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Adelais was a girl.
She liked to sit by their mother's side, and talked to sticks like they were babies, and Agron thought she was absolutely stupid for it. That was a stick. If anything, it was a sword to beat people up with, and sometimes maybe it was a magic wand and sometimes it was a stick to encourage his horse to go faster, but it certainly wasn't a baby. Babies were stupid, and Adelais was stupid, and that was a stick.
Well.
Maybe not all babies were stupid.
Duro wasn't stupid, because Duro took Adelais's stick from her one day. Adelais was sitting in their mother's lap, which made Agron mad enough to throw a fit that'd very promptly been ignored with a chastising: “You're not the baby anymore, Agron. You have to be a big boy. Can you be a big boy for Mommy?” It'd only made him that much madder, and Agron'd stormed off in the only way a three year old can storm, with faltering steps and trying not to trip and the occasional scream that didn't have words but was his best way to communicate how unfair this all was.
He'd been on his way to her bed, where her actual baby was to throw it into the fire, because he didn't know much, but he knew that when things went into the fire, they didn't come out, and if Adelais was taking his mother, he would take her baby and that would be almost fair. Not quite, but almost. Maybe.
And then Adelais had let out a scream.
Mother had been letting Adelais sit on one leg and had Duro on the other, and even if other people thought that maybe Odilia – who in his mind had no name other than Mother – was a little plump, Agron thought that she was nothing short of perfect for sitting upon. It made him mad that he was the oldest, and disqualified from sitting on her lap just because Duro and Adelais were there. He'd been there first, and that was his lap, obviously.
But then Adelais'd screamed, and Agron'd turned around to see Duro giving her a toothless sort of grin under his cowlicked black hair, and her stick in the fire that destroyed all things, including stupid stick babies that were not in fact babies but instead swords or magic wands, and Agron'd been absolutely ecstatic.
Usually, Agron thought that Duro was a stupid baby.
Agron was three, and was starting to be a big boy, and Duro was just a baby who liked to crawl around behind him, and constantly tried to climb up in Agron's lap, and Agron thought he was just stupid. Why would Agron want a baby in his lap?
But in that moment everything changed.
Agron had all of his teeth now, because he wasn't a baby, and he showed them off with a flash as he fell to the ground to roll around in laughter, his hands coming to cover his stomach, and his laughter turning into shrieks that drown out those of his sister who was mouring the loss of her stupid stick-baby, and Duro laughed with Agron even if his laughter was more like sort of a 'gahaha' that was accompanied by opening his mouth and absolutely no teeth because he was still a baby.
It was in that moment that their relationship was secured.
Agron'd managed, eventually and after much shrieking laughter that left Odilia with a headache that she had no way to rub away thanks to a baby in each arm, managed to pull himself from the floor and made his way over to Duro (though he did crawl over to him, but that was because he was on an adventure, and not because he was a baby; there were monsters all about; giant eagles who would swoop him up if he stood up, and it obviously had nothing to do with the fact that maybe standing up was hard), and pulled himself up on the edge of his mother's chair and kissed the baby on his hand, which was all he could reach. Duro'd turned his head, and looked down at his big brother with a look that Agron would grow to treasure as he grew up.
A look that communicated that in Duro's eyes, his big brother had hung the moon and the stars in the sky.
It was a look of adoration and admiring, and absolute ecstasy to see his brother kissing him and being happy with something he did, and as a result Duro reached over and hit Adelias, which had their mother fussing at him, and Agron smiling.
From then on, when Duro followed him around, Agron let him. Only sometimes did Agron complain about him being a baby, but most of the time he just tried to teach him how not to be a baby. Like when Duro was learning how to walk, and he almost started crying when he fell on his butt and probably he had a bruise, but Agron hadn't cared and had toddled his own way over and helped him to his feet as best he could, which ended in them both falling over, and then Duro accidentally hitting Agron in the face, and then Agron rolling over to pin Duro to the ground and threatening to drop a big glob of spit on his face, and Duro accidentally kneeing him in the balls as he screeched and squealed in an attempt to escape.
But no matter how they teased during the day, there was only one way the day ended. Because from that night on, Duro had decided he would no longer sleep with his mother and father in their bed, but that he would sleep with Agron in his, and the two of them always cuddled up, and Agron pulled the blankets up to Duro's chin, and Duro pulled Agron's arm across him and used it much like Adelais used the doll that Agron'd come so close to burning up. By the time morning came, they were always a mess, and usually tied up in the blankets because both of them were very active sleepers and moved all around, and Agron usually had a solid trail of Duro drool running across whatever body part Duro's head had landed on (it was inevitably a body part; Duro did not seem to believe in pillows other than Agron).
They woke up a mess, but they always went to sleep like that. Caring for each other, and keeping each other close and safe.
And every night, when they tucked them in, Meinrad knew that he and Odilia'd named them right. Duro would forever be by Agron's side, and they didn't have to worry. Their boys would look out for each other.