WISH UPON A STAR

In Tuscany, the night sky is amazing. It's not that Timmy has never seen a starry sky before, but here he can see the stars one by one very clearly. Somehow, in this place the sky is missing the gray overtone it has in Ohio. Plus, the soft curves of the hills close in around them, making the whole valley look cozy.

It's the perfect spot to spend the night of the 10th of August, which is some sort of festivity in Italy. Timmy didn't get all the details, but he doesn't care much. He needed an excuse to take Alex away from his sewing machine for at least a couple hours. The next Renaissance Fair is getting closer and that turned Alex into an hysterical, insult-spitting machine. Those events should be fun – lots of good food, good wine, weirdly dressed people and bands that play instruments Timmy had never even heard of before coming to Italy – but Alex takes them very seriously because he goes to them to sell his clothes.

He's got a little stand and he spends the whole day in it. These past two months he managed to be present to a lot of this fairs – they are a thing here in the summer – and Timmy understands that it's a big deal with Alex being still in high school and everything, but sometimes all that sewing makes Alex so nervous that he snaps for the smallest thing. Timmy learned from Cody and Vince to just disappear when that happens.

“What was the name of that saint again?” Timmy asks, sitting down on the plaid they have laid down on a nice spot of grass a few miles away from the farm, and he passes him one bottle of his weird juices. Timmy would be willing to play the evil boyfriend and get beers for him, but Alex doesn't like beer. If he's not on a cleanse – which happens more often than not – he prefers to challenge the law and his parents' wrath by having drinks or wine. But for this occasion drinks would have been unpractical and Blaine taught him that, when it comes to buy wine, either you know what you're doing or you don't buy it. So, weird juice it is.

Alex smiles as he grabs the bottle. The three rings he's wearing clink against the glass. “Lorenzo,” he answers. “It's not that hard.”

“Lorenzo,” Timmy repeats the name, his strong American accent making impossible for him to pronounce any letter correctly.

Alex chuckles. “Yes, something like that,” he says, mocking him a little. Alex's accent is perfect in both languages. He doesn't speak Italian with an American accent nor he speaks English with an Italian accent. Whatever he says, it always has a beautiful sound. He's not like his friends at all. When they hang out with Alex's friends, it always looks like they are in a mafia movie. Even though Timmy must admit that it's quite funny to listen to them.

“So, how does it work, exactly?” Timmy asks again, as he rummages into their picnic basket and takes out their dinner. After all the summers spent here, he learned that in Italy you just don't make a couple of sandwiches and go in the woods. It's not even an option not only for any mother in the country, but for every single citizen. It's inconvenient, disappointing and generally not enough to eat, as if eating was the main point of a romantic picnic – but after all, eating is almost an art in this place. When he told Vince, his only ally in the family at the moment, what he wanted to do, the man made them some special kind of pasta salad with tuna and all kind of vegetables, some kind of cold meat which is still very pink inside but is very tasty, and he did put some ham and salami in the basket, but carefully wrapped in a piece of tin foil with bread to the side, as if it was blasphemy to put the two things together. And now that he looks closely, Vince gave them fruits and two big pieces of a cake as well.

“How does what work?” Alex says, eying him from time to time.

“This St. Lorenzo thing,” Timmy answers, taking out the bowl of pasta, the meat in a tupperware box and some paper plates.

Alex usually doesn't let him do everything as if he was his knight in shining armor, playing the part of the damsel who's being courted. Besides, Timmy is everything but courteous. Whenever he wants something, he takes it or asks for it and expects a positive answer – something he took after Blaine. But tonight, Alex feels the need to relax, so he's willing to make an exception to his usual behavior, and he just sits there, waiting for him to set their table. “It's easy. You look at the sky and when you see a falling star, you make a wish.”

