Lachlan's P.O.V.
Just as I predicted, Oliver and Henry both awoke at 6 in the morning. They had both been sleeping in the bed beside me and as soon as they realised that hey, dad was in the bed too, they decided to pounce on me, squealing excitedly.
I squinted and mumbled at them to calm down but they didn't listen, they were off to explore the room and touch everything that was in it. I was alright with it simply because the guest room was mostly empty and there was no cables and wires, only the toy truck and crane I had bought in the night before.
Henry was the first to start driving his toy truck all over me, up and down my arms and over my stomach and down my legs, eventually Oliver joined him and suddenly I was a racetrack. It was nice because although they weren't quiet, they were making almost constant sound effects, they weren't being little terrors and waking everyone up.
They were playing nicely together for once in their lives, Henry wasn't being a pushover like he normally was. Of the two Henry was defiantly the more outgoing, the louder of the two and a lot of the time he was more brute force than three year old kids. Oliver was on the quieter side and he often asked questions about anything he saw, what's this and what's that.
"Daddy I'm hungry!" Oliver whined, crawling up onto my chest with his crane in hand.
"Alright, alright." I said, scooping him up into my arms and rolling over so I was pretending to squash him. "Oops, you're stuck now! You can't get up!"
He shrieked and giggled, Henry taking the opportunity to scramble up onto my back.
"Daddy!" He squealed, squirming underneath me. He wasn't being squashed or anything, he was just hyped up and excited, probably too much for it being 6am and several people being asleep on the same floor.
"Okay you two, remember to use your inside voices. There's people still asleep." Henry nodded and Oliver giggled, both of them taking my hand when I stood up to go downstairs. Just before I took them down I changed them into day clothes and pulled on a hoodie myself, trying to keep warm.
Oli was being a little clingy, he didn't want to let go of me so after a minute of trying to get him to walk down the stairs I scooped him up into my arms, carrying him. Henry was clinging to the pocket of my trackpants.
Josh was the only one awake in the house, he was sitting at the bench with a cup of coffee in hand. He smiled when I came in with the boys, Oli on my hip and Henry whining for food, moving over so I could sit down at the bench. I attempted to put Oli down but he started screaming, so I placed him on my lap while Henry jumped up and down, tugging on my sleeve and asking for something to eat.
"Do you want me get something from your car Lachlan? Oli isn't going to let you let him go any time soon." I sighed and nodded tiredly, holding Oli tightly. Henry was about to starting fitting, I could tell, so as a distraction I pulled my phone out of my back pocket for him to play with. I didn't log in or anything, he could just play guess the password or play with the camera app for a while.
"Please. That'd be great." I ran my hand through Oli's hair, watching as Henry fiddled with my phone, trying to find something to do with it. I wasn't worried about what he could do, I had locked the phone part so he couldn't call 999 even if he tried.
Josh came back a couple of minutes later with the bag that I had in my boot and as soon as Henry saw it he screamed in excitement, running at Josh and digging through the bag. He looked at me and I gestured at him to hand it for me, making sure that I was keeping a hold of Oli and I wouldn't tip him over.
"Henry." I said sternly, making him stop and look up at me. "Do you go digging around in my stuff?" He pouted but stopped doing what he was doing thankfully, meaning I didn't have to keep at him. "Alright, do you want something to eat?"
"Yes!" He yelled, bouncing around.
"Yes what?"
"Yes please daddy!" He said, quieter this time, knowing that he had to use his inside voice.
"Okay then." With Oli still resting on my shoulder I dug through the bag and peace descended over the house for a little while.
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I was drowsy for a lot of the day, despite having had no less sleep than normal. The other boys noticed it too because they took great care to entertain the boys while I tried not to fall asleep, which I was so grateful for because it gave me some time to breathe.
I honestly didn't know how tired I had been until I didn't need to take care of the boys ever second of every day, and I was exhausted. Vikk noticed because when he saw that I was dropping off he got some toys out of the bag and entertained them for hours.
"Oh my god, it's so sweet." Vikk whispered, and through my squinted eyes I could see Oli sitting contentedly on his lap with a cracker in his mouth and the little toy crane in his hand. "I can't believe it's been three years since we've seen him."
