Fic: The Adventures of Twat-Head and Kapooie Boy
Title: The Adventures of Twat-Head and Kapooie Boy
Author:methylethyl
Rating: PG
Summary: Justin despairs of the day that he ever wished for a creative child.
Disclaimer: QAF & Co. does not belong to me.
Notes: Not a sequel, but more like... one of many possible futures to be had from the ending of Breakneck. You don't have to have read Breakneck to enjoy this story, though.
The Adventures of Twat-Head and Kapooie Boy
"Dad. Dad. Dad."
Little fingers tugged at Justin's sleeve, and he groaned.
"I'm hungry."
Justin cracked an eye open to glance at the clock.
Fucking hell.
"Go back to sleep," he mumbled, closing his eyes and rolling over onto his stomach so that his face was buried in his pillow. Ever since he'd turned five, Luke had developed an innate ability to rise before the sun came up. The time change in the spring had been a relief, but it was still way too fucking early for Justin's tastes.
But seconds later he felt a small body climbing onto the bed and straddling his back. "Da-a-a-a-a-a-a-ad!" Luke yelled, punctuating each extra syllable with a bounce. "I want pancakes!" He began to take up a chant, bouncing with each syllable. "Pan-cakes, pan-cakes, pan-cakes!"
Sighing, Justin closed his eyes and counted to five. "All right, pancakes."
"Yay!" Luke said happily, and started to climb down. "I'll get the stuff and-"
"Oh no, you don't," Justin said, grabbing an ankle just as Luke slid off the bed. He pushed himself up and secured Luke's other ankle, and then proceeded to let him dangle as he made his way down to the kitchen, Luke shrieking all the way.
*
Justin managed to get a hello kiss in before Luke caught on to the arrival of guests.
"Gus!" A small blond tornado blitzed straight past Justin and into Gus, grabbing his hand and yanking him away. "C'mon, it's gonna be awesome, I got a bike helmet yesterday and it's blue and shiny and I'm gonna put stickers on it-"
Despite being several inches taller than Luke, Gus allowed himself to be pulled along with wide eyes.
Brian and Justin watched them disappear into Luke's bedroom, before Brian turned to Justin and shoved his briefcase into Justin's hands. "Mock-ups are in there. Show me what they look like live on the web."
"Yeah, sure," Justin said. He glanced at the pile of shoes that Luke had managed to kick everywhere in his haste to get to his friend, swept most of them off to one side with one movement of his foot, and then started toward the bedroom. "Get anything you want from the kitchen. Except for the potato on the counter-Luke's convinced that the spuds are alien life forms waiting for their mothership to come back."
"Weird kid," Brian muttered, following Justin straight into the bedroom where his desk was set up.
"I'm pretty sure Gus gave him the idea."
"Lindsay lets him watch too much TV."
A blond head poked inside Justin's room. "Dad, what's that thing Brian calls you sometimes?"
Justin blinked. "What?"
"You know," Luke said impatiently, "that thing. When you're angry at him! It's a T word!"
Justin was utterly blanking.
"Daaaaaaad!"
"Twat?" Brian suggested.
Luke wrinkled his nose. "Twat?"
"Brian!" Justin smacked him.
"Cool," Luke said, disappearing. "Thanks!"
"Twat?" Justin demanded, turning to stare at Brian incredulously. "You gave him a word like twat? For all you know, he could be painting something on his new helmet."
Brian snickered. "He'd make an impression."
For a brief moment, Justin considered intervening in whatever Luke and Gus were up to down the hall, but he decided to let it go for now. Luke was a handful, but things usually never got too out of hand before he ended up a victim of his own scheming.
*
They worked with a minimum of noise from Luke and Gus for a good forty-five minutes, Justin creating temp pages for Brian's latest client as Brian systematically deconstructed the Fab Abs contestants who had been at Babylon the previous night, either having fucked them or spotted them on weights at the gym at some point-or both. Justin had just about finished the bare-bones layout, ready to move into the more artistic, graphics part of it, when Luke and Gus came bursting in.
"We're here to save the day!" Luke declared, stopping just short of the desk.
He and Gus stood in only their underwear and beach towels, which they had fashioned into too-long capes. Gus was wearing a pair of blue swim goggles, and Luke was brandishing a foam sword and wearing his new bike helmet.
"I am Twat-Head!" Luke declared, raising his sword mightily. "And this is my sidekick, Kapooie Boy. Don't be scared, we're here to save the day!"
Justin didn't trust himself to speak.
Brian, though, had absolutely no qualms. "Twat-Head? You're a superhero named Twat -Head?"
"Yeah," Luke said defiantly, thrusting the sword in Brian's direction. "What's it to ya, buster? Kapooie Boy, I think we may have found our vin-villia-bad guy!"
"But that's my daddy," Gus whispered uncertainly.
"Aha!" Luke said, leaping onto the bed and jabbing his sword in Brian's direction. "So that's it! He's an impositer! Where's Kapooie Boy's real dad?"
"Brian and I are trying to work, buddy," Justin said, standing and plucking Luke up off the bed, setting him on the ground a moment later. "No trouble here. Why don't you guys find a stuffed animal to save? You can do army crawls under the table to rescue it."
"Good idea!" Luke decided, tearing out of the room. "C'mon, Gus, army crawls!"
Gus looked at Brian uncertainly. "You are Daddy, right? You didn't get eated?"
Brian gave him an exasperated look. "Yes, Gus, I'm your Daddy. No getting eaten for me."
"Okay," Gus said, hesitating for a moment, before Luke's yell called him into action and he left the room.
Alone at last, Brian burst out laughing.
"This is all your fault, you know," Justin informed him, turning back to the computer. "You couldn't have given him terrifying or trouble. Oh, no. You just had to let him be Twat-Head, didn't you? See if I don't suggest Clit-Face as the name of Gus's next stuffed animal…"
*
"Maybe something more… inverted," Justin said, clicking around the color palette on the screen. "Not just in color, but in layout as well. I know they want something more traditional, but I really feel…"
"Stick with what they want for now," Brian said, shaking his head. "Trust me, these people are a bitch to deal with."
"If I spend some extra time designing the inverted website, would you present it?" Justin asked.
Brian thought for a moment. "Yes. But I won't pay you for the time unless they take it, which I seriously doubt they will."
Justin flashed him a grin. "You underestimate how good I can make a website look."
"You underestimate just how determined people are to stick with tradition," Brian shot back.
"Oh, really?" Justin asked, turning around to raise his eyebrows at Brian. Their faces were already inches apart, and he let his face drift closer just so that his nose brushed against Brian's. "I think I have some experience in dealing with people stuck in their ways."
Brian smirked and let their lips slide together for a kiss, allowing his hand to wrap around the back of Justin's neck as Justin turned more in his chair to lean into the kiss.
Justin broke away, leaving Brian panting. "I want half-pay, regardless of whether or not they choose it."
"Fuck off," Brian said, pulling away and rolling his eyes. "They're not going to take it."
"If they don't, you'll store it and use it for another sell. Because it'll be too damn good to let it go to waste," Justin said calmly, surely.
"And I'll pay you for the time then," Brian countered.
Justin smirked. "You'll pay me for the other half of my time, then."
"I wouldn't pay any other web contractor in advance, and you know it."
"Well, duh," Justin said obviously. "I'm better than any other web contractor."
Brian opened his mouth to retort when suddenly Gus came bursting into the room, still in full superhero regalia, and he flung himself at Brian's leg with a sob.
"Daddy, Luke's stuck! We didn't mean to, we were just playing, but now he's stuck and I can't get him out and I didn't mean to!"