Timmy snorts. “We do that all year long,” he comments. “Was really there a need to make a festivity out of the chance of seeing a falling star?”
Alex smiles at Timmy's ever present arrogance, something that runs in his American blood. “We're not taking chances, tonight. We will see a falling star for sure,” he says. “Actually, many of them. The Earth's orbit goes through this meteor shower called Perseids every year this very night. So, you see, we know for a fact that there are gonna be falling stars and we celebrate the event. It's science!”

“Very romantic,” Timmy chuckles. “Let's go and see a bunch of dead rocks our planet happens to pass through in this period of the year.”

“It is romantic when you don't say it like that,” Alex glares at him. “So, who prepared the basket for you?”

Timmy doesn't get mad because Alex just assumed he didn't prepare it. First, because it's true. And second, because being able to prepare a basket for Alex has never been is main goal. What's important tonight is that he made this moment possible for them. And they both know it. “Your father,” he says, and there's no need to be more precise about which one. “I would have gone for sandwiches.”

“Of course you would have,” Alex laughs. “You barbarian.”

Timmy laughs too and he starts serving pasta. He knows to put just a spoonful of it on Alex's plate without insisting on him taking more. Alex is not one of those teen who starves themselves to death to be thin – he doesn't need that to be thin because he took after Cody. It's their metabolism – but he likes to choose what he's gonna eat very carefully. And pasta it's usually not one of his main choices. So he will eat out of courtesy but there's no point in force-feed him with it. After all, Vince too made pasta for two because he knows Timmy eats for two and not because it was actually gonna be the two of them.

They just eat and chitchat as the sky turns darker. By the time the stars come out one by one, they're having cake. “Ah! Look at that, it's beginning,” Alex says pushing his plate with his half eaten cake towards Timmy who wolfed down his ten minutes ago.

The act of grabbing it and eating it comes natural to Timmy. He doesn't even look down to see what's being passed to him. He's been finishing Alex's food since Alex was thirteen. “Where?” He asks, his mouth full.

“There!” Alex points at the sky as a tiny dot of light crosses it at a high speed. It's very fast, but it's clearly visible. “That one was mine though. I saw it first. Find yours.”

It doesn't take Timmy much time to find his own falling star, since the first one is followed by hundreds more. For a moment, he can't believe it. He just looks at the sky as one after the other dots start falling down, as if the glue keeping them up up had suddenly lost its grip.

He turns around to tell Alex how wonderful that is but he finds him staring at the sky, a small smile curving his lips, and he falls silent. Alex has always looked alien to him with his tiny frame and the straight lines of his face that make him so differently beautiful from any man or woman he has ever seen, and with the way he dresses, without thinking if what he puts on was intended for a boy or a girl. Alex defies gender rules while staying a boy all along, and that confuses Timmy but in a good way.

He decided long ago that he wants to be confused by this creature for the rest of his life.

“Did you see one?” Alex asks, eventually. He turns to him and smiles relaxed. Timmy looks at him for a couple of seconds before snapping out of it.

“Yes!” He said. He turns to look at the sky again, just not to lie to him so plainly. He's relieved when a falling star crosses the sky in that very moment. “There. That's mine.”

Alex chuckles. “What did you wish for?”

Timmy frowns, looking at him. “Wasn't it against the rules to tell someone what you wished for?”

It is, but since Timmy doesn't know how the night of San Lorenzo works, Alex feels free to make some things up. “Usually yes, but during this night the rule doesn't apply,” he says. “There are so many stars that each and every wish is registered very carefully by the Great Will of the Universe. It's a matter of practicality. They are well organized in the Wishing Department during this time of the year.”

“You're shitting me,” Timmy laughs.

“How dare you?” Alex pretends to be outraged, and then he laughs. “Okay, let's do this. I tell you my wish and you tell me yours. How about that?”

“Go ahead.”

Alex sighs and sits more straight as if he was about to tell him something of utter importance. “I wished to finish school with good enough grades to be able to choose exactly what I want to do next. I wished for you to come back here every year until we will be very old and very wrinkled and, most importantly, I wished for the two things to be compatible.”

