A shiver runs down Brad's spine automatically after he steps off the bus into the cold, dark world. He rubs his fist over his eyes and stretches, still groggy from his unintentional, twenty minute nap in the vehicle. A smile tugs on his face as he feels a familiar arm wrap around his shoulder before he's comfortably pressed into the warmth of Tristan's side. He likes to think he fits perfectly there, like the seventeen-year-old's body was specifically created so Brad could snuggle into him.
"Just so you know, my house isn't very outstanding," Tristan informs the younger boy the hundredth time as they walk through a dark neighbourhood. They'd already had a debate about it in the bowling alley, Tristan arguing that he'll rather the two of them head to Brad's house instead of his own. But the sixteen-year-old isn't ready to take a boy that isn't Jack or Drew home yet.
Brad shrugs at his repeated words, leaning more into Tristan so that the blond's practically carrying him down the street. The older boy looks down at the sleepy boy under his arm and chuckles. "So cute," Tristan comments causing Brad's cheeks to redden.
The two boys stop at a small, yellow house. The driveway's free of vehicles, and the house looks so plain it seems as if there should be a 'for sale' sign on the lawn. Brad assumes that's mostly because of his own overdecorated house, crowded with unnecessary indoor and outdoor furniture due to his mum's strange, furniture obsession. But Brad likes the house. It reminds him of Tristan, and how everything about him screams minimalist.
Tristan unlocks the door into darkness before he flicks on a light and the inside of the house is illuminated. The house mostly consists of cardboard boxes littering everywhere the brown-eyed boy looks. The only furniture in the living room is a couch facing a blank wall, and a little, ugly Christmas tree with no ornaments, left for dead in a corner. "My dad's too lazy to take it down," the blond explains, sheepishly smiling down at Brad who's shamelessly still attached to his side. The younger boy just chuckles. Tristan carelessly kicks off his leopard print shoes at the front door and pulls the smaller boy along with him into the kitchen.
"I'm so sleepy," Brad mumbles, resting his back against the counter.
"I still don't understand why you didn't just head home to get some rest," the older boy states.
"Because I wouldn't have been able to be with you." Tristan smiles at the tiled floor, his cheeks cutely reddening at the curly-haired boy's reply. A smug smile spreads on his lips. Why is he so perfect? Brad questions himself, tightening the seventeen-year-old's large jacket around his body.
The blond casually pulls a wine bottle off the counter. "Fancy wine?"
"I don't know." Brad looks down at his hands, fiddling with the zipper on Tristan's jacket. "There's a lot of calories in it."
"It's fine." Tristan smiles and sets it on the counter. "I get it."
"Well, maybe a little wouldn't hurt," he decides after a while, because he thinks it'll be quite romantic, and he ignores the fact he really doesn't (and shouldn't) want to consume more calories than he's forced to, but he looks into Tristan's blue eyes, and somehow his thoughts are automatically silenced.
Minutes later after the curly-haired boy discovers wine tastes terrible, he sprawls his body out on Tristan's comfortable bed, like its his own, as the older boy unties his shoelaces and sets his worn out Converse shoes beside the door. The blond's bedroom is as empty as the living room, only decorated with the bed the curly-haired boy doesn't think he'll ever be able to move away from and an unplugged computer pushed into a corner. But despite how empty it looks, it's still cozy. Well, at least his bed is.
Brad shamelessly crawls under the blue sheets. "I'm staying here," he informs him. "I'm staying here forever, and I'm never leaving."
"Fine by me." Tristan plops down on top of the blankets, lacing his long fingers through Brad's curls and smiling down at the smaller boy snuggling into his bed. "How are you able to be this adorable?"
"I'm not adorable. I'm sexy," he corrects causing Tristan to laugh. Brad rolls over on his side and closes his eyes, softly smiling to himself. He doesn't think any human being could compare to the happiness radiating throughout his body right now. It's hard to believe that this morning he was moping in his bedroom, hating himself for ruining everything with Tristan, and now here he is, in his bed.
The younger boy flutters his brown eyes open to Tristan crawling underneath the blankets with him. Brad automatically clings to his side as he lies down on the mattress, his blue eyes staring up at the ceiling. The brown-eyed boy studies his face, admiring every little thing about the seventeen-year-old. He scoots closer to the older boy, noticing him thoughtfully chewing on his lip. "What are you thinking about?" he asks, resting his chin on his hand.
"You," the blond replies causing Brad to furrow his eyebrows out of confusion. Tristan rolls over on his side so that he's looking at him, their faces inches apart. "I can't stop thinking about you"-Brad smiles-"throwing up."
His smile slowly fades away. "Oh."
"I just"-he nervously captures his lip in his teeth again-"it hurt seeing you like that. I want you to be okay, Brad."
