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Tom listens, leaning on the kitchen counter. There's a pounding of feet on the stairs, two sets. He closes his eyes and sighs.
"Bradl-!"
"I hate you!"
A door slams. The house is blanketed in heavy silence, oppressive in how it contrasts the lighthearted and laughter-filled moments before.
The next time there are steps on the staircase, they're tentative.... defeated. The sound of socks along the carpet that Tom and Pete had installed after buying the house; Carole declaring the wooden steps a "death trap waiting to happen!" drag.
When Pete rounds the corner back to where they'd all just been eating, pizza boxes and coke bottles on the kitchen table, he looks worn down. He doesn't say anything, doesn't even look up, just walks straight into Tom's chest and presses his face against it.
Tom gets his arms around the other man just as a sob breaks and is trapped between them. Pete is shaking, shoulders trembling as he hiccups and cries. Tom can only rub a hand down his spine in long strokes, rocking them back and forth gently, hoping that he can help ease the distress from his lover's body.
They stand there for a while, until the front of Ice's shirt is wet, until Pete is silent, breathing deep and less ragged. He shifts, and Tom lets the tight circle of his arms loosen. When Pete looks at him, his green eyes are rimmed red, cheeks blotchy.
"Ice... I don't-" Another sob threatens to break past his lips, but Pete clamps them shut, and his body sways again.
"Shhh, shh," Tom lifts a hand to Pete's face and swipes away the tears. "I'll talk to him while you put away the leftovers, okay?" Pete nods, and Tom leans forward, planting a kiss on his forehead before easing them apart further, hands lingering until he's completely sure that Pete can stand on his own.
Tom makes his way up the stairs, careful so they don't creak too terribly and stops at the front of their "spare" bedroom. There's a sign on the door, handmade and covered in baseball and airplane stickers.
'Bradley B. Bradshaw'
It's been Bradley's since Carole dropped him off for a summer stay when he was eight. Five years now, it's firmly become the teenager's home away from home.
Tom raps his fingers on the wood.
"Go away, Mav!"
Tom sucks in a breath and silently prays for the patience he will need, scrubbing a hand over his face. He'd thought he'd get a pass on the whole "kids thing," what with being a gay man and all, but here he is, destined to a life of parenting regardless.
"Try again," he calls out, attempting to turn the handle and finding it locked. After they get through the crux of Bradley's issue, they'll have to talk about that too. Rule number 1, no doors that aren't the front or the back get locked.
There's a shuffling sound from the other side, and the door opens after a few seconds. Tom can make out an unruly mop of brown hair and wet eyes through the crack. He knows Bradley is checking to ensure it's just him, and no one else, before letting Tom through. When he does, the door closes again, and when Bradley's fingers go for the lock, Ice, from his seat at the desk, coughs.
Sheepishly, Bradley bows his head and leaves it alone before returning to bed, a pile of blankets balled up in the middle where he'd been bundled.
They sit, Tom watching, waiting, and Bradley brooding. Eventually, something gives, and Bradley stands, fists at his sides.
"Why didn't he tell me? Why didn't you ?" Bradley levels him with an accusatory look at him. At only 13 years old, he's already showing too many similarities to the other brunette in Tom's life.
Tom takes a breath.
"We didn't get the order until last week, and Maverick wanted to tell you himself. You were already gonna be here for the weekend. He thought it would be a good time."
Bradley is not impressed with this answer if the increase in his sudden pacing and rapid flapping of his hands is any indicator.
"So you guys butter me up with pizza and pop just to, to what?! Throw this at me?" Tom has to keep himself from openly groaning. He understands where Bradley is coming from, he does, but Tom also has so little practice handling meltdowns like this that can't be solved with kisses or alcohol, neither of which he can give the boy.
"We were trying to have a nice night." Tom realizes it's practically the same as what the kid had said, but he barrels on. "This wasn't something we could plan for. I know Mav-"
"He promised. " Bradley has stopped pacing, his shoulders are hunched, and his eyes are watering again. Tom feels a lump form in his throat. When Bradley meets his eyes, a few tears slip, and his fingers are clenching the hem of his shirt. Tom is up before the sound of his cry hits. He tucks Bradley's face into his shoulder.
Tom doesn't know exactly how his life has ended up like this, being the shoulder for so many people to cry on, but as he feels Bradley calm down, it settles something in him, knowing he'd been able to help. They stand there for a minute, and when Bradley gets himself free from Tom's arms, he scrubs at his eyes, attempting to erase the evidence that the tears had even fell.
Tom holds him by the shoulders.
"I know you're angry, and it's not fair, but Mav does his best for you. He's not always there, and I wouldn't stretch my neck out and call him reliable, but he's trying." Bradley nods, looking away but flushing in a way that Tom reads as shame, the tantrum from before catching up with him.
Tom lets him go, but he speaks again.
"Cool down a bit, and then maybe think about apologizing for lying, okay?" Bradley, sitting back on the bed now, looks at Tom, confused. Tom raises a brow but smiles nonetheless. "Don't go telling people you hate them if you don't really mean it."
Bradley, again, looks chastised even though Tom hasn't raised his voice in the slightest, and just as Tom's about to slip out of the room to give Bradley his space, a small question stops him.
"Is he mad?" Tom glances over at Bradley, whose head is faced toward his lap, hands clasped together.
"No," Tom replies, equally as soft. "He's not mad, Bradley." The kid nods and Tom leaves him to his teenage pity party. He's done his part, and now, he needs to change into a shirt that isn't covered in salt and snot and continue his comforting of the other sulking person in the house.
An hour later, when he and Pete are snuggled up on the couch, a rerun of some baseball game he doesn't care too much about playing in the background, Tom hears the sound of feet on the stairs. Cagey, Bradley makes his way into the living room, and Tom watches out of the corner of his eye as he sits next to Pete, a little distance between them. When Pete throws his arm over the back of the couch and pulls Bradley into his side, no words spoken, the atmosphere becomes lighter, not perfectly fixed, but on its way there.
Three weeks later, Tom is sitting in a middle school auditorium, Carole on his right, watching with rapt attention as Bradley struts onto the stage to take a seat at the baby grand waiting for him. His first solo recital.
Bradley is three songs in when he turns to look out at the audience. He catches Tom's eye and smiles, and Tom waves back. Bradley is grinning at him and Carole, then, eyes darting over Tom's shoulders, his fingers miss a key, and his face goes slack with surprise.
Tom notes Bradley is quick to recover, looking back down at his hands and then up again, and Tom can't help but turn to look as well. He should have guessed what would be waiting.
At the entrance doors, leaning against the back wall in a smokey flight suit, helmet clipped to his belt and sweating bullets, is Pete "Maverick" Mitchell.
Tom knows he's going to come home to emails and a few angry phone calls about the menace he keeps close, but seeing the broad smile on Pete's face and the matching one on Bradley's when he turns back around, Tom thinks it's a small price to pay.