"Why did you attack the police officers?" Tristan angrily questioned, pacing back and forth in front of the TV's once again blank screen. The boy was becoming too interested in it after Tristan flicked through the channels until he somehow landed on Charlie and Lola. The brown-eyed boy shamelessly ignored all of Tristan's questions, giving the TV all his full attention, like there wasn't an angry man demanding answers in front of him.
"I was defending myself," the curly-haired boy simply replied.
"Defending yourself?" Tristan repeated. "You can't just attack authority and return to my home afterwards! Now you're in my possession and I could be held accountable for unintentionally hiding you in my flat after you attacked all the police officers in the station!"
"Oops," he unapologetically said.
"Yeah, oops," Tristan spat, running a hand over his face out of frustration. "I can't keep you here any longer with your face on the news!"
"Hm," the boy thoughtfully said, thinking over the blond's words. "I'm assuming you want me to leave?"
"Exactly!" The blue-eyed boy sighed of relief, glad that all his yelling at least gave the strange boy some sort of understanding. Sometimes he feels like what he says goes in one ear and flows out the other.
"Okay, I will leave."
"Wait"-Tristan furrowed his brows-"you will?"
"Yes." He nodded his head, standing up from the couch and smoothing down his olive green jacket. "I realise that I've made a mistake, and I will own up to it."
A smile spread on Tristan's face. Getting him to leave was easier than he thought. "Great!"
The small boy stumbled over towards the door, imitating Tristan's actions and unlatching the lock, like he'd seen that morning, before pulling open his doorknobless door. "Goodbye, Tristan. I apologise for my mistakes."
"Mm-hm, yeah, adiós." The twenty-one-year-old carelessly waved the small boy off, plopping down on the arm of the couch. Waving a small hand at him, Nineteen-Seventeen closed the door, his sad face disappearing behind it.
On cue, the unconscious body sprawled out on his couch stirred. Connor groaned in pain, slowly rolling over on his side and breathing heavily. His blue eyes slowly fluttered open, confusion lacing his features as he took in his unfamiliar surroundings. Tristan let out a nervous laugh at his confused co-worker. The younger boy slowly rose from the couch, scratching the back of his head and glancing around the living room.
"Where am I?" Connor groaned. "Why does everything hurt?"
"Oh, Con." Tristan laughed at his state and slid off the arm of the couch and onto the cushions. "You don't even want to know the beginning of it."
. . .
Nighttime fell before Tristan even knew it. After creating a huge story about his co-worker getting tipsy and Tristan having to drag his unconscious friend over to his flat, Connor brushed himself off and left, thanking his best mate for taking care of him. Tristan sort of felt bad about lying - lying was definitely not his thing - but he couldn't explain the situation with the brown-eyed boy. It was far too complicated and risky, hence his face was shown on the news. Connor most likely wouldn't try to get his best mate into any trouble, but Tristan wasn't taking any chances. Him and Nineteen-Seventeen were the only ones who knew of his presence being around the blond, and Tristan wasn't planning on letting anyone else in on the fact he knew the curly-haired boy.
"I'm just adding some finishing touches to my project for class," Tristan told his mum through the phone, his long fingers slowly finding each key on his laptop's keyboard. He wondered why his group chose the most Internet confused person to finish their assignment. "School is going to be the death of me, Mum, or it's going to be my job."
"You only have one more year left of school, Tris. You'll make it through," his mum encouraged him.
The twenty-one-year-old smiled at the powerpoint on his laptop screen, successfully finishing it. "I know. Thanks for staying up with me, by the way; I really appreciate it."
"You don't have to thank me," she told him. "I'm heading to bed, though. I'll see you in May."
"Okay, I love you. Tell Dad I love him also. G'night."
