James' POV:
"Tommy, mate, please don't eat it like that." I got up and took the spoon from him. "I know you know how to eat with this." I looked at him and paused. He looked back at me, smiled and laughed. His little giggle that made you sort of melt. "Yea, see I got you. Now come on, I know you're hungry." I handed him back the spoon and went back to my seat to continue eating.
"Everything okay?" Phil asked, coming downstairs carrying a basket of dirty washing.
"Yep, he's just being silly."
"That's him!" He laughed, going into the utility room.
"Sure is." I said, smiling at the young blond. "Do you want pudding after this?" I asked.
He nodded and specifically put his spoon down to sign, "please."
"Good talking mate." I replied, putting my own cutlery down as I finished my last mouthful.
Dinner had been amazing. It was Tubbo's recipe that Phil and I had followed. And whilst Tubbo was originally going to be the one cooking it: he'd done breakfast that morning and was now simply too tired.
He was sat with Wilbur and Techno on the sofa, eating dinner, drinking fizzy drinks and playing minecraft together. We asked Tommy if he wanted to watch (he normally did) but tonight he simply didn't seem interested. So him and I sat at the dinner table with Phil.
A couple minutes later, Tommy was done eating. "Dessert coming up!" I exclaimed. "Oi, you lot," I called out to the boys on the sofa, "who wants dessert?"
"What is it?" Wilbur asked for the lot of them.
Phil came in, "Ice creams and ice lollies in the freezer."
"Cool!" Wilbur said, asking his brothers what they wanted before coming up to get it from the freezer. Techno and Tubbo were both quiet today. Wilbur was desperately trying to do his best to fill all the awkward silences but it wasn't going his way.
"Tommy, what do you want?" I asked, encouraging him to come over and choose one for himself.
He picked a rocket lolly and stood (not so) patiently whilst I opened it for him. Before he could walk off, I handed him back the plastic wrapping. "Where does it go?" I prompted.
Instructed to hold his ice lolly carefully, I stood waiting for him as he found a way to open the bin and placed the wrapper inside. We high-fived, he got his ice lolly back and I followed him outside. He took steps towards the trampoline.
"You are still eating, we have to wait to go on the trampoline." I stated.
"Yes. Bounce." He signed, dripping bits of ice lolly all over the grass.
"I said no. Please listen. Can you come over here and finish your ice lolly? When you are done and your food has had time to digest, then we can bounce."
He shook his head. I shook mine back. He smiled and shook his back.
"I can see you're listening. It's not safe to bounce when your food hasn't had time to digest. Do you understand?" He scrunched his nose up, appearing to be concentrated and licked his ice lolly a few times. Then he nodded. "Good." I said, finally relaxing into one of the outdoor chairs.
Tommy came and sat next to me. Happily swinging his legs and humming away to himself. Or actually humming to me. It was a nice time, and I found myself bopping my head along to the rhythm.
Once he was finished, he held the empty lolly pop stick up to me proudly and gave me an over-exaggerated smile. "Alright, alright. But you can't go bouncing right now. Your food needs to settle first." He pouted. "I know but I did explain it to you earlier. We just need to wait a bit longer."
"NO!"
"Hey, let's find your iPad. Let's both try and communicate in a better way." I said, mostly to myself. Tommy threw the lolly pop stick across the garden table and stomped away. His red crocs slapping against the patio as he went.
I picked up the lolly pop stick and followed him inside. I bumped straight into Phil. "It's fine." He said simply. "He's still in the process of pushing boundaries with us. He's gone from getting hit every time he even sets out of line to a house where he's given a voice. He's just still working out how to use it."
"That's a good way of putting it," I said, putting the small piece of wood in the bin and sighing.
"He went thudding upstairs, I'd give him maybe a minute breather before going up. He's had a long day, and it's nearly bath time so maybe just a quick trampolining after bath time?"
"Sounds alright to me," I said, still feeling a bit bad. I know I shouldn't but eh, it's all a bit difficult.
"You want me to go and handle this one?" I immediately tried to convince him otherwise but he carried on. "You're here to help. Right now it would be helpful if you weren't stressed. I needed to wipe the table and worktop down. And unload the dishwasher. How about we swap jobs?"
"Well no, it's okay I can do it."
"And can you also do the dishwasher?"
"Yea, I guess so?"
"Good, go do it then." He laughed and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Seriously mate, he has been struggling lately, pushing an argument or trying to communicate effectively right now isn't worth it. I'll just get him in the bath and he'll be calmer after that."
"Okay. Well, I'll get started on these jobs then."
Time skip:
He was in his pajamas, but he was happy. "You." He signed with a simple point at me.
"Fine, I'll bounce too." He flapped his hands in reply and waited for me to take off my shoes.
Within minutes we were both laughing to the point where we couldn't even bounce properly anymore. Phil came out and smiled at us. "Mind if I take a picture?"
"Nope." I said, smiling at Tommy who was giggling loudly still.
"It's nice to see him so happy, you know after things are difficult."
"Agreed." I said, kneeling down on the edge of the trampoline to take a quick breather. Tommy was still bouncing.
"Tommy, five more minutes and then Techno has said he'll read to you!"
"Read." Tommy immediately started clambering off the trampoline.
"Hang on!" I called out after him.