"I'll be okay," Brad promises, smiling for proof. "I've only ever done it three times in my whole entire life. It's not like a habit. Sometimes it's the only solution, and then it just ends up happening. It's not a big deal."
Tristan frowns. "Of course you don't think it's a big deal. You're the one doing it-"
Brad instantly silents the older boy, pulling him in by his jumper and pressing a small kiss to his lips. The curly-haired boy reluctantly pulls away from him, a smug smile tugging on his mouth before the older boy's hand is behind his head and his soft lips are pressed to his again. Brad wonders if it's normal for a mouth so warm to send shivers down his spine and leave his body frozen and tingling.
"We have to do that all the time," Brad decides when they pull away, except their lips are still inches apart and Tristan's hand is still holding his head in place.
"Definitely," Tristan agrees before kissing him again. The younger boy can only giggle like a schoolgirl, absorbing the moment and how much he loves being this happy. It almost feels wrong smiling so much, looking back on all the weeks of him groaning and sighing and overthinking all the time. But if it is wrong, Brad wouldn't care. It doesn't even bother him how sore his cheekbones are from beaming up at the blond so much.
"What's your passion?" The younger boy asks as Tristan's hand pulls away from him.
The seventeen-year-old furrows his brows at the sudden change of subject, but he smiles and shrugs. "I'm not sure yet."
"There's nothing you love doing?"
He pauses and looks at the wall thoughtfully before coming to a decision and shaking his head. "To be honest, I'm not really sure what I do with myself at all."
Brad laughs at this. "You can't be serious."
"I'll figure it out someday," Tristan says, nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders. "What's your passion, Hobbes?"
"I love cooking and baking, but mostly cooking. I can cook almost anything." The curly-haired boy's excitement strangely builds up and he smiles as he talks about it. "It's just so fun and it's something I can actually put my emotions into. People think it's weird to say that you can put your emotions into cooking food, but it's true. And it takes my mind off of everything. Kind of like when I run. I'm fully in control."
"Are you any good?"
"I'm not sure." Brad shrugs. "My old friends said I was good, and my family do, but I don't know if they were just saying that or not. I've never actually tried my food."
"Never?"
"Never," he confirms, shaking his head along with his response.
Tristan looks at him blankly. "Do you still cook now?"
"I haven't really had the motivation to since I came back from the medical center," the sixteen-year-old sheepishly replies. He sadly looks down, thinking over how depressed he's been ever since he went to the medical center. "I don't know what happened to me while I was hospitalised. Even when I started dieting I cooked a lot, and now that I've been to the medical center it feels even strange to be in the kitchen."
"We should do something," Tristan voices after a period of silence. He sits up in the bed causing Brad to frown at the sudden loss of warmth.
"What's this something?"
"We should cook," he says.
"For what?"
"For you," the seventeen-year-old replies. Brad furrows his brows out of confusion. "It's your passion. You shouldn't let a bump in the road rob your happiness, Hobbes."
"I don't know what to cook, though." The younger boy pulls himself into a sitting position beside Tristan. "And I'd feel bad raiding through your kitchen. Also, I wouldn't know what to do with it."
The blond laughs at him. "Don't feel bad raiding our kitchen. My dad wouldn't care. And yano, there's an Internet that can easily give us ideas on what to cook, then we can just leave it in the refrigerator for my dad. He eats enough food to feed the population of a small country."
Brad thoughtfully nods before sucking in a breath and exhaling, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "Okay," he decides, pushing the blankets off his legs and heading towards his bedroom door, "let's cook something."
. . .
"What do you have that I can use?" the sixteen-year-old asks, resting his back against the counter and crossing his ankle over the other.
"Um"-Tristan pulls open the refrigerator, carefully scanning his blue eyes over the items-"there's milk, some green thing I think is called eggplant, an onion, eggs, and a block of cheese."
Brad lets out a laugh, joining Tristan by the fridge. "I'm quite sure that's zucchini, Tris."
"Well, I don't know my vegetables." Brad looks up at him, amused. "I mean, fruits."
The curly-haired boy raises his brows. "Fruits?"
"I mean"-the seventeen-year-old sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose-"stop looking at me like I'm wrong."
"Aw." Brad laughs again and pushes his weight on his tippy-toes, pressing a kiss to Tristan's cheek. "I already have an idea of what we should cook. But your dad probably will not enjoy it."
"Why? Because it involves that 'z' word?"
The brown-eyed boy chuckles. "Yes. And because I've never seen zucchini in the winter so this is rather interesting."