After hanging up the phone, concluding his nighttime conversation with his mum and finishing a mug of his favourite tea, Tristan snuggled into his bed, ready to fall asleep and wake up to a brand new day. But that was when rain started pouring down onto the flat. Hard. Tristan didn't understand why, but his mind instantly shifted to the small boy that left his apartment into the world to defend for himself. He knew the boy would do perfectly fine defending for himself according to him knocking his best mate unconscious and attacking every police officer in the police station, but he could just imagine him shaking in the cold, pouring rain with nowhere to go.
He tried convincing himself he'd be okay, and that it was just rain, but lightning struck, illuminating the dark sky outside his window. That was enough to have the blond jumping up from his bed, slipping his barefeet into a pair of sneakers, and running to find the young boy that left to explore the world on his own. He was unsure how he was supposed to find him in such a large city. The small boy could be anywhere. He had left nearly two hours ago, the world had most likely engulfed him.
All of Tristan's pessimistic theories were shot down as he yanked his doorknobless door open and looked down at the soaked, sleeping boy lying on his doormat, his knees pulled to his chest. Tristan's heart broke. He kneeled down, shaking the curly-haired boy awake.
"Hm?" he sleepily uttered, stirring in his sleep. His brown eyes suddenly fluttered open, and he eyed the blond in front of him before a smile found its way on his face. "You came back for me," he happily stated.
"Come inside," Tristan instructed. The small boy wasted no time to pull himself onto his large boots and stumble into his apartment, his wet boots leaving clear footprints on the hardwood floor.
"I'm depressed," the boy said, frowning. "The sky is depressed; therefore, I am depressed."
"The sky isn't depressed," Tristan disagreed. "It's just how the clouds work. They rain, because of this huge, scentific explanation I didn't learn, because I fell asleep during class when we went over it. But the sky is inanimate, it doesn't have emotions."
"Is that why you won't comfort your crying ceiling?" the brown-eyed boy asked, glancing at the water from his ceiling, dripping into the bucket. "Because you think things don't have emotions?"
"The ceiling isn't crying." Tristan rolled his eyes. "And I don't think things don't have emotions, I know things don't have emotions."
"Everything has emotions," he said, defensively. Glancing up at the ceiling, he pouted. "It'll be okay, Ceiling. There will be better days."
"Um, yeah, okay - we need to get you out of those wet clothes," Tristan said before pausing, squeezing his eyes shut at how wrong that sounded.
The young boy frowned. "But I like my clothes."
"They're wet," the blond told him. "I'll find something for you to wear to sleep in so I can wash them for you. Does that sound okay?"
"I like the clothes I have on now," he said. "It does not matter if they're wet. They're still as good as when they were dry."
"I'm not letting you sleep in wet clothes."
The boy looked at him, up and down. "Then that is your problem."
Tristan let out a sigh. "I'll give them back to you after they're washed and dry. And anyway, you've had them on for a day. You need to take a shower, and you need to have your clothes washed."
"Shower?" he repeated, cocking his head to the side.
"Please tell me you know what a shower is."
"Okay, but only because you said please... I know what a shower is," the boy told him before quickly following it with: "What is a shower?"
"It cleans you," Tristan said, trying to explain the best way he can. "So you can smell nice and... not be dirty."
"Is it bad to not smell nice and be dirty?"
Tristan wondered how this was so hard to comprehend. "Obviously."
The curly-haired boy contemplated his response before nodding and asking: "May you help me take a shower?"
"No!" the twenty-one-year-old quickly screamed, widening his eyes at the thought of helping the boy shower.
"Why not?"
"You have to shower naked," Tristan awkwardly explained, uncomfortably rubbing the back of his neck.
"And that is bad?"
"I'd rather see you with your clothes on."
"Okay." He nodded. "I will try to shower with my clothes on, and then you can help me."
Tristan let out an exasperated sigh.
After what felt like two hundred years, the twenty-one-year-old finally explained to the boy how to clean himself and wash his hair in a way he could understand. As he figured out the art of showering, Tristan rushed off to a store and bought a pair of boxers and an outfit to sleep in for the boy. He knew he was doing way too much for someone he barely knew, but there was nothing in his closet that could even kind of fit his small body.
