"Tris!"
The twenty-one-year-old peeled his heavy eyelids open, taking in the curly-haired man hovering over him with an innocent smile. He had a large plate in his hands and unsurprisingly one of Tristan's jumpers hanging off of his small body. But he wasn't holding a plate of pancakes like expected. There was a chubby omelette placed on it instead. Tristan smiled at the sight and the smell, earning a wide smile from the younger man in return.
"Morning," Tristan greeted. He caught sight of the sunlight seeping through the living room's opened blinds. He was happy to wake up to sunlight and food, and not darkness and his boyfriend rushing him to take a shower. Though, it confused him why Brad hadn't woke him earlier for training. Sure, Tristan was getting a tad better at protecting himself from the paintball machine, but it wasn't like he was really any good at defending himself. Though, he'd went over the plan with the group more than once, and he knew it better than his own name. If things went how planned, Tristan most likely wouldn't interfere with an agent, and if he did, he had Bambi. And if it were too much for Bambi to handle, (which practically nothing is,) then they're all fucked.
The curly-haired man impatiently waved the plate in front of his face.
"Is this for me?" Tristan finally questioned.
"Yes." He placed the hot plate in his hands before nudging his hip against Tristan's. "Scoot, please."
There wasn't much space on the couch to scoot over, but Tristan followed his request anyway. Bambi just decided on plopping down on his lap, resting his headful of curls on his boyfriend's chest and nuzzling his warm little face in Tristan's neck. The twenty-one-year-old smiled down at him as he took a hold of the fork on his plate and pulled out a chunk stuffed of meat and dripping cheese. "So, you made this yourself?"
"Kind of," he replied. "Connor helped me a lot."
Tristan took a bite and hummed in approval of the mouth-watering taste. "It's perfect," the blue-eyed man informed him as he went in for another chunk. "Do you want some?"
"Sure." Tristan went to cut him a piece before Bambi's fingers were suddenly pressed to his mouth, pushing past his lips.
Tristan locked his fingers around the younger man's wrist and pulled his hand away. A slight laugh escaped his nearly full mouth at the confusion on his face. "What are you doing, love?"
"I thought you asked if I wanted some."
"No, I meant from the plate."
"Oh." He nodded slowly in understanding, eyes trailing to the food in his lap.
Tristan hurriedly gripped him by the wrist again as he inched his fingers towards the omelette. "I would recommend you to use the utensil and not your hands, Bambi."
"Too many rules to do something so simple," the curly-haired boy murmured.
Another laugh escaped the dark-haired boy's lips. He stabbed the fork into the belly of the omelette, bringing the steaming piece to his boyfriend's lips. "Now, you can go for it."
He slowly bit into it. Tristan couldn't help but smile along with him as he chewed. He swore Bambi's smile could cheer up the most miserable person in the country. Everything about him was just so - ugh. But a good ugh. Just looking at him made the twenty-one-year-old feel like the happiest person in the world. He could be doing absolutely nothing, and it'd have him beaming like an idiot.
Tristan set the plate aside on the coffee table and pressed his lips to his boyfriend's jaw as he swallowed. "I love you," he murmured against his skin.
The brown-eyed boy let out a giggle, triggering a laugh from Tristan. "That tickles, Tris."
"Does it?" Bambi nodded. "How about this?"
The curly-haired boy laughed loudly throughout a scream as Tristan's
hands travelled down to his stomach, fingers tickling his sides. His boyfriend straddled him to the couch, laughing along with the smaller boy crazily squirming underneath him. "T-Tris, you are going to kill me!"
He chuckled, resting his forehead on the red-faced boy. "Do you love me, Bambi?"
"It is hard to after what you just did." The dark-haired boy playfully pouted. "I am just joking, Tris."
"Tell me." Tristan planted a kiss on his lips. "Say, 'I love you'"
"I love you."
Tristan looked into his eyes, a small smile finding his lips before he pecked him again. "Y'mean that?"
"Why would I not?"
He pulled away from him, crawling from off top of his boyfriend and crossing his long legs Indian style. "I don't know. I've just been afraid lately."
"Afraid? Of what?"
"Of this not being real." A sigh left the twenty-one-year-old's lips as warm tears filled his eyes. "I've lost so much since August. I don't want to lose you, too."
"No. Please, no," Bambi pleaded as tears dripped down his boyfriend's face. "You are not supposed to cry, Trissy. You are strong."
That made Tristan cry even harder.
"I love you, Tris! I do. I do. I do." He scrambled into his lap. "You will not lose me. Not now, not ever."
"Can you promise me that?" the blue-eyed man softly asked.
His boyfriend anxiously wiped away the spilling tears. "Yes! I promise you won't lose me, Tris. I promise. Please stop crying."
Tristan softly smiled and kissed his temple before placing Brad's head on his shoulder. The smaller boy snaked his arms around him. "I'm sorry. All of this is so... overwhelming. It's like I have no one in my life anymore. Before all this, I had a family. But now I don't even have that."
"I am your family," Brad reassured him. "Connor is your family, and Joe."
"Yeah, but..."
"No buts. A good man once told me that blood does not always decide your family, sometimes your heart does." Tristan paused, lacing his fingers through his dyed hair. "That man was you, Tris," he whispered with a chuckle.
The twenty-one-year-old smiled. "I love you."
"I love you," he echoed, smiling widely at his boyfriend. Tristan made a mental note to teach him how to correctly reply to that.