"Stuck?" Justin demanded, rising to his feet even as he tried to tell himself that Luke had probably just tied himself up in his bed sheets (for the third time, after the first two attempts at holding himself hostage). "Stuck where?"
Brian peeled Gus off of his leg and stood as well, securing Gus against his hip. "Where's he stuck, sonny boy?"
"In the dresser!" Gus wailed, burying his face in Brian's shoulder.
"The dresser?" Brian repeated incredulously.
Justin was already out the door and going down the hallway. He could hear the sound of muffled crying coming from Luke's room, which only quickened his steps.
"Luke?" he called when he entered the room, eyes immediately going to the dresser that stood under the window-an old, heavy thing that Justin had found at Goodwill and then had cajoled Brian, Emmett, Michael and Ted into helping transport into the apartment. The cries were clearly coming from the bottom drawer.
"Daddy?" came a small voice in reply. The crying sounds stopped for a moment. "Daddy, get me out, I can't breathe!"
Justin frowned, knelt down next to the pile of winter clothing that had once lived in the bottom drawer, and with a huge tug he wrenched the drawer open.
Luke was curled up inside, but the moment light hit him he was sitting up and gasping and latching onto Justin fiercely, no longer crying but still sniffling.
Justin hugged him hard for a moment, letting relief wash over him, before the situation really set in.
"What were you thinking?" he demanded, pulling back and gripping Luke by his shoulders. "What on earth possessed you to shove yourself in a drawer? You can barely open those drawers!"
"W-well, Gus is bigger," Luke said, his eyes filling with fresh tears at Justin's tone. "He got it open. I thought it'd be okay."
"He got it open when it was filled with jackets, Luke. It's a lot heavier when it's filled with you."
Luke sniffled and wiped at his eyes. "I didn't mean to. We just wanted to have K-Kapooie Boy save Twat-Head, like how Robin saved Batman that one time. And we did the army crawls already, like you said," he added, with a bit of a defensive tone.
"Luke! You didn't die!" Gus said happily from somewhere behind them.
Luke shook his head, still recovering a little.
Justin sighed and lifted him out of the drawer. "Of course not, Gus," he said reassuringly. "It takes a lot more than that to kill a superhero like Twat-Head."
"Yeah," Luke added bravely. Then, finally regaining his energy, he added eagerly, "Like… like an evil brain-sucking octopus that makes you eat vegetables!"
"Is that what we're fighting next?" Gus asked hopefully.
Brian had put him down at some point, and was now standing in the doorway with an amused look on his face.
"If we can find it," Luke said, picking up his sword. "I hear they like to hide under kitchen sinks. C'mon, let's go look!"
They tore past Brian in pursuit of the evil brain-sucking, pro-vegetable octopus that apparently lived under the kitchen sink, leaving the two adults to stare at each other.
"Half-pay now," Justin said, rising. "The other half when someone uses my mock-up."
Brian sighed. "Fine."
Justin smirked.
*
"It's lunch time," Luke announced, parading into the room with Gus trailing after. They were still dressed as Twat-Head and Kapooie Boy. "We want lunch!"
"And it's Sunday," Gus added with a meaningful look.
Brian and Justin exchanged a glance.
"Pizza it is," Brian sighed, pulling out his cell phone.
"Yeah!" Luke yelled, jabbing his sword up in the air.
"I want 'ronies," Gus said immediately.
Luke made a face. "Ew! You always get 'ronies. I want sausage."
"'Ronies!" Gus insisted.
Luke looked surprised that Gus was arguing him for approximately five seconds, then he came back with an even louder: "Sausage!"
A scuffle broke out almost immediately, Luke dropping the sword in favor of bare hands, and they rolled around furiously.
"Half and half?" Justin asked, raising an eyebrow at Brian.
Brian nodded, already dialing the number.
"Sausage!"
"'Ronies!"
"Sausage!"
With a triumphant cry, Gus sat on Luke's head. "'Ronies! Hah!"
"Get those cinnamon sticks, too," Justin added, adjusting a font color to match the printed version that Brian had handed him.
"Cinnamon sticks?" Luke and Gus asked in unison, Luke's voice slightly muffled.
"Only if you guys behave until the pizza gets here," Justin warned.
Luke twisted under Gus' butt. "Lemme out!"
Gus resisted, then yelped as Luke's hand came up to smack him, and within seconds they were tumbling out into the hallway, cloaks tangling.
"I was never that violent as a kid," Justin said fervently.
"Well, at least we don't have to worry about Luke getting bullied," Brian put in. "Or Gus. Little fucker knows how to fight, when he really wants something."
"They're going to end up on the wrestling team, in high school. Shit, and I'll have to go to all their fucking matches…"
"Do you have any idea how many high school boys lose their virginity during wrestling matches, each year?"
"Ugh! Brian!"
*
Miraculously, the antics of Twat-Head and Kapooie Boy managed to stay contained to Luke's bedroom at reasonable volume levels for the twenty minutes it took for the pizza, cinnamon sticks, and Brian's salad (read: pile of vegetables, since he ordered it without cheese, croutons, dressing, or anything else that wasn't 95% cellulose) to arrive. Justin finished his work on the temp website design with five minutes to spare.
Their heavy make-out session was short-lived, interrupted by the sound of the buzzer, and then two sets of feet pounding and tripping over each other down the hallway, yelling combinations of, "Pizza's here!" and "I've got it!". Justin groaned and Brian reached for his wallet.
Justin's suggestion of clothing was met with the most scandalized look a five-year-old could manage, and then some.
"Dad, Twat-Head does not wear clothes! He needs to show off his muscles so the bad guys can be really afraid! Don't you know anything?"
"Yeah," Gus echoed, fingering his Bob the Builder underwear. "Muskles."
Justin rolled his eyes, figured it would mean one less sauce stain to scrub out of Luke's clothing, and let it go.
"One greasy, disgusting mess of calories," Brian announced, setting the pizza down on the table.
Luke and Gus made twin movements toward it, but Brian caught them both easily by the wrist before they could get anywhere.
"Hands?" he asked.
"Washed!" Luke yelled, bouncing up and down. "We washed, now it's time for pizza!"
"Don't yell, Luke," Justin said as he got glasses down from the cupboard. "Indoor voices."
Luke twisted as Brian inspected Gus' hands for cleanliness as well. "Bri-an, I'm gonna starve to death."
"You have the most melodramatic child," Brian muttered as he let both boys go.
"Your influence," Justin shot back, setting the milk on the table.
"Ew," Gus said, making a face. "I want juice."
"You'll drink your milk and you'll like it, sonny boy," Brian replied.
"The aliens are afraid of milk," Luke tried, pointing to the sprouting potato on the counter. "If we have it out, their mothership will never come! They'll be stuck on earth forever!"
Justin poured them both glasses of milk.
"Daaaaaaad..."
Justin fixed him with a level look until Luke gave up and slumped back in his chair with a dramatic sigh.
Pizza was distributed, Brian shook up his pile of vegetables, and Justin stuck the box of cinnamon sticks on top of the fridge so that they would stay preserved until the end of the meal. They made it to about two minutes of relative silence when Luke suddenly sat up straight in his chair and yelled, "Spoons!"
"Spoons?" Gus asked, eyes wide with wonder.
Justin took a bite of pizza. "Don't yell."
"Aliens like spoons," Luke declared, racing over to the drawer and standing on tip-toe.
"Luke, be careful with the knives-"
"We have to eat our pizza with spoons," Luke said, seizing a handful of them and depositing them on the table in a flash. "The mothership will be attracted to the spoons and they'll come and rescue their lost friends!"
"Really?" Gus asked, eyes growing impossibly wider.
Luke nodded, scrambling back onto his chair and seizing a spoon. "Yeah. I bet they'll be here this afternoon, after they're done visiting Mars."