Timmy looks at Alex's suddenly flushed face and he smiles, tenderly. He bends over to kiss him sweetly on the lips twice, being chronically unable to get away from him too soon. “Don't worry, we will make it so,” he comments. “Yet, that's a very complex thing to wish upon a star.”

“I don't believe in stars magically granting wishes,” he says. “I believe in people working hard to make their dreams come true. But you never know, right? So when I trust a star with my hopes and dreams, I tell her exactly what I want and what I will work hard to achieve, so in case she decides to give me a hand, she won't do a half assed job.”

Timmy laughs out loud. “You are always so demanding!” He says, amused. “Someday you will have employees and you'll make their life a living hell, like in that old movie, The Devil wears... some fashion crap, I don't remember.”

“Prada. The Devil wears Prada,” Alex sighs, shaking his head. They watched that movie together less than two weeks ago but Timmy's got a brain only when pigs, cows and Alex are involved. “But if everything goes as I planned, there won't be any need for me to ask cappuccinos to any poor young girl. But now it's your turn. What did you wish for?”

Timmy rolls his eyes and sighs. “I have everything I can have right now and I'm sure I'll have what I still don't have in the near future, so I wished for something I can't actually change, you know, in case this whole St. Lorenzo thing worked.”

That's both interesting and mildly worrying because Alex has the feeling he knows exactly where this is going. “So, what is it?” He asks again.

Timmy looks at him and shrugs. “I wish you didn't have your first time with that prick Sasha.”

“I knew it!” Alex says before Timmy can even finish speaking. He rolls his eyes, not really angry but certainly exasperated. “Please, not this again.”

“I don't want to discuss it,” Timmy says, raising both his hands. “You asked me what I wished for.”

“And I'm regretting it,” Alex replies. “Anyway, that's a wish easily granted because, as I've already told you many times, my first time wasn't with him.”

Alex never wants to discuss this matter but never misses a chance to say that very sentence, which always leads them to discuss the matter. “Baby, I don't wanna fight but it was with him,” Timmy insists, calmly. They are so used to have this conversation something like twice a month that it's not even an angry exchange anymore. They just reiterate their lines over and over, more to restate their positions – lest someone had bulged from last conversation – than anything else.

“You were there when my first time happened,” Alex says.

“I was there when our first time happened,” Timmy corrects him, predictably. “And it was the best time of my life but none of us was a virgin.”

“I was,” Alex instantly says with a timing perfected in months and months of practicing this conversation. It basically started the moment they finished having complete sex for the first time and never stopped. Timmy can't understand that, for Alex, all the attempts they had been made before Alex actually had sex with Sash count as sex. So he had his first time with Timmy, even if Timmy didn't manage to put it all in.

Timmy sighs, the shower of stars happening right above their head momentarily forgotten. “Alex, you fooled around with me for the first time, that much is true,” he nods. “I was your first kiss, I was the first one you made out with, I was the first one you rubbed against, I was the first one to put fingers in you – all the fingers you can take, they're all mine – I was the first to give you head and I'm the first one you gave head to, that much is true. These are all things I did to you first. And I'm proud of them and happy about them. But I didn't pop your cherry. It was him, just face it!”

“No!” Alex insists on denying the fact that he had sex with Sasha before he had it with Timmy with such intensity that one would think his life depends on it. “You tried all the summer to put it in me when I was fourteen!”

“Yes! And the key word is that I tried,” Timmy replies matter-of-factly. “It was too soon, you were too young and too tight. It happens, it's no big deal. And it also happens not to be sex as well.”

“You put the tip in,” Alex comments, his eyes very serious. “It was a big deal.”

Timmy looks up for a moment. He doesn't have any way with words. It's not his thing, so half the times he can't even explain himself. “Of course it was a big deal. I just meant that failing at putting it all in when you were so young wasn't a big deal,” he corrects himself.