Tristan returned home just as the boy was stumbling out of the bathroom with a towel hanging low around his hip bones, water dripping from his hair and sliding down his tan skin. "I took a shower!" the boy exclaimed, smiling at the twenty-one-year-old dropping plastic bags onto the bed.
"You're supposed to dry yourself off with the towel," Tristan told him.
"Oh." The blue-eyed boy quickly turned away as the smaller boy ripped his towel off without a warning.
"Some clothes are right there," he notified him, pulling out the pair of shorts, boxer briefs, and a black tee shirt.
"Thank you," he happily said. After he stepped into the boxer briefs, Tristan pulled his blue eyes back to him, furrowing his brows when he noticed '1917' tattooed on the bottom of his spine. He wondered if that was what the boy meant when he said that was his name. Maybe he noticed or remembered the numbers on his back and expected that to be what he's called.
"Wait," Tristan voiced before the boy pulled his boxers all the way up, running a finger over the blank ink burned into his tan skin before quickly pulling his hand away at the realisation of how weird his hand placement was, "when did this get here?"
"When did what get where?" he asked, giggling at the contact of Tristan's finger on his skin.
"Nineteen-Seventeen," Tristan told him. "On your back."
"That's on my back? Or are you calling me?"
"No, that's on your back."
"Oh, well, doesn't everyone have their names on their backs?"
"No," Tristan slowly said.
"Hm," he thoughtfully hummed to himself. "Then I've been told wrong."
"Who told you that?" The small boy pulled the black tee over his head. It was a little larger on him than Tristan expected, but he's honestly not surprised.
"I don't know. A voice," he simply replied, shrugging his shoulders. "The person who put it on me."
"Who put it on you?"
"I don't know," he once again replied. "But I remember it, kind of. There was a sharp, pointy thing."
"A needle?"
"I do not know." He looked down at his outfit and frowned at the sight of his own toes on the hardwood floor. "Can I have a pair of shoes?"
"You don't sleep with shoes," Tristan told him.
"I slept with shoes last night."
The twenty-one-year-old frowned at his bed before redirecting his eyes back to the smaller boy across from him. "I'll give you a pair of socks, how does that sound?"
"It sounds okay, I guess."
Tristan found him a pair of white socks in his drawer, helping the boy pull them onto his feet before sighing of relief at the fact getting him ready to go to sleep was over. "Now you're all set to sleep," he told him. At the sound of that, the boy scrambled to Tristan's bed, obliviously crawling under the blankets and snuggling inside. "No, you're sleeping on the couch."
"I like the bed," he replied, rolling over onto his belly and closing his eyes.
"You can't sleep in my bed," Tristan said.
"Do not be so grumpy all the time," the boy begged. "Please lie with me. It is time to fall asleep."
Tristan sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, making sure to keep as much distance as he could from the small boy as he crawled under the blankets with him.
The curly-haired boy happily looked at him. "Finally, you're not being a twat."
Tristan had no idea how he was supposed to reply to that.
"You are very kind, Tris. You just don't know that yet."
"Was that in your mind, too?" The young boy nodded, smiling. Tristan nodded, too. "Nineteen-Seventeen, I want to give you a name," he said.
"Why?" he asked. "I already have one. It is Nineteen-Seventeen."
"I know, but I want to give you new name."
"Will you have to mark it into me?"
"No." Tristan shook his head. "I just have to tell you what it is, and then I'll call you by it."
"Okay." The boy nodded excitedly. "What is my new name, Tris?"
"It's..." he trailed off, thoughtfully looking into his innocent, brown eyes, contemplating which name would best fit him. After a moment of comtemplation, he smiled, realising he had the perfect name for him: "Bambi."
. . .
brad is going to be called bambi for like majority of the story lmao lalalala hence the title lalalala