#engportweek

Their room was still dark, a faint sound of light rain coming from behind the closed blinds, Gabriel’s steady breaths coming from his side of the bed. Arthur reached blindly for the alarm clock behind him and opened his bleary eyes to stare at the red numbers marking over half an hour before seven. Gabriel grumbled sleepily and he agreed, putting the clock back down and returning his arm around his warm waist.

He was almost, almost, falling asleep again when he heard it once more: small feet trampling the floor going up and down the corridor, scurrying away like mice on a ship.

“I think the boys are up,” he whispered into the collar of Gabriel’s pajamas and his husband groaned tiredly, pulling the sheets tighter around himself and excluding Arthur from his cocoon.

“And why do I have to be?” came Gabriel’s sleepy response, to which Arthur couldn’t think of something equally smart to answer back so he just grunted at him, peeling back the warm covers and blinking at the floor to find his slippers.

He yawned out into the corridor and noticed a single raisin on the floor. Half a meter away he saw another one, and then another one half a meter away from that, trailing all the way down the stairs and into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, he found the two scurrying culprit mice.

“What are you two doing up?”

A pair of Asian boys ages 8 and 5 looked over their shoulders at him, frozen and caught. It took one too many seconds for Arthur’s brain to connect the dots and fully understand what the hell was going on. There was spilled milk in the counter dripping down the kitchen tiles, an empty bag of raisins on the floor, eggshells on the counter, orange peels hanging from the kitchen sink faucet. His oldest was holding a pan on top of an open flame on the stove and his youngest stood on a precarious three-legged stool perched beside him, holding scissors.

There was also something burning.

“What the f—”

“You’re not supposed to see!” Leon yelled loudly, jumping from his stool and dashing towards him with the scissors and Arthur barely had time to dodge him and take a step back before the door was slammed on his nose.

He gaped at the door.

Then he huffed.

And then he went back for reinforcements.

“Gabe, wake up,” he said, turning on the lights and the human cocoon on the bed squirmed away, hiding his head under the pillow. “The kids are in the kitchen.”

More squirming. “So what?” came a tired response, muffled from under the pillow. “Come back to bed. They’re probably just making cereal.”

A plate crashed downstairs and Gabriel jolted upright, eyes wide open and alert.

“They are in the kitchen,” he repeated, with emphasis.

A multitude of expressions flashed through Gabriel’s expression, from horror to surprise to bewilderment, back to horror.

“And you just left them there? Arthur!” Gabriel whispered-screamed, untangling himself from his twist of sheets and emerging from the bed an angry butterfly, pulling on the first pair of pants he saw – Arthur’s – and stealing a robe from the rack – also Arthur’s –, spitting hair out of his face as he stood in front of him with his hands on his hips and clothes a size too small for his body. “There are knives in the kitchen! Open flames!”

He stepped aside and Gabriel passed by him, nostrils flared, pulling the sleeves of his robe up to his forearms and puffing like a dragon coming out of its lair ready to breathe fire over an unsuspecting village with Arthur hot on his heels.

As they reached the kitchen, Gabriel raised his fist ready to pound the wood into submission, but just as was about to the door opened a small gap and Leon stuck his head out.

“Vicente said Dad can come in, but only Dad,” he said, and Gabriel’s fist slowly uncurled, still held confusedly suspended in the air.

He looked behind his shoulder at Arthur and they pointed their fingers to one another in a silent argument over who ‘Dad’ was, both of them slowly turning their fingers back towards themselves.

Leon’s little hand darted out from the open crack in the door and grabbed the ends of Gabriel’s stolen robe, dragging him inside and shutting the door on Arthur’s nose again.

Arthur stood there, his mouth still trying to articulate his confusion, when a few seconds later Gabriel was pushed out of the kitchen and stumbled into him, hands catching on Arthur’s arms to steady himself and the two of them barely securing their footing before the door to the kitchen closed again.

He didn’t seem any less confused than Arthur though, which was something of a feat.

“I think…” he started, looking genuinely startled. “I think our sons might be evil geniuses.”

Arthur held his husband by the elbows and remembered to close his gaping mouth.

“Huh.”

-

Gabriel relayed the instructions he had received: they were supposed to stay in bed and wait for the surprise. So back to bed they went, sitting stiffly side by side, staring at the open door waiting for something to happen.

“Still think having kids was the right decision?”

Gabriel turned his head to blink slowly at him, not quite getting it.

“We could be sipping margaritas at a beach somewhere right now,” he continued, and Gabriel’s confusion dissipated, but it was replaced with a warm, humorous something he didn’t have time to articulate into words, because right as Gabriel opened his mouth to answer, a pair of tiny feet sounded on the corridor and the conversation was stalled in favor of both of them turning towards the door.

A pair of flour, butter, sugar-coated boys came in holding a tray of oatmeal-raisin muffins, burnt scrambled eggs, raggedly sliced oranges and tea, which was deposited at the foot of their bed.

“We wanted to surprise you,” Vicente said, and Leon shrugged slightly beside him, supporting a disgruntled little pout on his lips (much too similar to some of Arthur’s to go unnoticed).

And so he was the first one to break out of their stupefied stupor, internally shaking himself and sliding the tray towards them over the duvet. “Well, I’m very surprised,” Arthur said, putting on what Gabriel called his dad-voice, looking at the slightly under-baked muffins and the odd-chopped orange slices and the watery tea. “And you did this all by yourselves?”

Small heads nodded, and Gabriel huffed out a little defeated chuckle through his nose.

“Come here,” Gabriel said, opening his arms to welcome Leon and pull him up into the bed, setting about cleaning his flour-dusted cheeks with Arthur’s robe sleeve. “Whose idea was this?”

“Mine!” Leon piped from his lap, and Arthur saw the small honest smile on Vicente’s face.

He beaconed the child closer and silently asked for his glasses, giving them a good wipe with the hem of his sleeve before handing them back. “Was it?” he asked privately, and Vicente shook his head. He smiled at him and ruffled his hair, making space for the boy to climb on the bed with them.

Arthur winced at the taste of the tea, and Gabriel gagged around a bite of a gooey muffin. But their eyes met over their children’s heads and they held back their laughter.