'39

4th of July

"You are absolutely out of your mind," Ben mentioned, his hands falling to his hips as he watched his husband set up the field explosives.

By law, they weren't married. No, that wasn't possible for them, though they regarded one another as a married couple just as they would have if they had ended up with women and settled for the same union. They had been together long enough to be considered a married couple and while they couldn't be together in the eyes of those around them, both Ben and Joe went out of their way to make it as legal as possible, signing their names in their wills as their next of kin and all that other stuff.

They wore rings on their left hands and spoke a promise that was truer than any other. They lived together without fear or without care because to them, they had done nothing wrong. They made their peace with who they were and kept their life to themselves.

Both men would go out into the public eye due to their respected careers, but they never forced their relationship onto the world. They lived their life privately but did not hide either. Joe was proud to hold his husband's hand when they were out to eat and Ben had no problem standing next to the man for a photo opt, whether it be at one of Joe's book signings or one of his art shows.

They had a child now. Two children, to be exact. Anne had flourished wonderfully with them over the time she had stayed with them and when the adoption became final, they found that having a child in the home was exactly what they needed.

Ben had always wanted to be a father, even if he wasn't so keen on the making of one. He enjoyed children as their minds were far more simple than an adult. They did not judge with cruelty, but rather curiosity. Anne went from being a shy young thing to a spunky, careful little girl. Ben had no regrets when it came to paying off the money to keep her parents at bay. They were nothing to her now and Ben only hoped as she grew up, the memories she kept as a child would be of himself and Joe only.

Ben had begun to persist his husband, figuring that while one child was nice, another would make the house feel like a home. Joe had been against it for a while, for good reasons too. He wanted to make sure that Anne had adjusted to their life before bringing another person into it. After all, she was to be raised by two men, which was strange all on its own, but she had gotten out of terrible home life and had so much to move on from.

Joe was looking out for the girl and that meant a lot to him. But now she was happy and growing and Ben wanted more. So he begged and begged, trying to find little loopholes here and there and prove to Joe that they could have the life that so many others did. Finally, he broke. He didn't know how exactly it happened, but his husband came to him one night, admitting that he had been thinking about it too. Having another child for them to love and spoil.

Money may not give you happiness, but it certainly allows you to buy things that could make you happy. Money also allowed those in the adoption agency to look the other way when a man wanted to take a child into a home that he shared with another man.

Ben knew it sounded dirty, but he did what he had to do in order for him and Joe to live the life they deserve to live. Unfortunately, there were always going to be people in the world that had a child they did not want. Ben knew people in high places and used those connections to seek out a young woman who was in need of a bit of help.

She was married to a man who was no good for her, all while having an affair with someone else. It was a huge mess and Ben didn't want to get into it. However, he knew very well that the woman would not be able to pass the child off as her husbands and as a result, had to do away with it once it was born.

She was glad enough to have a husband that wasn't around enough to notice the change in her body and once the babe was brought into the world, she quickly handed it off to one of Ben's associates, who paid her a good sum for her troubles.