Phil managed to get to him, "mate, you've still got five more minutes on the trampoline if you want it?" Tommy shook his head. "Alright then, I'll get you a water bottle and a snack, you want some grapes?"
"Please." Which Tommy again intended to mean yes.
"Okay, I'll get the grapes, but you've got to get your trainers and put them in the cupboard and then go upstairs." Tommy looked nervous. "I'm sure James will help you if you ask him?"
Tommy turned around and practically walked into me having not realised that I too had got off the trampoline. "Help."
"Good talking," I ruffled his hair, "yea I'll come help you. Do you want to get your shoes?"
"No."
"Please may you get your shoes?" He sighed and slumped his way to get them from the bottom of the trampoline's ladder. Proper teenager behaviour and very normal for Tommy. If he could get away with not doing something, he'd try to. "Thank you!" I said, following him through the house to the shoes cupboard and opening it up for him.
He identified his drawer in the shoe cupboard, tapping on his red label before pulling it out and chucking his shoes in. Happy that he'd done at least most of it, I placed them neatly so that it would shut properly and then shut it for him. By the time I'd turned around, he'd already run upstairs.
Phil met me on the landing. "Techno's with him now, it's fine."
"Oh okay, did you want me to do anything else?"
"Nope, not for now at least."
"Will they be alright on their own?" Phil looked at me with a confused expression. "I know normally they are, I get it. Not trying to be patronizing. Just that they've both not had they best of days?"
"Techno knows to come and get us or text us if there's an issue. Plus, reading is therapeutic for the both of them. A bit of quiet time with pressure or expectations."
"Ah okay, well, how about I make us a cup of tea?" I felt the need to still be doing something helpful considering I would still be paid for these hours.
"Sounds good to me."
When we got downstairs, I was ambushed by Tubbo and Wilbur. "Can we show you this song we've been working on?"
I looked to Phil for an answer; he gestured in a way that I understood to mean it was up to me. "Sure, I'd love to."
"Cool, Tubbo I'll get your laptop, you take James to the music room." Tubbo nodded quickly and turned on his crutches. I noticed his steps seemed much steadier with his splints on. Hopefully that would mean more or easier mobility for him. Missing out on things always sucked, no matter the reason and Tubbo had mentioned not always feeling a part of things. I followed him down the garden path and into the music room which he got me to unlock with a key in his hoodie pocket.
Wilbur came running down to join us, clutching a laptop in his hands and nearly tripping because he hadn't put his trainers on properly. He handed it to Tubbo and started fiddling with one of his guitars.
"Basically, me and the band, my band. We're called Lovejoy, did I tell you that?" I nodded; he was evidently rambling excitedly. "Okay well, we want to write music or like start writing music and so Tubbo and I have been working on stuff and this is the first track we think that it might like actually go somewhere or be semi-decent."
"Everyone has got to start somewhere," I said, "my band has also recently tried writing our own music. It's not going well so far," I laughed and prepared myself to listen to the track.
It looked to be about 30 seconds long and Tubbo bit his lip nervously as it started playing. Wilbur seemed similarly nervous. I hadn't realised my opinion was that highly regarded by the two of them.
No one spoke while it played but I tried to make it clear that I did think it was good. "Wow," I said once it had finished. "That sounds really good. I like those trumpets!"
"Tubbo has been working on those for ages. I agree, they're really good!" Wilbur said passionately, placing his guitar on a stand before going to the piano. "I've been trying to work out some lyrics and like well, the melody." He played a few keys. "So I was thinking something along the lines of this," he played a few chords now and hummed a little along with it.
"That sounds really good. Tubbo, can you play that demo again?"
"S-s-sure!" I went and stood by the piano, next to Wilbur. Once the quite obvious intro had finished playing, I joined in with the demo and played some chords. Pretty much the same ones Wilbur had played a few seconds prior but now with a bit more order and actually forming some kind of semi-recognizable melody.
Once the demo had ended, I asked, "what do we think of that?"
Tubbo was nodding and Wilbur was asking me which chords I'd done in what order, already getting the notes app on his phone ready to make sure he wouldn't forget them. Both boys seemed really happy. "We should have asked James sooner," Wilbur said, laughing with Tubbo.
"Well I'm always happy to help. Music is a real passion of mine. It's just good." I internally cringed and felt like such an idiot. 'Just good' I was so weird.
"Yea it is." Wilbur agreed, trying to make sure he knew exactly where all the chords I'd used were on the piano and slowly piecing them together to form the melody for himself. It didn't look like he was entirely listening.
"You happy with that?"
"Yea," Wilbur said, "yea that's exactly how I wanted it to be!"
"Good, did you want me to stay?"
"Umm, you can if you want. But we don't like need you, or anything?" He was nervous not to offend me.
"Alright then, I'll leave you to it, unless you two needed anything? Food, drink?"
"No, no."
I managed to awkwardly leave and headed back up to the house. I don't know why I struggle so much to speak to them, it's almost like I'm scared. I mean teenagers are a little scary but the Watson boys are lovely. I just needed to relax. All I knew was that Phil was definitely right earlier: I do not work well when I'm stressed.
A/n Hey! Happy 2024, wow, this feels weird. Hope everyone had some lovely new year celebrations and is looking forward. Thanks for being here and continuing to support my writing; it really means a lot.