"May I take you somewhere today, Bambi?"
"On a date?"
"A date?" Tristan repeated with a laugh. "You know what a date is?"
A sheepish smile tugged on his lips. "Connor has taught me a lot."
"Well," he said, "it'll be a date then."
"Yes! I have to go tell Connor!" He excitedly scurried off his boyfriend's lap and took off down the hallway, shouting his best mate's name at the top of his lungs. Tristan chuckled and returned back to the omelette on the coffee table.
. . .
Raindrops pattered over the roof as the two boys made their way out of the house, fingers interlaced. A frown was etched on the smaller boy's face as he stepped out into the outdoors. He hated when it rained. It was almost like watching Tristan cry, and that gave him the worst feeling in the world. With each tear that dripped from Tristan's face, he felt like someone was squeezing their hand around his lungs, preventing any air circulation, and he made a little promise to himself to make sure Tristan's always happy. Tristan never failed to bring a smile to Bambi's face, he wanted to do exactly the same.
"Are you okay?" Tristan questioned, blue eyes trailing down to the curly-haired boy beside him.
He let out a small sigh. "The sky is not happy, Tris."
"I have something that'll make you feel better," the dark-haired boy promised. He walked him to the car door and pulled it open for him, motioning for the younger man to enter. He climbed into the passenger's side, strapping on his seat belt as Tristan slammed the door shut and made his way to the driver's.
"Are we going to visit my other family?"
Tristan slowly shook his head in response. "No... But we can visit them instead, if that's what you want."
"No, there is always time for visitation. I can see my other family after the mission." The smile Bambi gave him made the older boy even happier. The curly-haired boy held his hand as he started the car, the vehicle backing out of the parking space and making its way down the road. "May I ask you something, Tris?"
"Anything."
"It is about James." Tristan swallowed. "When I was brushing my teeth last night, did you talk to him?"
"Well, he shouted at me a little. Does that count?"
"That is James's favourite way of communicating."
The blue-eyed boy chuckled. "You don't lie."
"It is okay if you do not want to answer this, but what exactly did the two of you talk about?"
"Um..." Tristan trailed off, thinking over their heated conversation the night before. A lot of missing pieces in the two boys' stories came together after Tristan figured out James's place in it, but there were still a lot of gaps. He didn't know how James even know Brad enough to sneak him out of the lab and place him in Tristan's trunk, or why did James go through so much trouble to bring the two boys back together if he had so many negative views on the dark-haired boy? And he wasn't sure how he got Connor and Joe tangled up with the government, but after finding out his alleged stalker had been around him for so long, he didn't want to stay around, or ask any questions. "We can talk about it later, yeah? Right now, I just want it to be us."
"Okay." Bambi smiled widely at the mention of that. He looked out the window, frowning at the windshield wipers smearing the rain as it swiped through. "I wish I could make everything and anything happy."
"What do you mean?"
"I do not like sadness, or pain. I wish I could just look at someone and make them smile."
"I look at you, and that makes me smile. No matter what."
Brad's features brightened. "I really make you smile?"
"Mm-hmm." Tristan rubbed circles onto the younger boy's hand with his thumb. "And anyway, if there wasn't pain, how are you even human?"
He blinked, blankly watching the windshield wipers sway right to left. "What do you mean, Tris?"
"It's how you know you're alive, how you know you're real."
"Pain?"
"Yeah."
"I guess I've never thought about that before," he muttered. "But if you are happy, can you not feel alive, too?"
"Yes, but if you're happy all the time, it's inhuman. Even the sky gets a little sad sometimes."
Bambi nodded in understanding as he trailed his eyes over to the rain dripping onto the car window and sliding down. He pressed a finger to the cool glass, trailing it down the water droplet. "Why do humans have to be unhappy to be real, Tris?"
One of his shoulders simply rose before dipping again in response. "That's a mystery, Bambi."
"Hmm," the younger boy thoughtfully hummed, eyelids fluttering closed. "I am going to take a nap now, Tris."
"Okay." He pulled his hand away from him and clicked on the radio, flipping through the different stations until he found the instrumental radio that Bambi liked. A smile instantly found the curly-haired boy's as interlaced their fingers together again, humming along. Tristan frowned when he realised he was humming a completely different tune.
"Bambi?"
"Yes," he replied in between his hums.
"What are you singing?"
"Our song," he simply replied.
"We have a song?"
"Yes." He fluttered his eyelids open and smiled at his boyfriend. "You do not remember?"
"I don't recall a song. Does this mean you remember something that I don't?"
"Apparently." He shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes again. "It was coming from a little spinny thing -"
"A vinyl record?" Tristan suggested.
"Maybe." He shrugged again. "And anyway, I was panicking because you told me you could not take me back to the lab without either of us getting in trouble, and then the song calmed me down. So, we danced a little bit, and then we fell asleep."
"Oh."
"And the day... the day we were caught, there was too much yelling. So, you told me to cover my ears and hum the song, and then everything would not feel so scary anymore."
"Did it work?"
"Yes, of course." He chuckled before his smile quickly faltered. "But then you were ripped away from me, out of my arms, and when I tried to cover my ears, I was still scared. I could still hear screaming, but then I just found out it was me. I thought I was going to die without you, Tris."
"Well, that's the past. All that matters is that we're together now."
"I know." A smile found his lips again. "I am so very glad I found my Tristan again."
The twenty-one-year-old smiled and ruffled his curls. "Me, too."