"Well, nothing is normal about this house," Tristan says, leaning against the counter. Brad just laughs and pulls all the items out of the nearly deserted refrigerator before neatly setting them up across the counter. He freely looks through all of the cabinets before finally finding the large mixing bowl he was looking for and setting it in the circle of ingredients.
"Firstly," Brad begins, "do you have baking mix?"
"Um, no," Tristan replies after a short moment of contemplation.
"Well, looks like we have no choice but to make our own baking mix," the younger boy informs him. "Do you have flour, baking powder, and salt?"
"Probably," the blond slowly answers. Brad playfully rolls his eyes before opening the cabinets to find everything himself since he's pretty sure Tristan's not even sure what life is right now. After raiding through all the cabinets and finding flour and baking powder, he lets out a frustrated sigh and points to the high cabinet above the microwave that he can't reach. "Can you reach that for me?"
Tristan pulls his lips into a smug smile, like he's happy to finally be useful, or maybe he just thinks it's funny he's taller than Brad. Most likely the latter. Opening the cabinet, the older boy searches through the small amount of spices before pulling out a large container of salt and handing it to the shorter boy. "Here you go."
"Thanks. Do you have a food processor?" Tristan stares at him blankly. "Well then, I guess we can just shift it together ourselves."
"Sounds fun."
"Good, because I was going to make you do it yourself." The curly-haired boy searches through the cabinet he found the first bowl at and pulls out a red, small one. He carries all the ingredients for the baking mix over to the other side of the corner and points at Tristan before pointing at the designated area. "You need six cups of flour, three tablespoons of baking powder, one tablespoon of salt, and three-fourths cup shortening, which is your butter."
The older boy looks at him before slowly trailing his blue eyes over to the other side of the counter. "Um, could you write all that down for me or...?"
Brad face-palms.
Fifteen minutes later, Tristan finally understands how to make the baking mix. As he mixes the four ingredients, Brad stands on the other side of the counter, grating mozzarella cheese like his life depends on it. He usually doesn't use mozzarella cheese to make this dish, but it's all Tristan had in his refrigerator, and Brad tries to remind himself not to get frustrated too much with the lack of ingredients. This is only for fun, anyway.
"You're getting the hang of that," Brad comments, wrapping the remains of the block of mozzarella cheese before storing it back into the refrigerator. He's quite sure he grated over the one cup that the recipe suggests, but it never hurts to have more than you need.
"You think so?" Tristan asks. He pulls a bar stool up to the counter and plops in. "I think I'm failing miserably and any minute all the bones in my wrist will snap."
The curly-haired boy chuckles and sets the cheese grater in the sink before heading over to Tristan. "Need help?"
"Kind of."
Brad takes advantage of the fact he's taller than the older boy at the moment and presses his stomach into his back, placing his hands over Tristan's. "Is this okay?" the younger boy asks about the position. Tristan chews on his bottom lip before nodding his head. Brad smiles and tightens his small hand around the younger boy's so that they both have a grip onto the spoon before quickly mixing the four ingredients together in the bowl, circling the big, wooden spoon in the mixture.
"How are you even doing this?" Tristan asks, looking down into the mix that's slowly beginning to look like cornmeal.
"We," Brad corrects, smiling down at him. Tristan lets out a laugh at how cheesy he is. "Okay, I think we're finally done with the baking mix. Now, I need you to chop the onion for me."
Tristan drops the spoon into the bowl, turning in his chair to look at Brad. "Are you serious?"
"Well, I need you to attempt chopping the onion for me," he rephrases causing Tristan to playfully roll his eyes. Brad chuckles and pecks his lips. "Please?"
"I was already going to say yes," the older boy claims, pecking Brad's lips, too. A smile widens on the sixteen-year-old's face before he walks over to his side of the counter.
It takes almost forever before Brad and Tristan finally have all of the first seven set of ingredients in the large bowl before Brad stirs in the sliced zucchini, baking mix, and the chopped onions that Tristan hadn't struggled with as much as the curly-haired boy expected. After they finally have everything mixed together, they pour it into the dish pie plate and place it in the oven for thirty minutes.
"You should definitely be a chef when you get older," Tristan tells the younger boy as they plop down on the couch in his empty living room.
Brad crosses his legs Indian style, watching the sad, little Christmas tree in the corner. He brings the glass of a small amount of wine to his lips, scrunching his face up in disgust at the taste. "Nah, I think I want to be a dietitian."
"When did you decide that?"
""Sometime when I was fourteen," Brad replies. "It kind of came to me when I was in a store and I knew all the nutrition facts better than the cashiers, and the exact locations."
"Wow," Tristan comments. "I don't even know what job I want to take up. It's kind of scary when you think about it. Soon I'm going to be going off to Uni, and I don't even know what I want to do with my life. I mean, I take up engineering, but I don't exactly like it."