“But the tip went in,” Alex insists.

“Yes, and what was it? An inch?” He snaps, exasperated.

“It was enough for me to feel pain,” Alex pouts, crossing his arms to his chest.

“But that's so totally not the point. It's not like it was sex just because you felt pain, Alex. Those were attempts,” Timmy insists, never losing his temper. At this point, it's not even about the fact that Alex had sex with Sasha first anymore. It's about defying what sex is, a thing Timmy suspects they will never agree on. “We actually made attempts at everything else, the difference is that we managed in every other case. But proper sex? That came later, at my house.”

“Oral sex is proper sex,” Alex informs him.

“You know what I mean,” Timmy snorts. “Do you want me to spell it out for you? I didn't put the whole length of my cock inside your ass until you were sixteen, at my house. And that was after that prick Sasha had already done that very thing six months before. That's it. I don't like it, but at least I'm not lying to myself about it.”

Alex growls in frustration for a moment and takes a sip of his juice. Timmy hopes against all odds that he will drop it, but of course it can never happen so soon. “What you don't understand, Timmy, is that, for me, there's exactly no difference between your inch and his whole length. So, since you entered first, you popped my cherry. It's not that difficult.”

“It's not difficult, it's crazy!” Timmy says, while the stars keep falling. It's a very dramatic background for such an argument. “The whole world would tell you that there's a very big difference between the tip and the whole length. Actually, you will tell me that there's a big difference tonight, if I only dare to stick just the tip. I can already hear you whining because you want more.”

Timmy loves Alex also because he never gets offended by things like that when they are fighting. He has a very bad example in Leo – who would scratch Blaine's eyes out for less – and in Tana – who instantly puts on her outraged face as soon as he sets things straight. Alex is different. He can get down and dirty as much as Timmy does, so whenever Timmy stops beating it around the bush, he just gets along.

“But this is completely different!” Alex says, shaking his head.

“How is this different, Alex? How come the tip was sex back then and it isn't now?”

“Because that was the first time, you moron!” Alex replies.

“Then, that's it! I was the first to ever put the tip of a cock inside your ass,” Timmy concedes. “You are allowed to say that. That's true.”

“Good.”

“Still not your first time as the rest of the freaking world intends it.” Alex screams. It's a low, liberating scream full of frustration that makes Timmy laugh. “What, no?”

“Can I please be the one deciding which one was my first time and which one wasn't, since it's my first time?”

“No,” Timmy replies, simply. “Because it's not something you can decide. First times match a certain description, it's a codified situation. It's like when a baby is born. You can't look at him and say that for you his mother is still pregnant. The baby is there, you can't decided he's born the day after.”

Alex frowns. “What are you even talking about?”

Timmy sighs. “Alex, listen to me. If I ask you what was the best fuck you had and you answer that it was me, and you better do that, that's okay. That's something you can actually decide. You and no one else can decide what you like best. But your first time, that's not up for discussion. Maybe you didn't like it, maybe you regret that it was with him, but you can't arbitrarily decide that it was with me.”

“I can and I will,” Alex says stubbornly. “And you are too. Right now.”

“What?”

Alex kneels on the plaid and starts putting everything back in the basket. “I'm gonna have my first time with you tonight. We're gonna pretend we never had sex together and we didn't even try anything. We just kissed a couple of times and that's it.”

“Wait, we just kissed a couple of times and you're already giving it to me?” Timmy says, helping him with the basket. He's not sure this idea will prove Alex's point – or any point, for that matter – but he likes where this is going. “I'm not sure I wanna have sex with someone so easy.”

Alex throws a piece of cake's crust at him. “Oh, shut up!” He laughs. “Help me. Get in the mood.”

Timmy puts the basket on the ground, so they can sit closer to one another on the plaid. “Alright, so what about Sasha?”

“He never happened of course.”

Timmy would have never imagined that, but the mere thought flips a switch in his brain. “So you are tight,” he comments, looking at him.