Gus eyed him for a moment, watching as Luke used the spoon to dig a piece of sausage out of his pizza, with some difficulty. But when Luke finally succeeded and popped the sausage piece into his mouth, Gus' face split into a wide grin.
"Cool!" he said excitedly, reaching for his own spoon. "When are the aliens gonna come?"
"The more people who use spoons, the faster they'll come," Luke said, eying Justin and Brian pointedly in turn. "Maybe even this afternoon!"
Gus' eyes were golf balls.
"Daddy! Justin! You hafta use spoons!"
In the end, Justin got the better deal. However difficult it was to eat pizza with a spoon, it was infinitely harder to do it with a salad.
*
"Raaargh! I'm Bruce, and I'm gonna eat you!" Luke yelled.
"Nuh-uh," Gus said, shaking his head. "Nemo gets away."
"Not this time!" Luke cried, before letting out a battle cry and leaping at Gus.
Gus took off at a sprint with a squeal, running around behind the couch and then springing up and over it, scrambling down to the ground, Luke hot on his heels, bouncing up and taking off again-
Luke tripped, managed to grab an ankle as he went, and both boys went toppling to the ground.
"I'm gonna eat you! I'm gonna eat you!"
"No!"
"I'm a shark! Raaaargh!"
Gus twisted and squirmed, squeezing his eyes shut. "No, no, no, no, no!"
Justin glanced at Brian, who rolled his eyes and strode across the room, easily pulling Luke up and off of Gus and settling him on his hip.
"Bri-an!" Luke whined, giving him an annoyed look. "Put me down! I'm not a baby, I don't get picked up!"
"You do if you can't calm down enough to watch your movie," Brian replied.
That settled him down instantly.
"Nemo!" Gus protested, looking up at Brian despairingly. "Daddy, Nemo!"
"You guys remember the rules about the TV?" Justin asked as he went back to setting up the DVD.
"No horsing around by the TV," Luke recited, vaguely disgruntled as he was set down on the couch. Gus scrambled to join him. "No touching the screen. If we hafta turn up the volume, use the remote. Turn it off when we're done."
"Because?" Justin prompted.
Luke sighed dramatically, casting his eyes up to the ceiling. "'Cause Emmett genernously let us borrow it, and we hafta give it back exactly how it was."
"Generously," Justin corrected.
"Generously."
Justin hid a smile as the navigation menu for Finding Nemo appeared on the screen. "Thank you. Brian and I are going to be in my room, if you need us, okay?"
The blond and brunette heads nodded in unison, eyes already fixed on the television screen.
"You know Emmett doesn't really want his TV back, right?" Brian asked in a low voice, as they left the boys to their movie.
"It doesn't matter. I'm giving it back," Justin said, just as quietly but with a stubbornness in his voice.
"He has a new TV."
"Then I'll give it to Goodwill," Justin said readily. "I can afford my own TV, Brian. I just had to spend too much money on my computer shit, because I need it for work. This summer, probably."
Brian glanced back at the living room as he came into Justin's bedroom. "I could-"
"No," Justin said flatly. "We've talked about this."
Brian subdued, but was still clearly unhappy.
Justin's eyes flicked to the doorway. "They'll be asleep in twenty minutes, and then we'll have some alone time." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Brian gave him a long look that clearly said that Justin had won, but he wasn't going to admit it just yet.
*
They boys were indeed asleep in twenty minutes, Luke's bike helmet awkwardly askew as his head tipped back against the couch.
*
Brian and Justin-who had learned their lesson multiple times over the years-were both wearing pants again when Luke and Gus burst into Justin's bedroom.
Luke stopped short and made a face. "Eugh, kissing! Gus, close your eyes!"
Gus squeezed his eyes shut obediently, and Luke clapped his hands over Gus' closed eyes for a good measure.
"Gross," Luke said, sticking out his tongue and wrinkling his nose.
Justin rolled his eyes and gave Brian a small shove to encourage him to move over, so that he could sit up. "Did you guys finish your movie?"
"Yeah!" Gus burst out, wrestling out of Luke's grasp. "Guess what the birds did!"
"What?" Justin asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Mine! Mine! Mine!"
"Mine!"
"Mine!"
Bouncing up and down, Luke and Gus happily carried on with their seagull chorus for a good minute or two, before Luke got bored and decided to bounce up onto the bed.
"Grandma says that I just think kissing's yucky 'cause I'm not old enough to understand, but I think she's wrong. I'm never gonna kiss anyone ever, not girls or boys or anyone, 'cause it's gross-"
He broke off kneeling in the space between Brian and Justin, staring past the bed with wide green eyes.
Justin looked to see what had grabbed Luke's attention.
"You didn't tell me we got a box!" Luke complained, scrambling over Brian's legs to get closer. "Is it empty? Can I have it? How long has it been here? Oh, man, it's a big one!"
"You can have it," Justin said, watching as Luke yanked back the top flap and peered inside. "It should be-"
"Empty!" Luke yelled.
"Indoor voice," Justin reminded him, though Luke wasn't really paying attention.
"Gus, this is the best! This is just what Twat-Head and Kapooie Boy need!"
Gus nodded happily. "Yeah, the best!"
"Carry it," Luke ordered. "C'mon, we'll put it in my room."
"You can both carry it," Justin interrupted.
Luke glanced up, clearly a little put out at having his authority usurped, but was too excited about the box to let it annoy him for long. He took up one end of the box, Gus taking the other, and they carefully hauled it out of the room to the sound of Luke's excited babbling.
"I don't even want to know what they're doing with that," Brian muttered.
Justin glanced after them. "You probably should."
"Nah. What's the worst they could do with a box?" Brian asked. "It's not like they can leave the apartment and go pretend to be homeless people or something."
*
The sound of the front door opening, and then closing, came as something of a surprise.
"I know I locked the door after I got the pizza," Justin said as he pushed himself out of the bed and rushed into the living room. "I know I did, and the lock's too high for-"
There, in front of the door, was a chair that had been laboriously dragged over from the kitchen. The latch at the top of the door had been undone.
"Those little shits," Brian growled, stalking past a still-stunned Justin and wrenching the door open. He stuck his head out and, apparently not seeing either boy, moved out into the hallway. "Gus?"
"They can't have gone far," Justin said, though whether that was to reassure Brian or himself, he wasn't sure.
"Gus! Luke!" Brian barked, striding down the hall-
A door banged around the corner-the fire escape, Justin immediately knew-and he and Brian made a mad dash around the corner of the hallway and down to the end, where the EXIT sign was glowing red above the door to the stairwell. Brian got there first, having longer legs, and when he slammed the door open he missed it swinging into Gus by about five inches. That wasn't the most alarming thing, though. The door was opened just in time for Justin to see Gus give Luke, seated on flattened cardboard, a huge push that sent him flying down the stairs.
Justin felt his heart stop.
Concrete.
Stairs.
Railings.
Falling.
Luke thumped down the steps on the cardboard insanely fast and then slid across the landing, flying into the cinderblock wall with a smack.
He and Brian practically trampled each other as they rushed to get to his unmoving body.
"Luke?" Justin said, practically throwing himself on his knees and reaching out to touch his arm-neck injuries, don't move people with neck injuries-as Brian crouched down next to him. "Luke, answer me!"
"Ow," Luke complained, rolling onto his back. "Owwww."
It was more of a whine than a moan of actual pain. Justin's eyes narrowed.
"Are you actually hurt?"
Luke pushed himself up, grinning widely. "Nope! Dad, that was so awesome, you've got to-"
"You, young man, are in a world of trouble," Justin interrupted, keeping his voice level with effort. "You can march that butt right up to time-out."
