Chapter Text
“Race, hi!” Spot all but ran to the front room when he heard the door open and recognized the familiar footsteps of his boyfriend. “How are you?”
“I’m good. I had a really good day, and I got a lot done. Like, so much work done,” Race set his backpack down on the table and grabbed Spot’s face to press a quick kiss to his lips. “Stuff that I’ve been working on forever just kinda clicked today, and I was able to focus and put my mind to a lot of stuff.”
Spot grinned and grabbed one of Race’s hands. “That’s great! That’s so awesome, Tony.”
“Yeah,” Race fidgeted with Spot’s fingers in his hand. “But it also means I’m totally wiped. My brain is just dead. I could probably fall asleep right here if I sat down,” he gestured to the floor.
“Oh. Well uh,” Spot dropped Race’s hand gently. “I’ve got some food, if you’re hungry. I thought you might want to eat when you got home.”
“Are we gonna wait for Albert and Elmer?” Race looked over his shoulder before walking into the kitchen.
Spot followed him in, taking slow steps. “Well, we can. But I don’t think Albert’s going to be home for a few hours, maybe. You know how he is if he gets sucked into something big: he’s just like you,” he placed a peck to Race’s cheek and sat down. “And Elmer’ll be home pretty soon, but he’s usually not hungry when he gets home ‘cause he eats at work. So there’s food for him, but I bet one of you two will end up taking it to work or school tomorrow for lunch instead.”
Race nodded lazily as Spot talked, and his eyes were glazed over to a point where Spot couldn’t tell if he was listening or not.
“What did you get up to today while you were alone?” Race asked, his mouth half full of noodles.
“Uh, well, I finished a lot of my work today. Got through a couple lessons, and did some work on my paper. Y’know, I almost think I work better when one or two or three of you is home with me. Gives me someone to talk out my problems with, and a way to take a break if I need one.”
Race’s face laid expressionless, and his eyes were starting to close.
Spot cleared his throat loudly, “Okay, Racey. You’re tired. Should we get you to bed?”
Race nodded like that was the question he’d been waiting to hear. It probably had been. He reached for Spot’s hand and Spot took it, leading Race to their shared bedroom before kissing his forehead and leaving him alone to go to bed.
Disappointed but not surprised, Spot walked back to the kitchen to clean up the dishes he had used for his and Race’s dinner, and his heart sank a little deeper with each dish he dried.
He checked on Race once he was done cleaning up, and found him fast asleep, pantsless but still wearing the shirt he wore that day.
-
Elmer was home soon after, walking in the door only to be shushed by Spot, who was on the couch watching a movie on his phone.
“Race’s sleeping,” he whispered with a finger to his lips. “Poor guy’s exhausted.”
Elmer smiled and pretended to zip his lips. Spot smiled back and turned off his phone as Elmer sat down next to him, resting his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder.
“How was your day?” Spot wrapped an arm around Elmer’s waist.
“Spotty, why does work have to be hard?” Elmer’s eyes were closing already, but they fluttered ever so much as he tried to keep them open.
Spot laughed, his hand touching Elmer’s gently.
“Ugh,” Elmer’s head rolled off Spot’s shoulder, “and I’ve got more work to do.”
Spot was almost a little happy that Elmer was off him by the time that he let out a deep sigh, because that way he couldn’t take notice of how disappointed Spot obviously felt.
Elmer walked slowly to the office down the hallway, the one with four desks in the corners and a big table in the middle.
“Elm, do you want some dinner?” Spot whisper called after his boyfriend. “There’s some more here.”
“Nah, ‘m not hungry,” Elmer smiled lazily at him before disappearing into the office, presumably to finish up his work.
“Alright. Great. I’ll just pack up your portion then,” Spot muttered to himself, and found himself cleaning up after what Elmer hadn’t eaten.
Less than an hour later, when Spot had finished watching his movie, he discovered Elmer asleep in front of his glowing computer. He picked him up and carried him to the bed, gently placing him down next to Race.
-
Spot never even saw Albert that night. He got home so late from school and left so early in the morning for work, that the only evidence Spot could find to prove that all three of his boyfriends had come home last night was the clothes on the floor.
That, and a text message on his phone from Albert, reminding them all that he loved them “a whole lot,” and letting Spot know that he “liked the pasta, took some of it for lunch.”
-
Spot sat in the office at his desk that whole next day, trying as he might to get coursework done. But his eyes kept wandering away from his classes and his computer screen, and over towards the shared whiteboard on the wall. One section was filled with photographs of the four of them, almost everywhere they went.
In the bottom corner, scrawled note read, “race + spot + al + elm,” contained by a heart. Spot remembered Elmer writing that on the day the four of them moved in. He remembered the time he tried to erase it from the board to write something else there, and the consequences of being bombarded with scrunched up paper. His boyfriends protested that the note stay up there at any costs, and honestly Spot wouldn’t disagree.
He remembered when Elmer and Race had still been doing school work every day with him and Albert, and the way they would ask questions no one else could answer because no one else was studying what they were. Of course, he remembered every little argument that followed those questions.
Spot found himself turning on their old playlist, the one they used to listen to when they would all be working at the same time. None of them had played it in months, and Spot liked listening to it, but it seemed wrong when the room was so empty.
Glancing over all the old photographs, and looking back on how they used to act together, Spot’s eyes lingered on the calendar for too long. Every day was full, each square overflowed: all but one.
He stood up, without truly knowing what he was doing, and examined the date a little closer. His fingers tapped the wall, as if the idea in his head needed a physical outlet.