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[m_pinocchio]

There are mornings where Tom does him a favor, and once the girls start to fuss and hammer at the bars of their crib, Tom gets up, takes them to the compound for a bath and breakfast, and lets him sleep in. This morning it's even more than that, because as Mike stretches and turns, his arm curls around Neil's waist, and he murmurs something

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[little_moons]

When the girls start to put up a fuss and Tom slips out of bed, I mean to get up too. Give him some help, maybe. But all I manage is some garbled mumbling, burrowing deeper into the sheets and gravitating toward the warmth from Mike's side of the bed. The next thing I know, Mike's moving, and I let out a low whine of protest, groping for him and then flopping over to my other side with a sleepy huff.

It doesn't last long though, and pretty soon I'm stumbling out of bed, padding naked with my pants dragging from one hand when I see him standing there in the doorway.

I stop, staring wide-eyed over his shoulder at the biggest fuckin' TV I ever seen. "Holy shit."

[m_pinocchio]

He barely spares Neil a glance, where usually his gaze would linger a little purely through instinct. "Basically," he murmurs. Now he's starting to remember the time of year, and least year it had been sex toys and Tom had gotten that ATV. So...

"I'm guessing you don't know anything about this," he says slowly, just making sure.

[little_moons]

"Yeah, man. I went to the electronics store and got you a fuckin' present," I mutter dryly, slipping past him to check out the other boxes. I break out in a grin, practically bouncing, looking at him over my shoulder with the sorta wide-open excitement usually reserved for kids.

"Well, come on, man."

[m_pinocchio]

Just for an instant he gets a flash of a kid on Christmas morning and he grins suddenly, shaking himself out of his shock and following. Next to the TV is a slim, black rectangular box with buttons on the front, and next to that is something he can't even identify, something sleek and black with curves and angles in odd places, and behind that there's a tangle of wires and some brightly colored boxes he can't even start to identify.

"What is all this shit?"