"What?" Luke looked bewildered. "But I didn't leave, and we were gonna come right back."
"You just threw yourself down a concrete staircase!" Justin half-yelled, heart pounding hard as the image replayed in his head. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
"But-but I wore my helmet," Luke protested, now uncertain.
"Which wouldn't have done you any good if you'd snapped your neck!"
Tears sprang to Luke's eyes. "But…"
Brian laid a hand on Justin's shoulder, rubbing his thumb ever-so-slightly, and Justin let himself take a calming breath.
"Go upstairs," Justin said with forced calm. "Sit in the time-out chair. And in five minutes we're going to have a talk about your punishment."
"No!"
Justin drew in another breath. "I am not arguing about this. You have three seconds to get up there. One."
"No!" Luke yelled, stamping his foot. "No, no, no, no, no, no-"
"Two."
"No! No! No!" Luke wailed.
"Three. That's it."
Justin stood up, and Luke-knowing what was coming-flopped down on the ground and let out an ear-splitting scream.
With some difficulty, Justin picked up his hysterical son and slung him over his shoulder, giving his butt a sharp slap when he started to pound his fists on Justin's back. Luke was now sobbing, still screaming incoherently, struggling slightly against Justin's hold but not enough to get free.
Oh, the joys of parenthood.
*
Luke was deposited into the time-out chair, where he continued to cry himself hoarse, and Gus was sent to sit on Luke's bed. Justin set an egg timer was set for five minutes before heading into his bedroom, closely trailed by Brian.
"I-" Justin started to say, and then he stopped and say down heavily on the bed, putting his head in his hands and pressing his fingers against his eyeballs. "God."
"He's all right, Justin," Brian said quietly, putting a hand on his back. "He's fine."
"He could have died," Justin said through gritted teeth. "He could have-he could have bashed his head open."
Brian's hand curled into a fist against Justin's back.
Justin let out a slow, shaking breath. Images of Luke zooming down the concrete stairs and slamming into that wall were playing across his mind's eye on a helpless repeat, the sickening thwack of flesh on cinderblock echoing in his mind over and over again.
"He did wear a helmet," Brian offered.
Justin let out a little snort, lifting his head. "I knew I'd regret buying that thing."
Brian smirked.
"Your son was going down next," Justin pointed out moodily, after a moment. "And God knows if they'd have had the sense to make him wear the helmet."
"Oh, don't worry, the munchers are going to hear about this," Brian assured him. "Gus is, at the very least, going to get a very stern lecture about thinking for himself instead of following Luke everywhere."
Justin sighed. "Again. God, my son is a bad influence. I was never like this as a kid-I was quiet and sensitive and liked to read."
"I don't believe that for a minute," Brian said.
Justin elbowed him. "It's perfectly true. Daphne was a bad influence on me, used to beat me up all the time. Made me pee on fire hydrants because she couldn't get very good projectiles herself."
"Really?" Brian asked, eyebrow arching. "Because according to Daphne, pissing on fire hydrants was entirely your idea."
"That is a filthy, filthy lie."
"And you, Sunshine, are a filthy, filthy liar."
Justin gave him a dirty look, and Brian smirked back at him until the sound of the egg timer dinging called them to duty.
*
"But I had my helmet on!" Luke insisted, no longer crying but his face still tear-stained and blotchy.
"You left the apartment," Justin countered. "You deliberately unlocked the door and left the apartment, knowing that you're not allowed to leave without myself or Brian. Do you know what that's called?"
Luke mutely shook his head.
"Premeditation."
Luke frowned. "Pre-what?"
"Premeditation," Justin repeated carefully. "It means that you planned to break the rules."
Brian was no doubt internally rolling his eyes, but Justin was determined to arm his son with the most extensive vocabulary possible-words and art were Justin's choice of weapons, and while Luke had absolutely no interest in sitting down long enough to draw, he certainly talked enough.
"Is it bad?" Luke asked.
"What you did was bad," Justin said. "The fact that it was premeditated-that you planned it out, knowing that you were breaking the rules-that makes it worse. A helmet doesn't make you invincible-you could have easily hurt yourself on those stairs. And you knew that, otherwise you wouldn't have snuck out of the apartment."
Luke sniffled and cast a sulky look over at Gus. "How come Gus isn't in trouble?"
"Because Gus is not my son, and Gus did not decide to sneak out of the apartment, and Gus did not go flying down concrete stairs ten minutes ago," Justin said evenly.
"Also, I'm sure that Gus' moms will have something to say when I take him home," Brian offered.
Gus' eyes widened and he anxiously gripped the leg of Brian's pants. "Daddy?"
Brian exhaled. "Go get your coat, Sonny Boy. It's almost time to get you home, anyway."
"No!"
"No!"
Luke and Gus protested in stereo, and Justin had to refrain from sighing.
"Luke, you're still in trouble. Sit down."
Brian tapped Gus' shoulder. "Go and get your coat."
Gus disappeared, and Luke slumped back in the time-out chair in defeat.
"Do you want to tell me what was going through your head, when you decided to go sailing down concrete stairs?" Justin asked.
Luke shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "Sounded like fun."
That was probably, actually, true.
"All right," Justin said. He inhaled, briefly closed his eyes, and then opened them again to focus on Luke. "You're grounded from TV and desserts for the next two days. I'm taking the cardboard box away. And if you ever leave the apartment again without me, you can kiss your bike goodbye for a month."
Luke bolted upright in horror. "Dad! No!"
"Then don't leave the apartment," Justin said sternly. "I mean it, Luke."
Luke nodded hurriedly. He was already fidgeting, recovered from his earlier temper tantrum and his attention span all but spent.
"Let's go say goodbye to Gus, all right?" Justin said, standing at last and offering a hand.
Luke reluctantly took the hand, pulling himself out of the chair and to his feet.
"Is Brian leaving, too?" Luke asked, looking up at Brian with a faintly anxious look on his face.
"Just to drop Gus off," Brian replied, "and then I'll be coming right back."
Luke eyed him suspiciously for a moment, and then finally nodded. "Okay."
"Coat!" Gus announced, bouncing into the room with his coat in hand. "Justin, wanna see?"
"See what?" Justin asked, frowning.
Gus grinned and arranged the coat on the ground so that it lay upside down and face-up. Then he crouched down and slide his hands into the sleeves, and as he stood up the coat slid onto his frame, perfectly in place.
"Ta-da!" Gus announced proudly, arms sticking straight up in the air and a huge smile on his face.
Justin applauded him and offered obliging praise (over Luke's loud assertion that he'd been able to put on his own coat for ages), and then said a quick goodbye to Brian as Gus put on his shoes.
"Be right back," Brian promised.
Justin grinned wickedly, eyes flicking over to where Luke was babbling excitedly at Gus about something or other. "Bedtime at eight-thirty. Only four hours off."
"Bath night, isn't it?"
Justin's grin went into a grimace. "Yeah, don't remind me. You can help."
"We'll see," Brian said, making a slight face.
Justin grinned again, this time leaning in for a kiss.
"Eeeuuughh!" Luke moaned. "Gus, don't look, they're doing it again!"
"See you in a bit," Justin said, as he drew back.
One corner of Brian's mouth turned up. "See you in a bit."
"Bye, Gus!" Luke nearly yelled as Gus and Brian began walking out the door.
Justin held in a sigh. "Indoor voice, Luke."
Luke was already racing off, probably intent on carrying out another insane scheme that would take ten years off of Justin's life. God knew why he'd ever wished for a creative child.
"Dad!" Luke's voice came from the kitchen. "Dad, the aliens are growing! Can we take it to the park so their mothership can come get them?"
"Maybe tomorrow, Luke," Justin replied. "We've got to get started on dinner."
