room // malum au [in progress]

january 25th, 2021

"happy happy birthday!" calum and tucker were jolted from their sleep and opened their eyes to see mali standing above them with balloons in her left hand and a gift bag in her right. calum groaned and closed his eyes to try and fall back asleep.

"what are those?" tucker asked squirming out of calum's grip and standing up on the bed.

"these are balloons." mali said placing the bag on the floor before pulling one down so tucker could inspect it.

"they feel weird." tucker stated. "daddy look."

the five year old held the balloon out to calum only to see he had fallen back asleep. mali laughed as tucker sat down on the bed looking defeated.

"he's tired bud let him sleep a bit more." mali said softly.

"what are the balloons for?" tucker asked still playing with the blue balloon mali gave him.

"it's his birthday."

"he has a birthday too?" the five year old looked at mali with shock.

"yeah everyone has a birthday." mali answered a bit confused.

"we never celebrated his birthday before." tucker stated.

"it's because i didn't want to tucker." calum mumbled sleepily startling the little boy.

"don't scare me like that." tucker yelled.

"m sorry." calum said softly. "c'mere." tucker let go of balloon and crawled into calum's outstretched arms.

"mom and dad are gonna stop by later, they're meeting with the lawyer right now." mali said sitting down on the edge of the bed. "what do you want to do today?"

"i dunno." calum shrugged.

"we can go to the garden downstairs." mali suggested.

"i'm not sure if he's up for that mal." calum sighed motioning to the little boy snuggled in his arms.

"would you want to go outside to the garden tucker?" mali asked. "maybe when the other three come we can all go down together."

"daddy's friends?" mali nodded as someone knocked on the door.

"speak of the devils."

the door opened and the three boys walked into the room bearing gifts. tucker climbed out of calum's arms and went to sit in mali's lap.

"happy birthday!" luke yelled. calum whined and buried his head into his pillow. "oh don't be a grump."

"we were thinking about going downstairs to the garden." mali said. "would you guys be up for that?"

"yeah that sounds like fun." ashton said leaning against the wall by the window. "he has to open his presents first."

"i don't want to." calum groaned.

"okay fine you can do that later. let's go to the garden then." mali said.

"you guys realize it's cold out right?" calum pointed out. "i don't want tucker getting sick. plus he's still afraid of leaving the room."

"well if you opened your presents you would see that we got you both coats and hats and gloves. you know, stuff to keep you warm." luke said rolling his eyes.

"tuck do you want to go see the garden?" calum asked. "even though there aren't any flowers or anything to really look at right now considering it's winter."

"oh my god stop." mali groaned. "there's some statues and a fountain."

"i wanna go." tucker stated. calum whined again and got wacked in the leg by mali.