Alex looks back, his eyes darker under his long black eyelash. “Totally not the point, but yes. Very tight,” he answers, in a low voice that shows how much he wants this to be the point of it, instead. “I've never touched myself either.”

“Oh, I will do that,” Timmy says in a whisper. He leans on him, his lips brushing against Alex's. “I guess I can't jump on you right away, then.”

“Nope,” Alex says softly, shaking his head shyly as he has never done before in his life. “You will have to take it slow.”

Timmy kisses him sweetly, chuckling. “What are you doing?” He says, amused. “You weren't like this even when you were thirteen. Actually, if I remember correctly--”

“Can't you just play pretend, for once?” Alex asks, closing his arms around his neck. “Hm?”

Timmy nods and gently pushes him on the plaid, sliding on him like a snake. Not only his curves and angles perfectly fit Alex's, but Alex's legs part automatically to make room for him, taking away from this play any pretense of being a first time, but Timmy doesn't comment on that. “Don't worry,” he murmurs as his lips follow the line of Alex's jaw, leaving a trail of sweet, wet kisses. “I'll be gentle.”

He wonders if Sasha told Alex that – he did, before knowing that Alex had already had sex before. Not that he wouldn't have been gentle, if he had knew, but that sentence only makes sense during first times. In any other case it's simply just too sappy.

The whole argument put aside, he wants Alex now that he's got him underneath him but he refrains from going too quickly. He slips a hand under Alex's t-shirt, barely touching his hips. His skin is already feverish but he's shivering. Timmy kisses his way down and up his neck, and ends up sucking at his earlobe. “You are shivering,” he says, a little bit surprise.

“I'm scared,” Alex says. His voice makes it sound those words so real that Timmy has to look at his face to make sure something weird is not happening. But Alex looks calm and inviting, perfectly at ease.

“You don't need to be. I would never hurt you,” he says. Then he grabs his shirt and takes it off him. He stops to stare at him for a while and he smiles when Alex covers his face, trying to look embarrassed and failing completely.

His body always moves so gracefully and he has never been ashamed of it, so when he brings his hands to his face, his body arches sensually as if he couldn't help but being consciously inviting him. In fact, he ends up chuckling and staring at him through his parted fingers. “Oh my...”

“Shh, you are very shy and embarrassed, remember?” Timmy's kisses move along his chest, eager to follow the straight path that leads around his belly and to Timmy's favorite spot in the world, Alex's navel. Tonight, Alex is wearing a little blue jewel, with two sparkling pendents hanging from it. Exactly the kind of thing that drives Timmy crazy. He licks the skin around it, purposely avoiding the navel for a few moments, so when his mouth closes around it and his tongue dives into it, he can be proud of the moan of pleasure coming out from Alex's lips.

Alex arches his back, pushing his belly against his mouth, exactly as he did the first time Timmy has ever kissed him there, but that was just a reaction, this is a deliberate movement. Timmy grabs his hips and pushes him down, going back to kiss him on his lips. “I will take your pants down,” he informs him, softly. And there he can't help but add, “And probably everything else.”

Alex hits him gently on his shoulder but he's laughing too. “Come on! It's hard enough as it is.”

“Oh, I know that,” he gives him another kiss as his hands run down quickly to unbutton his pants. Alex never wears pants that are less than glued to his ass. Sometimes Timmy is lucky and they are just leggings – which are easily pulled down – sometimes he's not so lucky and they are real traps, forcing him to make all kind of maneuvers to get them down. Fortunately, Timmy has been having sex with him long enough to know all the tricks. Plus, Alex wiggling his ass is really helping. After that, his underwear is a piece of a cake.

“Why am I naked while you're fully dressed?” Alex asks, casually rubbing one leg against Timmy's hip.

“Because doing you with your pants half down your legs is uncomfortable and complicated,” Timmy says, kissing him soundly on his lips as he cups his ass in one hand, gently feeling it. “While I just need to pull my pants a little down.”