"Daaaaaaad."
Justin sighed.
Parenthood.
Author:methylethyl
Rating: PG
Summary: Justin despairs of the day that he ever wished for a creative child.
Disclaimer: QAF & Co. does not belong to me.
Notes: Not a sequel, but more like... one of many possible futures to be had from the ending of Breakneck. You don't have to have read Breakneck to enjoy this story, though.
The Adventures of Twat-Head and Kapooie Boy
"Dad. Dad. Dad."
Little fingers tugged at Justin's sleeve, and he groaned.
"I'm hungry."
Justin cracked an eye open to glance at the clock.
Fucking hell.
"Go back to sleep," he mumbled, closing his eyes and rolling over onto his stomach so that his face was buried in his pillow. Ever since he'd turned five, Luke had developed an innate ability to rise before the sun came up. The time change in the spring had been a relief, but it was still way too fucking early for Justin's tastes.
But seconds later he felt a small body climbing onto the bed and straddling his back. "Da-a-a-a-a-a-a-ad!" Luke yelled, punctuating each extra syllable with a bounce. "I want pancakes!" He began to take up a chant, bouncing with each syllable. "Pan-cakes, pan-cakes, pan-cakes!"
Sighing, Justin closed his eyes and counted to five. "All right, pancakes."
"Yay!" Luke said happily, and started to climb down. "I'll get the stuff and-"
"Oh no, you don't," Justin said, grabbing an ankle just as Luke slid off the bed. He pushed himself up and secured Luke's other ankle, and then proceeded to let him dangle as he made his way down to the kitchen, Luke shrieking all the way.
*
Justin managed to get a hello kiss in before Luke caught on to the arrival of guests.
"Gus!" A small blond tornado blitzed straight past Justin and into Gus, grabbing his hand and yanking him away. "C'mon, it's gonna be awesome, I got a bike helmet yesterday and it's blue and shiny and I'm gonna put stickers on it-"
Despite being several inches taller than Luke, Gus allowed himself to be pulled along with wide eyes.
Brian and Justin watched them disappear into Luke's bedroom, before Brian turned to Justin and shoved his briefcase into Justin's hands. "Mock-ups are in there. Show me what they look like live on the web."
"Yeah, sure," Justin said. He glanced at the pile of shoes that Luke had managed to kick everywhere in his haste to get to his friend, swept most of them off to one side with one movement of his foot, and then started toward the bedroom. "Get anything you want from the kitchen. Except for the potato on the counter-Luke's convinced that the spuds are alien life forms waiting for their mothership to come back."
"Weird kid," Brian muttered, following Justin straight into the bedroom where his desk was set up.
"I'm pretty sure Gus gave him the idea."
"Lindsay lets him watch too much TV."
A blond head poked inside Justin's room. "Dad, what's that thing Brian calls you sometimes?"
Justin blinked. "What?"
"You know," Luke said impatiently, "that thing. When you're angry at him! It's a T word!"
Justin was utterly blanking.
"Daaaaaaad!"
"Twat?" Brian suggested.
Luke wrinkled his nose. "Twat?"
"Brian!" Justin smacked him.
"Cool," Luke said, disappearing. "Thanks!"
"Twat?" Justin demanded, turning to stare at Brian incredulously. "You gave him a word like twat? For all you know, he could be painting something on his new helmet."
Brian snickered. "He'd make an impression."
For a brief moment, Justin considered intervening in whatever Luke and Gus were up to down the hall, but he decided to let it go for now. Luke was a handful, but things usually never got too out of hand before he ended up a victim of his own scheming.
*
They worked with a minimum of noise from Luke and Gus for a good forty-five minutes, Justin creating temp pages for Brian's latest client as Brian systematically deconstructed the Fab Abs contestants who had been at Babylon the previous night, either having fucked them or spotted them on weights at the gym at some point-or both. Justin had just about finished the bare-bones layout, ready to move into the more artistic, graphics part of it, when Luke and Gus came bursting in.
"We're here to save the day!" Luke declared, stopping just short of the desk.
He and Gus stood in only their underwear and beach towels, which they had fashioned into too-long capes. Gus was wearing a pair of blue swim goggles, and Luke was brandishing a foam sword and wearing his new bike helmet.
"I am Twat-Head!" Luke declared, raising his sword mightily. "And this is my sidekick, Kapooie Boy. Don't be scared, we're here to save the day!"
Justin didn't trust himself to speak.
Brian, though, had absolutely no qualms. "Twat-Head? You're a superhero named Twat -Head?"
"Yeah," Luke said defiantly, thrusting the sword in Brian's direction. "What's it to ya, buster? Kapooie Boy, I think we may have found our vin-villia-bad guy!"
"But that's my daddy," Gus whispered uncertainly.
"Aha!" Luke said, leaping onto the bed and jabbing his sword in Brian's direction. "So that's it! He's an impositer! Where's Kapooie Boy's real dad?"
"Brian and I are trying to work, buddy," Justin said, standing and plucking Luke up off the bed, setting him on the ground a moment later. "No trouble here. Why don't you guys find a stuffed animal to save? You can do army crawls under the table to rescue it."
"Good idea!" Luke decided, tearing out of the room. "C'mon, Gus, army crawls!"
Gus looked at Brian uncertainly. "You are Daddy, right? You didn't get eated?"
Brian gave him an exasperated look. "Yes, Gus, I'm your Daddy. No getting eaten for me."
"Okay," Gus said, hesitating for a moment, before Luke's yell called him into action and he left the room.
Alone at last, Brian burst out laughing.
"This is all your fault, you know," Justin informed him, turning back to the computer. "You couldn't have given him terrifying or trouble. Oh, no. You just had to let him be Twat-Head, didn't you? See if I don't suggest Clit-Face as the name of Gus's next stuffed animal…"
*
"Maybe something more… inverted," Justin said, clicking around the color palette on the screen. "Not just in color, but in layout as well. I know they want something more traditional, but I really feel…"
"Stick with what they want for now," Brian said, shaking his head. "Trust me, these people are a bitch to deal with."
"If I spend some extra time designing the inverted website, would you present it?" Justin asked.
Brian thought for a moment. "Yes. But I won't pay you for the time unless they take it, which I seriously doubt they will."
Justin flashed him a grin. "You underestimate how good I can make a website look."
"You underestimate just how determined people are to stick with tradition," Brian shot back.
"Oh, really?" Justin asked, turning around to raise his eyebrows at Brian. Their faces were already inches apart, and he let his face drift closer just so that his nose brushed against Brian's. "I think I have some experience in dealing with people stuck in their ways."
Brian smirked and let their lips slide together for a kiss, allowing his hand to wrap around the back of Justin's neck as Justin turned more in his chair to lean into the kiss.
Justin broke away, leaving Brian panting. "I want half-pay, regardless of whether or not they choose it."
"Fuck off," Brian said, pulling away and rolling his eyes. "They're not going to take it."
"If they don't, you'll store it and use it for another sell. Because it'll be too damn good to let it go to waste," Justin said calmly, surely.
"And I'll pay you for the time then," Brian countered.
Justin smirked. "You'll pay me for the other half of my time, then."
"I wouldn't pay any other web contractor in advance, and you know it."
"Well, duh," Justin said obviously. "I'm better than any other web contractor."
Brian opened his mouth to retort when suddenly Gus came bursting into the room, still in full superhero regalia, and he flung himself at Brian's leg with a sob.
"Daddy, Luke's stuck! We didn't mean to, we were just playing, but now he's stuck and I can't get him out and I didn't mean to!"
"Stuck?" Justin demanded, rising to his feet even as he tried to tell himself that Luke had probably just tied himself up in his bed sheets (for the third time, after the first two attempts at holding himself hostage). "Stuck where?"
