrived.

Minerva’s office sent six requests.

Nero and Sebastian’s wedding preparations began consuming the family group messages because the ceremony was now only weeks away.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, Dean and Arion apparently stopped remembering that they had intended to reproduce.

Dean realized this on a Thursday morning while standing in their dressing room and telling Arion exactly what he thought of the jacket he had chosen.

"That makes your shoulders look absurd."

Arion paused with one arm halfway into the sleeve.

He looked at Dean through the mirror.

Dean was sitting on the dressing bench in loose black trousers and a pale shirt, reviewing Minerva’s notes on a children’s hospital foundation while drinking coffee.

"What?"

"The jacket."

Arion looked down at it.

"It was tailored last month."

"I know. Whoever approved it should apologize."

Arion slowly removed the jacket.

Dean returned to his tablet.

"Wear the charcoal one."

"You said you hated the charcoal one," Arion said, turning to face him.

"I hated the collar."

"So I should wear the jacket you dislike instead of the jacket you just insulted."

"Yes."

Arion stood very still.

Dean looked up.

"What?"

Arion stared at him.

Dean frowned.

There was nothing particularly strange about the morning.

Theo had already left for lessons.

The palace was quiet.

No meeting had exploded.

Nobody had announced another retirement.

Arion, however, had developed the expression of a man solving a problem.

Dean narrowed his eyes.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

Arion folded the rejected jacket over the back of a chair.

"When did you last eat?"

Dean blinked.

"This morning."

"You ate half a piece of toast."

"I wasn’t hungry."

Arion’s expression changed slightly.

Dean noticed, but made the choice to ignore it.

"You also left your shoes in the corridor last night," Arion said.

"I was tired."

"You told Hunter his new haircut made him look like a disappointed schoolteacher."

"It does."

Arion’s mouth twitched.

Dean pointed at him.

"Don’t smile. He asked."

"He asked whether you noticed." Arion clarified with a tilt of his head.

"That was poor judgment."

Arion walked closer.

Dean lowered the tablet.

"What are you doing?"

Arion stopped in front of him and bent slightly, close enough that Dean could smell vetiver beneath the clean soap from his shower.

Arion inhaled.

Dean stared.

"Are you smelling me?"

Arion straightened.

"Nothing yet."

Dean’s irritation arrived instantly.

"What exactly were you expecting?"

Arion’s smile widened.

Dean went silent.

That was when he understood.

Heat.

Dean looked down at the tablet in his hands.

Then back at Arion.

"No."

Arion laughed quietly.

Dean’s eyes narrowed.

"I have been tired for three weeks."

"You have also spent the last two days telling everyone exactly what you think before deciding whether you should."

"I always do that."

"Not like this."

Dean opened his mouth.

Stopped.

Arion was annoyingly correct.

Yesterday he had told one of Otto’s senior advisers that a ceremonial retirement proposal read like something written by six lawyers trapped in a room without windows.

The adviser had, in fact, been one of those lawyers.

Dean had not regretted it.

That should have been a warning.

Arion sat beside him.

"You called my father’s transition banquet unnecessary theater."

"It is."

"You told Minerva one of her charity board members had the emotional range of a decorative vase."

Dean considered that.

"She does."

"And you told me last night that if I brought another council report into bed, you would feed it to Ducky."

Dean looked away.

Arion started laughing.

"That one still stands."

"I’m sure of it."

Dean leaned back against the wall behind the bench.

His cycle.

They had been so busy monitoring the imperial transition that neither of them had bothered monitoring the thing Seven had explicitly told them would need monitoring.

Dean covered his face with one hand.

"We forgot."

Arion rested a hand on his thigh.

"Completely."

"We were supposed to call Seven before this."

"We still can."

Dean looked at him.

"No doing anything before he checks us."

Arion’s expression became far too innocent.

Dean immediately pointed at him.

"I mean it."

"I haven’t suggested anything."

"Your face has."

Arion laughed again.

Dean lowered his hand.

His heat was coming.

Close enough to strip away the small amount of social restraint he occasionally possessed, but not yet close enough for his pheromones to announce it before he did.

And somehow, after weeks of councils, schedules, succession planning, ceremonial transfers, and Nero’s increasingly unreasonable wedding messages, the forgotten second child had returned to the center of Dean’s mind all at once.

He looked at Arion.

Arion looked back.

Dean sighed.

"Call Seven."

Arion reached for his phone.

Dean added, "And change the jacket first."

Arion looked down at himself.

Dean smiled.

"The charcoal one."

This time Arion did not argue.