“So romantic!” Alex snorts, pulling him down for another kiss. “What about the shirt, then?”

“I had to do your navel too,” Timmy answers. His fingers slip between Alex's legs and find his opening. They circle it, teasingly.

Alex whines, fidgeting around them. “Touch me,” he asks, his voice bear no traces of embarrassment any longer.

“Wasn't it your first time? What's with the orders?” Timmy chuckles as he pushes a finger inside, enjoying the sound Alex makes.

“I've never been embarrassed of asking things,” Alex finally gives in. “Not even the first time.”

Timmy slips in another finger, shrugging and biting at his neck. “I wouldn't know, I wasn't there.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he snorts but Timmy stops him from saying anything else with another, deeper kiss.

“Anyway,” he says, when he finally comes up for air, his fingers still moving inside Alex and Alex gently rotating his hips to both enjoy them and teasing him, “since you snapped out of your third faked first time, can you return the favor? I'm going crazy.”

Alex smiles, his lips against Timmy as he slips a hands inside his pants and closes his fingers around his member. “Come here, you.”

*

Timmy lies back down and stares at the sky. It's still very starry but it looks like someone closed the tap and no star is falling down anymore. The night is quiet and feels peaceful.
“That was intense,” he says with a sigh of satisfaction.

Alex brought a corner of the plaid to cover his crotch, but that's the only move he made. He's still too blissfully tired and basking in the aftermath of sex to even think about putting clothes on. There's always a little window of time after his orgasms when he literally doesn't care for anything at all. His mind is empty and peaceful. There's nothing he needs, nothing he wants, nothing he regrets. “Did you like it?” He asks. His voice is mildly curious.

Timmy snorts. “Are you kidding me? You were amazing.”

“You were not bad yourself,” Alex says and when Timmy glares at him, he chuckles. “Just kidding, you were awesome. I think I might have fallen in love with you all over again.”

Timmy nods with a solemn air. “That's what happens when you have sex with virgins. Now you'll stick with me forever, just because I popped your cherry. This is so embarrassing, maybe we should talk about it. I didn't want to hurt you, I thought we were on the same page, but---”

Alex bursts out laughing, throwing his head back. “Shut up! Oh my God, you're so annoying!” He cries out, reaching out to cover Timmy's mouth with his hand. Then he passes the other over his face and through his sweaty hair while his stupid sort-of-boyfriend laughs his ass off too. “I really need a shower but I don't wanna have it. What about we put some clothes on, run back home and fuck ourselves to sleep?”

“Deal.”

Timmy knows Alex too well to believe the matter has been set, but he can at least accept this truce and wish for it to be as long as possible. Somewhere somehow there must be one last latecomer star he didn't see that can grant him his wish.

IN THIS LIGHT(NING) AND ON THIS EVENING

Timmy's life is hard. Not ghetto-hard, but complicated nonetheless.

He is a seventeen years old boy with two fathers – one very famous and the other very borderline – with twin siblings under the age of three and a boyfriend two years younger than him, who lives in Italy, which is 5000 miles away.

Some people don't get the connection between all these things, especially Timmy's parents, but there is one and it's extremely clear every time his fathers decide that the time has come for them to leave the nest for a little while and find themselves as a couple again, which happens illegally often for two men with kids who are actually used to have sex multiple times every day anyway, despite their children's presence in the house.

Blaine and Leo have a very weird backstory – someone would say insane – and most people wonder why they're still together after all that breaking up and making up. Timmy knows why. It's because they need each other: physically, emotionally and mentally. It's more than just love, they live off each other, if something like that it's even possible without being cheesy or creepy. After several attempts of basically anybody to fix the situation, it's now clear to everybody that Leo manages to be completely functional only when Blaine is with him. And Blaine, although he could go on with his life even if he was alone, he would be reduced to the ghost of himself, and a very sad ghost at that.