"I know." JJ whispered, who was busy entertaining Henry. "He's got kids now, Jesus, I remember when he was the kid of the group, he's grown up far too fast."
Vikk hummed in agreement, Oli babbling away and talking to himself while he tried to get Vikk's attention back on him. I was listening to everything with my eyes closed, but I supposed that they both thought that I was asleep.
"I missed him so much, I was so worried when he disappeared but I can understand why he did. These two are so cute." Vikk said, sounding like he was coddling Oliver. "God the memories though, the times we spent together." JJ snickered.
"Sounds like you've still got that crushhhhh." He teased, laughing. I almost opened my eyes I was so surprised but I managed to keep them closed, still listening in on the conversation. "I can't believe you've managed to hang onto that for 4 years!"
There was a solid pause, the only noises I could hear were Oli and Henry playing quietly together which was a surprise considering they were normally fighting and screaming like little brats. Normally they were never so well behaved.
"Oh my god you've gone so red!" JJ giggled, laughing so hard that my chair, which he was leaning against, started shaking. "You so have a crush still!"
"Maybe." He mumbled, sounding so sheepish that I couldn't help but giggle. I clapped my hand over my mouth, realising that I had just alerted them to the fact that I was awake and had been listening to their conversation. I blinked, finally opening my eyes.
Henry squealed when he saw me awake and clambered off JJ, climbing up the chair and onto my lap.
"Hey bud." I mumbled, exhausted still, running my hand through his hair. He giggled, wrapping his arms around my neck. I then looked back over at JJ and Vikk, the latter of which was looking stunned and so embarrassed that he wanted to curl up in a hole and die.
"You weren't asleep?" JJ said, gaping. I nodded.
"Nah, probably looked like it." I yawned, shifting Henry so he wasn't in the way. "But yeah, I heard everything."
Vikk went, if possible, an even deeper shade of red. Oli looked up at him and pressed a chubby little hand to his cheek, bringing his attention back down to the young boy.
"You're red!" He said excitedly, for some reason. "You're like Rudolph!" I giggled, Vikk laughing along with Oli's antics. His comment relaxed him a little and slowly, as the second passed, Vikk realised that I didn't care that he had a crush on me.
In fact, my heart was beating so fast because of what I now knew that I was struggling to keep it hidden.
I had had a crush on Vikk pretty much since we had become friends, hell, maybe since I had first seen his beautiful face on our first Skype call together all those years ago. I had kept it hidden because he had had a girlfriend and once the boys came along I just let it go, knowing nothing would ever come of it. It still hurt like hell though.
I closed my eyes for a few seconds, Henry turning back and clambering off my lap. He ran back over to JJ and plopped himself on the floor in front of him, demanding attention and holding up a toy car for JJ to hold. I smiled to myself, watching their interaction.
Vikk's eyes went between me and his housemate, still a little red on the tip of his ears.
Eventually Henry demanded for JJ to take him upstairs, that was where the bag was after the boys had kept going through it, and the man obliged, picking up Henry and slinging him over his shoulder. I could hear his squeals as they went all the way up the stairs.
"So..." Vikk stuttered, nervous all over again. "Sorry you had to hear that..." I cut him off.
"Nah uh uh, you don't have anything to be sorry for." I smiled at him, still bouncing his leg up and down to entertain Oli. "I don't mind. In fact..."
I slid from the chair and pretty much crawled over to him, pulling Oli off his lap and pulling him onto mine. I then leaned over to him and captured his lips on mine, feeling his surprise and shock at first but then he relaxed and pushed back, fiercely.
We pulled away, both of us red in the face and not wanting to look each other in the eyes, but then Oli broke the silence.
"Dad!" He yelled triumphantly, and at first I was confused because he never called me dad, but then he crawled off my lap and wandered straight into Vikk, holding up his arms for a hug. "Dad!"
Vikk looked at me, shocked, but hugged the boy with tears in his eyes.
"Guess you're a dad now Vikk." I said, smiling.
"I guess so." He smiled too, kissing me again. "I guess so."