Brian peeled Gus off of his leg and stood as well, securing Gus against his hip. "Where's he stuck, sonny boy?"
"In the dresser!" Gus wailed, burying his face in Brian's shoulder.
"The dresser?" Brian repeated incredulously.
Justin was already out the door and going down the hallway. He could hear the sound of muffled crying coming from Luke's room, which only quickened his steps.
"Luke?" he called when he entered the room, eyes immediately going to the dresser that stood under the window-an old, heavy thing that Justin had found at Goodwill and then had cajoled Brian, Emmett, Michael and Ted into helping transport into the apartment. The cries were clearly coming from the bottom drawer.
"Daddy?" came a small voice in reply. The crying sounds stopped for a moment. "Daddy, get me out, I can't breathe!"
Justin frowned, knelt down next to the pile of winter clothing that had once lived in the bottom drawer, and with a huge tug he wrenched the drawer open.
Luke was curled up inside, but the moment light hit him he was sitting up and gasping and latching onto Justin fiercely, no longer crying but still sniffling.
Justin hugged him hard for a moment, letting relief wash over him, before the situation really set in.
"What were you thinking?" he demanded, pulling back and gripping Luke by his shoulders. "What on earth possessed you to shove yourself in a drawer? You can barely open those drawers!"
"W-well, Gus is bigger," Luke said, his eyes filling with fresh tears at Justin's tone. "He got it open. I thought it'd be okay."
"He got it open when it was filled with jackets, Luke. It's a lot heavier when it's filled with you."
Luke sniffled and wiped at his eyes. "I didn't mean to. We just wanted to have K-Kapooie Boy save Twat-Head, like how Robin saved Batman that one time. And we did the army crawls already, like you said," he added, with a bit of a defensive tone.
"Luke! You didn't die!" Gus said happily from somewhere behind them.
Luke shook his head, still recovering a little.
Justin sighed and lifted him out of the drawer. "Of course not, Gus," he said reassuringly. "It takes a lot more than that to kill a superhero like Twat-Head."
"Yeah," Luke added bravely. Then, finally regaining his energy, he added eagerly, "Like… like an evil brain-sucking octopus that makes you eat vegetables!"
"Is that what we're fighting next?" Gus asked hopefully.
Brian had put him down at some point, and was now standing in the doorway with an amused look on his face.
"If we can find it," Luke said, picking up his sword. "I hear they like to hide under kitchen sinks. C'mon, let's go look!"
They tore past Brian in pursuit of the evil brain-sucking, pro-vegetable octopus that apparently lived under the kitchen sink, leaving the two adults to stare at each other.
"Half-pay now," Justin said, rising. "The other half when someone uses my mock-up."
Brian sighed. "Fine."
Justin smirked.
*
"It's lunch time," Luke announced, parading into the room with Gus trailing after. They were still dressed as Twat-Head and Kapooie Boy. "We want lunch!"
"And it's Sunday," Gus added with a meaningful look.
Brian and Justin exchanged a glance.
"Pizza it is," Brian sighed, pulling out his cell phone.
"Yeah!" Luke yelled, jabbing his sword up in the air.
"I want 'ronies," Gus said immediately.
Luke made a face. "Ew! You always get 'ronies. I want sausage."
"'Ronies!" Gus insisted.
Luke looked surprised that Gus was arguing him for approximately five seconds, then he came back with an even louder: "Sausage!"
A scuffle broke out almost immediately, Luke dropping the sword in favor of bare hands, and they rolled around furiously.
"Half and half?" Justin asked, raising an eyebrow at Brian.
Brian nodded, already dialing the number.
"Sausage!"
"'Ronies!"
"Sausage!"
With a triumphant cry, Gus sat on Luke's head. "'Ronies! Hah!"
"Get those cinnamon sticks, too," Justin added, adjusting a font color to match the printed version that Brian had handed him.
"Cinnamon sticks?" Luke and Gus asked in unison, Luke's voice slightly muffled.
"Only if you guys behave until the pizza gets here," Justin warned.
Luke twisted under Gus' butt. "Lemme out!"
Gus resisted, then yelped as Luke's hand came up to smack him, and within seconds they were tumbling out into the hallway, cloaks tangling.
"I was never that violent as a kid," Justin said fervently.
"Well, at least we don't have to worry about Luke getting bullied," Brian put in. "Or Gus. Little fucker knows how to fight, when he really wants something."
"They're going to end up on the wrestling team, in high school. Shit, and I'll have to go to all their fucking matches…"
"Do you have any idea how many high school boys lose their virginity during wrestling matches, each year?"
"Ugh! Brian!"
*
Miraculously, the antics of Twat-Head and Kapooie Boy managed to stay contained to Luke's bedroom at reasonable volume levels for the twenty minutes it took for the pizza, cinnamon sticks, and Brian's salad (read: pile of vegetables, since he ordered it without cheese, croutons, dressing, or anything else that wasn't 95% cellulose) to arrive. Justin finished his work on the temp website design with five minutes to spare.
Their heavy make-out session was short-lived, interrupted by the sound of the buzzer, and then two sets of feet pounding and tripping over each other down the hallway, yelling combinations of, "Pizza's here!" and "I've got it!". Justin groaned and Brian reached for his wallet.
Justin's suggestion of clothing was met with the most scandalized look a five-year-old could manage, and then some.
"Dad, Twat-Head does not wear clothes! He needs to show off his muscles so the bad guys can be really afraid! Don't you know anything?"
"Yeah," Gus echoed, fingering his Bob the Builder underwear. "Muskles."
Justin rolled his eyes, figured it would mean one less sauce stain to scrub out of Luke's clothing, and let it go.
"One greasy, disgusting mess of calories," Brian announced, setting the pizza down on the table.
Luke and Gus made twin movements toward it, but Brian caught them both easily by the wrist before they could get anywhere.
"Hands?" he asked.
"Washed!" Luke yelled, bouncing up and down. "We washed, now it's time for pizza!"
"Don't yell, Luke," Justin said as he got glasses down from the cupboard. "Indoor voices."
Luke twisted as Brian inspected Gus' hands for cleanliness as well. "Bri-an, I'm gonna starve to death."
"You have the most melodramatic child," Brian muttered as he let both boys go.
"Your influence," Justin shot back, setting the milk on the table.
"Ew," Gus said, making a face. "I want juice."
"You'll drink your milk and you'll like it, sonny boy," Brian replied.
"The aliens are afraid of milk," Luke tried, pointing to the sprouting potato on the counter. "If we have it out, their mothership will never come! They'll be stuck on earth forever!"
Justin poured them both glasses of milk.
"Daaaaaaad..."
Justin fixed him with a level look until Luke gave up and slumped back in his chair with a dramatic sigh.
Pizza was distributed, Brian shook up his pile of vegetables, and Justin stuck the box of cinnamon sticks on top of the fridge so that they would stay preserved until the end of the meal. They made it to about two minutes of relative silence when Luke suddenly sat up straight in his chair and yelled, "Spoons!"
"Spoons?" Gus asked, eyes wide with wonder.
Justin took a bite of pizza. "Don't yell."
"Aliens like spoons," Luke declared, racing over to the drawer and standing on tip-toe.
"Luke, be careful with the knives-"
"We have to eat our pizza with spoons," Luke said, seizing a handful of them and depositing them on the table in a flash. "The mothership will be attracted to the spoons and they'll come and rescue their lost friends!"
"Really?" Gus asked, eyes growing impossibly wider.
Luke nodded, scrambling back onto his chair and seizing a spoon. "Yeah. I bet they'll be here this afternoon, after they're done visiting Mars."
