room // malum au [in progress]

december 18th, 2020

"tuck please stop playing with the goddamn truck for two minutes." calum groaned from his place under the covers. john had kept his word and brought tucker a present the next day. to tucker it was the best thing in the world but to calum it wasn't. the little remote control black truck had given calum several migranes in the span of days. it's been nine days and tucker still hadn't gotten over it.

"but daddy it's so much fun." tucker whined from across the room.

"not this early tucker. turn it off. you can play with it later." the five year old groaned but listened to his father and turned off the truck.

"daddy it's cold." calum sighed.

"i know bud. it's gonna be cold for awhile. winter's starting." calum made grabby hands at the little boy. tucker tottered over to the bed and climbed under the covers with calum.

"what's winter?" tucker asked laying his head on calum's chest.

"it's a season. it's when the weather is cold. we'll probably be able to see snow through skylight soon enough."

"is john going to make sure we stay warm?"

"yeah tuck. he should start turning to heat on a little more. i'll talk to him about it tonight okay?" tucker simply nodded and the two fell into a comfortable silence. calum didn't know how long they were lying there until tucker's stomach started to growl and ended the silence. calum and tucker both started giggling at the gurgling sound and decided that it was time to get up.

"can we eat and then go back in bed?" tucker asked as calum grabbed two cereal bowls from the counter.

"if that's what you want to do then yeah sure." the two sat across from each other at the small table and ate their cheerios in silence. tucker occasionally paused to stick his tongue out or make a silly face to try and get calum to laugh. which of course always worked. once they finished calum turned the tv to face the bed and the two snuggled under the blankets together.

they were halfway through their second episode of spongebob when tucker sat up and straddled calum's waist.

"hey daddy?"

"what's up little man?"

"what did you do before i was born?"

"what do you mean?" calum asked the little boy grabbing his hands and fiddling with them.

"what did you do? like in room? before i came." tucker explained.

"i wasn't always in room you know that right?" tucker shook his head.

"what do you mean daddy?" tucker asked confused.

"i wasn't always in room. i was put in room about seven years ago."

"put in?" calum nodded.

"yeah john brought me here when i was eighteen."

"did you want to be brought here?"

"no tuck. john brought me here against my will. he took me."

"took you?" calum sighed as he saw the five year old get more and more confused.

"yeah i was walking home from my boyfriend's house and john tricked me."

"tricked you? how did he trick you?"

"he told me that something was wrong with his tire on his car and he needed help. so i went to help him but there wasn't anything wrong with his car."

"then what?"

"he put a piece of cloth over my mouth that made me very sleepy and next thing i know i was waking up here in room. i haven't left since."