Sometimes this hunger they have for each other is under control and they can live a normal life – work, take care of their children, hang out with their friends - sometimes it's not, and they have to run away for a week end and fuck each other brain out, until they are ready again to face their everyday life.

Any teenage in the world would say Timmy is lucky because he gets to have the house to himself more often than not, but that's just a misguided notion of the situation. He has not the house to himself because, when he was fourteen, his beloved fathers decided that he was old enough to take care of his siblings by himself, and so they stopped to bring them over to their grandparents' house, leaving them with him ever since. Timmy is sure that this is totally Leo's fault. Leo hates his own fathers since that time they threw him out of the house when he was twenty, so he doesn't leave the twins with them if it's not strictly necessary. And apparently it's not, when Timmy can take care of them.

The first time his parents said to him they were going to leave the twins with him, it was all very epic.

They made him sit on the couch as they always do for special occasions, which up to that moment had included the announcement that they were going to marry and the announcement that they were pregnant – or at least some girl was and they were gonna keep her baby – and they tricked him into think that staying at home alone with his younger siblings was a good thing. It was not. But he was young and foolish, and he only thought of the power he was going to have. The fact that with great powers come great responsibilities didn't even cross his mind. Fuck Spiderman, he was going to have the time of his life! So, when he understood what he had gotten himself into, it was too late, and they were already gone to Hawaii.

This time they are in France, in some lost medieval town called Mehun-sur-Yèvre, and they're gonna be away for ten days. When he pointed out that they couldn't leave two toddlers alone with their brother for so long, Leo patted him on the head twice and just told him he was gonna be just fine. He was seventeen now, almost a man. Plus, they were giving him all the numbers to contact them, in case of emergency.

“But please, don't let any emergency happen,” Leo said, giving him one of those tensed smile that usually precedes a total breakdown. “Everything's gonna be fine. Just don't call, okay?”

Luckily for everybody, Blaine talked to him some hours later, explaining that he was taking Leo away before he could kill them all, that he was very stressed and really needed some time alone with him. Timmy would have protested, if he hadn't known how it was when Leo really freaked out. He has been there for too many crisis not to want Leo out of this house as quick as possible.

The moment his parents were finally out the door, he did the first thing he always does when they go away: he flew Alex over. That's when a monthly allowance like the one his father gives him comes in handy. The hardest part is convincing Cody and Vince that it's absolutely necessary for Alex to come to the States even in the middle of the school year, but he always manages. Or Cody always gives up when he sees that his son has already packed and he's ready to take a taxi and go to the airport.

Baby-sitting the twins with Alex is way easier – because the kids love him – and more fun – since Alex sleeps in his bed. Everything's perfect, really. They wake up, make them breakfast, take them to the playschool, go back home and fool around, sometimes even have sex, have lunch, maybe have sex again, then they go pick them up at four, play with them, make them dinner, put them to bed, and spend the rest of the night fooling around again.

Everything works perfectly fine, really, until it doesn't anymore.

Two days after his parents left, Hell breaks loose. It always happens this way. Emergencies, and tragedies and crisis never happen when his fathers are about to come back, only when he's alone and he's forbidden to call.

Everything starts with the loudest thunder ever heard by human ear, followed by a scream. A loud shriek that suddenly pierces through the night like a siren, waking both him and Alex.They have just fallen asleep, cuddling together in Timmy's bed, so the mere fact that they actually manage to open their eyes and be functioning is a miracle.

“What is this noise?” Alex asks, blinking a couple of times to try and shake sleep off enough to understand what's happening around him. His boyfriend is too warm to stand up, though. So he just lies there, frowning at the continuous sound.

Timmy frowns too. “A thunder?” He answers. Another loud rumble seems to underline his words, and after that the sound of the big storm that's going on becomes suddenly clear. It's raining hard, and the wind is slamming the shutters downstairs. Under all that, that piercing scream.