Gus eyed him for a moment, watching as Luke used the spoon to dig a piece of sausage out of his pizza, with some difficulty. But when Luke finally succeeded and popped the sausage piece into his mouth, Gus' face split into a wide grin.
"Cool!" he said excitedly, reaching for his own spoon. "When are the aliens gonna come?"
"The more people who use spoons, the faster they'll come," Luke said, eying Justin and Brian pointedly in turn. "Maybe even this afternoon!"
Gus' eyes were golf balls.
"Daddy! Justin! You hafta use spoons!"
In the end, Justin got the better deal. However difficult it was to eat pizza with a spoon, it was infinitely harder to do it with a salad.
*
"Raaargh! I'm Bruce, and I'm gonna eat you!" Luke yelled.
"Nuh-uh," Gus said, shaking his head. "Nemo gets away."
"Not this time!" Luke cried, before letting out a battle cry and leaping at Gus.
Gus took off at a sprint with a squeal, running around behind the couch and then springing up and over it, scrambling down to the ground, Luke hot on his heels, bouncing up and taking off again-
Luke tripped, managed to grab an ankle as he went, and both boys went toppling to the ground.
"I'm gonna eat you! I'm gonna eat you!"
"No!"
"I'm a shark! Raaaargh!"
Gus twisted and squirmed, squeezing his eyes shut. "No, no, no, no, no!"
Justin glanced at Brian, who rolled his eyes and strode across the room, easily pulling Luke up and off of Gus and settling him on his hip.
"Bri-an!" Luke whined, giving him an annoyed look. "Put me down! I'm not a baby, I don't get picked up!"
"You do if you can't calm down enough to watch your movie," Brian replied.
That settled him down instantly.
"Nemo!" Gus protested, looking up at Brian despairingly. "Daddy, Nemo!"
"You guys remember the rules about the TV?" Justin asked as he went back to setting up the DVD.
"No horsing around by the TV," Luke recited, vaguely disgruntled as he was set down on the couch. Gus scrambled to join him. "No touching the screen. If we hafta turn up the volume, use the remote. Turn it off when we're done."
"Because?" Justin prompted.
Luke sighed dramatically, casting his eyes up to the ceiling. "'Cause Emmett genernously let us borrow it, and we hafta give it back exactly how it was."
"Generously," Justin corrected.
"Generously."
Justin hid a smile as the navigation menu for Finding Nemo appeared on the screen. "Thank you. Brian and I are going to be in my room, if you need us, okay?"
The blond and brunette heads nodded in unison, eyes already fixed on the television screen.
"You know Emmett doesn't really want his TV back, right?" Brian asked in a low voice, as they left the boys to their movie.
"It doesn't matter. I'm giving it back," Justin said, just as quietly but with a stubbornness in his voice.
"He has a new TV."
"Then I'll give it to Goodwill," Justin said readily. "I can afford my own TV, Brian. I just had to spend too much money on my computer shit, because I need it for work. This summer, probably."
Brian glanced back at the living room as he came into Justin's bedroom. "I could-"
"No," Justin said flatly. "We've talked about this."
Brian subdued, but was still clearly unhappy.
Justin's eyes flicked to the doorway. "They'll be asleep in twenty minutes, and then we'll have some alone time." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Brian gave him a long look that clearly said that Justin had won, but he wasn't going to admit it just yet.
*
They boys were indeed asleep in twenty minutes, Luke's bike helmet awkwardly askew as his head tipped back against the couch.
*
Brian and Justin-who had learned their lesson multiple times over the years-were both wearing pants again when Luke and Gus burst into Justin's bedroom.
Luke stopped short and made a face. "Eugh, kissing! Gus, close your eyes!"
Gus squeezed his eyes shut obediently, and Luke clapped his hands over Gus' closed eyes for a good measure.
"Gross," Luke said, sticking out his tongue and wrinkling his nose.
Justin rolled his eyes and gave Brian a small shove to encourage him to move over, so that he could sit up. "Did you guys finish your movie?"
"Yeah!" Gus burst out, wrestling out of Luke's grasp. "Guess what the birds did!"
"What?" Justin asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Mine! Mine! Mine!"
"Mine!"
"Mine!"
Bouncing up and down, Luke and Gus happily carried on with their seagull chorus for a good minute or two, before Luke got bored and decided to bounce up onto the bed.
"Grandma says that I just think kissing's yucky 'cause I'm not old enough to understand, but I think she's wrong. I'm never gonna kiss anyone ever, not girls or boys or anyone, 'cause it's gross-"
He broke off kneeling in the space between Brian and Justin, staring past the bed with wide green eyes.
Justin looked to see what had grabbed Luke's attention.
"You didn't tell me we got a box!" Luke complained, scrambling over Brian's legs to get closer. "Is it empty? Can I have it? How long has it been here? Oh, man, it's a big one!"
"You can have it," Justin said, watching as Luke yanked back the top flap and peered inside. "It should be-"
"Empty!" Luke yelled.
"Indoor voice," Justin reminded him, though Luke wasn't really paying attention.
"Gus, this is the best! This is just what Twat-Head and Kapooie Boy need!"
Gus nodded happily. "Yeah, the best!"
"Carry it," Luke ordered. "C'mon, we'll put it in my room."
"You can both carry it," Justin interrupted.
Luke glanced up, clearly a little put out at having his authority usurped, but was too excited about the box to let it annoy him for long. He took up one end of the box, Gus taking the other, and they carefully hauled it out of the room to the sound of Luke's excited babbling.
"I don't even want to know what they're doing with that," Brian muttered.
Justin glanced after them. "You probably should."
"Nah. What's the worst they could do with a box?" Brian asked. "It's not like they can leave the apartment and go pretend to be homeless people or something."
*
The sound of the front door opening, and then closing, came as something of a surprise.
"I know I locked the door after I got the pizza," Justin said as he pushed himself out of the bed and rushed into the living room. "I know I did, and the lock's too high for-"
There, in front of the door, was a chair that had been laboriously dragged over from the kitchen. The latch at the top of the door had been undone.
"Those little shits," Brian growled, stalking past a still-stunned Justin and wrenching the door open. He stuck his head out and, apparently not seeing either boy, moved out into the hallway. "Gus?"
"They can't have gone far," Justin said, though whether that was to reassure Brian or himself, he wasn't sure.
"Gus! Luke!" Brian barked, striding down the hall-
A door banged around the corner-the fire escape, Justin immediately knew-and he and Brian made a mad dash around the corner of the hallway and down to the end, where the EXIT sign was glowing red above the door to the stairwell. Brian got there first, having longer legs, and when he slammed the door open he missed it swinging into Gus by about five inches. That wasn't the most alarming thing, though. The door was opened just in time for Justin to see Gus give Luke, seated on flattened cardboard, a huge push that sent him flying down the stairs.
Justin felt his heart stop.
Concrete.
Stairs.
Railings.
Falling.
Luke thumped down the steps on the cardboard insanely fast and then slid across the landing, flying into the cinderblock wall with a smack.
He and Brian practically trampled each other as they rushed to get to his unmoving body.
"Luke?" Justin said, practically throwing himself on his knees and reaching out to touch his arm-neck injuries, don't move people with neck injuries-as Brian crouched down next to him. "Luke, answer me!"
"Ow," Luke complained, rolling onto his back. "Owwww."
It was more of a whine than a moan of actual pain. Justin's eyes narrowed.
"Are you actually hurt?"
Luke pushed himself up, grinning widely. "Nope! Dad, that was so awesome, you've got to-"
"You, young man, are in a world of trouble," Justin interrupted, keeping his voice level with effort. "You can march that butt right up to time-out."
"What?" Luke looked bewildered. "But I didn't leave, and we were gonna come right back."