"That's okay," he reassures him. Brad glances at the glass in his hand and sets it on the carpeted floor, snuggling into Tristan's side like always. "Tris, I'm really happy that everything is okay now."
"Me, too." He wraps both of his arms around the smaller boy so that he's lying down in his lap, like a little puppy. "I'm really happy that I'm just with you."
The curly-haired boy's lips pull into a small smile, and he's about to ask him what they even are to eachother, anyway, before he unexpectedly falls asleep in Tristan's lap. He doesn't know how long he's sleeping, but he wakes up, tucked in Tristan's bed with the stuffed animal, Animal, beside him. Brad pushes the blankets off his body and stretches his arms, glancing around the minimalistic bedroom, frowning at the realisation there's no sight of Tristan.
On cue, the blond runs inside the room at the sound of the front door unlocking. "Um, Brad, we have a problem," he says, panicky. Before Brad has a chance to understand what he's saying, he's being pulled out of the bed. "My dad's home. He's never home on Saturdays and Sundays so I don't understand why he's here, but he's here and I'm not allowed to have people over at all."
The front door opens. Tristan widens his eyes at the sound and with shaky hands, pulls the closet door open and shoves the smaller boy inside of it in one swift movement. Brad trips over the two cardboard boxes inside, nearly falling to the floor before he regains his balance and furrows his brows at the older boy.
"Sorry," the seventeen-year-old whispers. "Stay in here, okay?"
Brad doesn't have a chance to respond before he closes and the door and he's left alone in darkness. Feeling around the dark space, Brad finds an empty spot in the closet and plops down in it, pulling his legs to his chest and waiting. As he tries listening from outside the bedroom, he can hear an angry, deep voice, shouting about something Brad can't make out. A loud bang causes him to jump, nearly making him hit his head on the side of the wall. I hope Tristan's okay, Brad thinks, sadly looking out into the darkness. He then wonders how he's supposed to get out of Tristan's house without his dad finding out he's been here. Is he just supposed to stay in his closet until his dad falls asleep or ends up leaving? That could take forever, Brad thinks to himself.
He decides to take matters into his own hands and silently pushes the closet door open, happily spotting the large window by Tristan's bed, covered by a blue curtain identical to his bed sheets. The curly-haired boy tiptoes out of the closet until he reaches the window, frowning at the fact there's a board keeping someone from getting into it. Or preventing someone from getting out, depending on how you look at it. Brad's not sure which way he's supposed to see it as.
The brown-eyed boy backs away from the window, allowing the blue curtain to fall back into place. The sound of glass breaking causing him to jump, and he stumbles backwards into the computer causing the monitor to fall and hit the carpeted floor. Brad widens his eyes. By the silence in the living room, the teenager can tell the commotion did not go unnoticed. Brad scrambles back into the closet door and quickly closes it behind him before Tristan's bedroom door is burst open, the door hitting the wall beside it when it opens.
"Who's in your room?" the deep voice angrily asks.
"No one," Tristan mumbles.
Brad slowly pushes one of the large cardboard boxes in front of him and rolls up into a ball so that it's able to hide him just in case his father ends up opening the door.
"Then who's shoes are these?" The sixteen-year-old quietly sighs, wondering how they'd forgotten Brad's shoes were placed in front of the door.
"They're from years ago," Tristan lies. "I was going through my old things and figuring out what to give away."
There's a period of silence before his father huffs. "If I find out that you're lying, you're going to wish you never moved in with me. I fucking told you no one is allowed in this house. Do you understand?"
Tristan doesn't say anything. A loud popping sound radiates throughout the bedroom. Brad quietly gasps, covering his hand over his mouth.
"Do you understand?" his dad sternly repeats.
"Yes," the seventeen-year-old quietly replies in a whisper.
"Yes?"
"Yes, sir."
After a long period of silence, the bedroom door slams shut. Brad squeezes his eyes closed, waiting a few seconds before moving the cardboard box out of his way and walking out of the closet. Tristan's sitting on the edge of his bed, silently staring at the wall with his hand over the side of his face. Suddenly, Brad misses being at home with his overly-caring dad always checking up on him.
"Tristan," Brad says, joining him. He frowns, slowly moving his hand away and running his fingertips over the older boy's red cheek.
"I'm fine," Tristan quietly reassures him, wrapping his fingers around the curly-haired boy's wrist and gently pulling his hand away. "You should probably call your parents"-he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing in his neck-"so they can pick you up."
The curly-haired boy shakes his head. "I'm not going anywhere until you're okay."
The blond lets out a sigh, but Brad notices the ghost of a smile on his lips, and he leans in to kiss him, knowing it won't take the sadness away, but at least he can try.