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It was a dark day. The sky was disgustingly blue and there wasn’t a blessed cloud in the sky. It was a beautiful day and it made Andrew feel sick to his stomach. How dare the day and the sky be so beautiful on a day like this? A day where everything was crashing down around him as he laid in the grass and closed his eyes in an attempt to forget what was happening.
“Andrew,” sighed Neil, and he opened his eyes to see his junkie hovering above him, a mixture of amusement and dismay in his eyes. “It’s not a big deal.”
“He’s ten years old,” said Andrew, letting his eyes glaze over as he looked into the ridiculously blue sky, “and he’s already taller than me.”
Neil’s lips twitched. “He thinks you hate him.”
“We have to return him,” said Andrew, shaking his head. “He can’t be taller than his father. This isn’t fair.”
“Andrew, could you please hurry up and have your tantrum?” Neil leaned back, tapping his foot and crossing his arms. “We still need to get him some new clothes now that he’s grown out of his old ones.”
“The average for a ten year old boy is four and a half feet,” said Andrew, covering his face with his hands. “So how the fuck did he manage to get taller than me already?”
“Genetics,” said Neil. “About the only good thing his piece of shit parents ever gave him.”
“You’re telling me that the excessive trauma wasn’t a good thing?”
Andrew pulled his hands away from his face and held them out to Neil, who interlocked their hands and pulled him up.
“What if we kneecap him?”
Neil raised one eyebrow. “You want to kneecap our son?”
“What’s kneecapping?”
Andrew’s head whipped around to where Harry, the tall fucker, was stood in the doorway that led through to the kitchen.
“It’s when you hit somebody in the kneecaps really hard,” he said. “It can completely take away their ability to walk if you do it right.”
“Why are you threatening to kneecap me?” Harry tilted his head, a lock of blonde hair falling down into his eyes.
“Because you’re too tall.”
Harry skipped outside, hunching his back until he was shorter than Andrew. “I’m really not that tall. I’m not even taller than Papa yet.”
“That makes it even worse,” said Andrew, and though he would deny it later, he allowed himself a small pout. “I’m bearing this shitty, shitty burden all by myself.”
“What if we kneecap Papa?” Harry hummed quietly. “Then I’d be taller than him.”
“He’d also be dead,” added Andrew. “But that’s a conversation for another day.”
“Why do I always get the impression that you two are part of some badass street gang or something?” Harry pursed his lips. Andrew almost didn’t want to respond, because he really wasn’t far from the truth.
Instead, he reached out slowly and brushed Harry’s hair back from his head. “We’ll tell you when you’re older. We don’t want you to have to stress out about it now.”
Harry considered Andrew for a moment, his eyes piercing, and then he nodded. “Alright. I trust you to tell me when I’m older.” He was silent for a moment. “Am I older yet?”
Neil grinned, reaching out to tangle his fingers in his hair. “When you turn thirteen, we’ll tell you.”
“Why thirteen?”
“Gives us time to figure out what we’re going to say.” Then he skipped past Harry and Andrew, and into the house. “Come on, boys, we have clothes to buy and a pre-teen to embarrass!”
**
“Dad, what the hell is that?”
Andrew glanced over at where Neil was holding out a top for display to the pair of them and grimaced. “That is your father’s terrible taste in clothes.”
“Make it stop,” pleaded Harry and Andrew allowed himself a quiet chuckle.
“Alright, I’ll go distract him, and you go pick out some good shirts to wear, hm?”
“How are you planning on distracting him?” Harry glanced down at Andrew and Andrew smirked a little, licking his lips and biting his lip.
“The best way I know how,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.
He approached Neil slowly, shuffling up behind him and placing firm hands on either side of his waist, tilting his head up to reach his ear.
“Kevin said that the last goal you made in that game this weekend was sloppy.”
Neil turned around, a familiar fire in his eyes that set a completely different fire in Andrew, one that had been threatening to burn him up from the inside out since the day he’d heard the words, “not if it means losing you.”
“He said fucking what?” Neil glared at nothing in particular. “I’ll show that little shit a sloppy goal. You know I outscored him when we were training together over summer? Sloppy goal, who the fuck does he think he is?” He turned to face Andrew. “It wasn’t sloppy, right, Drew?”
“Mmhmm,” said Andrew, nodding slowly. “Not sloppy. Right.”
“Right!” Neil crossed his arms and tugged his phone out of his pocket. “Sloppy goal…” He pulled up Kevin’s contact in his phone and pressed the start call button. Kevin didn’t answer, and Andrew had known he wouldn’t because Kevin’s team was in the middle of training. He just had to make sure he texted Kevin to let him know that Neil was pissed. “Little shit.”
Harry popped up between them. “I’ve found some stuff I like,” he said, holding up a few hangers.
Andrew looked them over, nodding approvingly. “I have taught you well, young Padawan.”
“Wait…” Neil looked between Harry and Andrew, a small wrinkle forming between his eyes and his lips puckering a little in what was almost, but not quite, a pout. “Did you do that ‘tell Neil that Kevin insulted him to distract him whilst Harry picks out his own clothes’ thing again?”
“I would never, sweetheart,” said Andrew, but he nodded as he did so and Neil turned away in frustration, throwing his hands up in the air.
“I have good taste!”
“Oh, absolutely.” Andrew shook his head. Harry let a grin split across his face.
Neil turned away, bounding towards the cash register, where the teenager manning it was watching the three of them with awe. A fan, then.
“Hello, Gwen,” he greeted her, loud enough that Andrew and Harry could still here. “I was wondering if you had any friends in search of a new husband and son? No? Ah, well, it was worth a shot.”
“No, I actually do,” she said quickly. “Are you really going to sell them?”
Neil paused, and then just as quickly as he had left, he barrelled back towards them.
“It turns out that I will be keeping the two of you,” he said calmly. “Would you like me to go buy your clothes for you?”
“Why are you like this?” Harry sighed, shaking his head.
Neil and Andrew exchanged light-hearted and mischievous looks. “Genetics,” they said in unison, and everything was good.