"You just threw yourself down a concrete staircase!" Justin half-yelled, heart pounding hard as the image replayed in his head. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
"But-but I wore my helmet," Luke protested, now uncertain.
"Which wouldn't have done you any good if you'd snapped your neck!"
Tears sprang to Luke's eyes. "But…"
Brian laid a hand on Justin's shoulder, rubbing his thumb ever-so-slightly, and Justin let himself take a calming breath.
"Go upstairs," Justin said with forced calm. "Sit in the time-out chair. And in five minutes we're going to have a talk about your punishment."
"No!"
Justin drew in another breath. "I am not arguing about this. You have three seconds to get up there. One."
"No!" Luke yelled, stamping his foot. "No, no, no, no, no, no-"
"Two."
"No! No! No!" Luke wailed.
"Three. That's it."
Justin stood up, and Luke-knowing what was coming-flopped down on the ground and let out an ear-splitting scream.
With some difficulty, Justin picked up his hysterical son and slung him over his shoulder, giving his butt a sharp slap when he started to pound his fists on Justin's back. Luke was now sobbing, still screaming incoherently, struggling slightly against Justin's hold but not enough to get free.
Oh, the joys of parenthood.
*
Luke was deposited into the time-out chair, where he continued to cry himself hoarse, and Gus was sent to sit on Luke's bed. Justin set an egg timer was set for five minutes before heading into his bedroom, closely trailed by Brian.
"I-" Justin started to say, and then he stopped and say down heavily on the bed, putting his head in his hands and pressing his fingers against his eyeballs. "God."
"He's all right, Justin," Brian said quietly, putting a hand on his back. "He's fine."
"He could have died," Justin said through gritted teeth. "He could have-he could have bashed his head open."
Brian's hand curled into a fist against Justin's back.
Justin let out a slow, shaking breath. Images of Luke zooming down the concrete stairs and slamming into that wall were playing across his mind's eye on a helpless repeat, the sickening thwack of flesh on cinderblock echoing in his mind over and over again.
"He did wear a helmet," Brian offered.
Justin let out a little snort, lifting his head. "I knew I'd regret buying that thing."
Brian smirked.
"Your son was going down next," Justin pointed out moodily, after a moment. "And God knows if they'd have had the sense to make him wear the helmet."
"Oh, don't worry, the munchers are going to hear about this," Brian assured him. "Gus is, at the very least, going to get a very stern lecture about thinking for himself instead of following Luke everywhere."
Justin sighed. "Again. God, my son is a bad influence. I was never like this as a kid-I was quiet and sensitive and liked to read."
"I don't believe that for a minute," Brian said.
Justin elbowed him. "It's perfectly true. Daphne was a bad influence on me, used to beat me up all the time. Made me pee on fire hydrants because she couldn't get very good projectiles herself."
"Really?" Brian asked, eyebrow arching. "Because according to Daphne, pissing on fire hydrants was entirely your idea."
"That is a filthy, filthy lie."
"And you, Sunshine, are a filthy, filthy liar."
Justin gave him a dirty look, and Brian smirked back at him until the sound of the egg timer dinging called them to duty.
*
"But I had my helmet on!" Luke insisted, no longer crying but his face still tear-stained and blotchy.
"You left the apartment," Justin countered. "You deliberately unlocked the door and left the apartment, knowing that you're not allowed to leave without myself or Brian. Do you know what that's called?"
Luke mutely shook his head.
"Premeditation."
Luke frowned. "Pre-what?"
"Premeditation," Justin repeated carefully. "It means that you planned to break the rules."
Brian was no doubt internally rolling his eyes, but Justin was determined to arm his son with the most extensive vocabulary possible-words and art were Justin's choice of weapons, and while Luke had absolutely no interest in sitting down long enough to draw, he certainly talked enough.
"Is it bad?" Luke asked.
"What you did was bad," Justin said. "The fact that it was premeditated-that you planned it out, knowing that you were breaking the rules-that makes it worse. A helmet doesn't make you invincible-you could have easily hurt yourself on those stairs. And you knew that, otherwise you wouldn't have snuck out of the apartment."
Luke sniffled and cast a sulky look over at Gus. "How come Gus isn't in trouble?"
"Because Gus is not my son, and Gus did not decide to sneak out of the apartment, and Gus did not go flying down concrete stairs ten minutes ago," Justin said evenly.
"Also, I'm sure that Gus' moms will have something to say when I take him home," Brian offered.
Gus' eyes widened and he anxiously gripped the leg of Brian's pants. "Daddy?"
Brian exhaled. "Go get your coat, Sonny Boy. It's almost time to get you home, anyway."
"No!"
"No!"
Luke and Gus protested in stereo, and Justin had to refrain from sighing.
"Luke, you're still in trouble. Sit down."
Brian tapped Gus' shoulder. "Go and get your coat."
Gus disappeared, and Luke slumped back in the time-out chair in defeat.
"Do you want to tell me what was going through your head, when you decided to go sailing down concrete stairs?" Justin asked.
Luke shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "Sounded like fun."
That was probably, actually, true.
"All right," Justin said. He inhaled, briefly closed his eyes, and then opened them again to focus on Luke. "You're grounded from TV and desserts for the next two days. I'm taking the cardboard box away. And if you ever leave the apartment again without me, you can kiss your bike goodbye for a month."
Luke bolted upright in horror. "Dad! No!"
"Then don't leave the apartment," Justin said sternly. "I mean it, Luke."
Luke nodded hurriedly. He was already fidgeting, recovered from his earlier temper tantrum and his attention span all but spent.
"Let's go say goodbye to Gus, all right?" Justin said, standing at last and offering a hand.
Luke reluctantly took the hand, pulling himself out of the chair and to his feet.
"Is Brian leaving, too?" Luke asked, looking up at Brian with a faintly anxious look on his face.
"Just to drop Gus off," Brian replied, "and then I'll be coming right back."
Luke eyed him suspiciously for a moment, and then finally nodded. "Okay."
"Coat!" Gus announced, bouncing into the room with his coat in hand. "Justin, wanna see?"
"See what?" Justin asked, frowning.
Gus grinned and arranged the coat on the ground so that it lay upside down and face-up. Then he crouched down and slide his hands into the sleeves, and as he stood up the coat slid onto his frame, perfectly in place.
"Ta-da!" Gus announced proudly, arms sticking straight up in the air and a huge smile on his face.
Justin applauded him and offered obliging praise (over Luke's loud assertion that he'd been able to put on his own coat for ages), and then said a quick goodbye to Brian as Gus put on his shoes.
"Be right back," Brian promised.
Justin grinned wickedly, eyes flicking over to where Luke was babbling excitedly at Gus about something or other. "Bedtime at eight-thirty. Only four hours off."
"Bath night, isn't it?"
Justin's grin went into a grimace. "Yeah, don't remind me. You can help."
"We'll see," Brian said, making a slight face.
Justin grinned again, this time leaning in for a kiss.
"Eeeuuughh!" Luke moaned. "Gus, don't look, they're doing it again!"
"See you in a bit," Justin said, as he drew back.
One corner of Brian's mouth turned up. "See you in a bit."
"Bye, Gus!" Luke nearly yelled as Gus and Brian began walking out the door.
Justin held in a sigh. "Indoor voice, Luke."
Luke was already racing off, probably intent on carrying out another insane scheme that would take ten years off of Justin's life. God knew why he'd ever wished for a creative child.
"Dad!" Luke's voice came from the kitchen. "Dad, the aliens are growing! Can we take it to the park so their mothership can come get them?"
"Maybe tomorrow, Luke," Justin replied. "We've got to get started on dinner."
"Daaaaaaad."
Justin sighed.
Parenthood.