“No, the other one,” Alex complains, making a face as he tries to understand who or what is dying somewhere nearby. He barely knows where he is, let alone understand what's going on exactly.

Timmy ignores the thunders and listens. Every long scream now is followed by three irregular sobs. “That's Logan,” he sighs, recognizing his little brother's way of half-choking himself in desperation. Timmy leaves a tender kiss on Alex's nose as he gently pushes him off himself, so he can get off the bed.

Right on cue, and louder than anything else tonight – thunders, rain and Logan's screaming – Harper informs him of the situation, in a flat, uninterested voice. “Timmy, Logan is crying.”

When Timmy finally gets to his siblings' room, they are both standing, grabbing the bars of their nest-like bed. He turns the light on, since their night light doesn't make much light. Harper looks annoyed – but then she hardly doesn't – and Logan is screaming, red in the face. “What's up, buddy?” Timmy asks, picking him up and holding him close to his chest. The kid's so desperate that he cries without a sound, his mouth open, breathless, until he hiccups once and the air comes out again from his little lungs, together with a scream.

“He's scared of the storm,” Harper says. In that moment, Alex finally shows up in the room, rubbing his eyes, and she instantly puts her arms up, so he can pick her up too.

“It's just rain, Logan. There's nothing to be worried about,” Timmy says, gently. No matter how sleep deprived he is, no matter how annoyed he feels or how late he came to rescue his little brother, he always speaks tenderly to him. “Did the thunders wake you up?”

The kid nods, sniffing. Being hugged seems to calm him down. Timmy's arms are not like daddy Blaine's arms, but they will do. He rests his head against his brother's shoulder and hiccups again. Timmy brings him to the window, lulling him a little. “See? It's just water from the sky,” he keeps going. Logan shakes his head and hides his face in Timmy's chest. “You don't want to see it?”

“Noise,” he says, in a muffled voice.

Unlike his brother, Harper is not scared at all and she has basically driven Alex to the window, like the pilot of a gigantic robot. She keeps her hand on the windowpane and stares in awe at every lightening that lights up the room. “Logan doesn't like thunders,” she informs them, always her brother's translator.

“Oh, but you know what a thunder is?” Timmy asks, searching for his little brother's face. He noses Logan's cheek and he looks up, sniffing and shaking his head again. His eyes are red and puffy. “Sometimes in the sky, clouds are naughty like you and your sister. They steal toys from each other or they don't sleep enough so they are all grumpy and maybe they misbehave very badly and even hit each other. Some of them just cry, you see?” Timmy points out of the window. This time Logan looks and nods, but when the next thunder comes he's so startled that he shudders. “Some of them, instead, make their head bump, like this,” he goes on, bumping his head against his little brother's, and Logan chuckles. “And that's how thunder come from.”

Logan laughs a little but then another thunder makes him hesitate. “Really?” He asks.

“Yes,” Timmy confirms. “Look.”

He walks over to Harper and bumps his head with hers, just when the next thunder comes. The kids watch him in awe as he foresees another one, bumping his head with Alex too. That's a little mistake, though, because he can't really move away without giving his boyfriend a little kiss.

“Does clouds kiss too?” Logan asks, as his brother kisses Alex once more.

Alex chuckles as Timmy sighs and rests his forehead against his, trying to find the peace of mind to back away from him. “Yes, they do sometimes,” he answers, and then looking at Alex he adds, “If they love each other.”

Harper rolls her eyes, three years and such a diva already. “You're just like dads.”

Alex chuckles against Timmy's mouth. “Oh, I don't know about that,” he says, and then sighs, backing away from his boyfriend. “Okay, now, why don't we go back to bed? Timmy can read a story for us.”

“Why me?” Timmy protests as he finally manages to pull Logan away from himself and put him into his bed, right next to his sister, who's already slipping under the blanket.

“Because you're the son of a writer,” Alex answers, readily. “I'm just the humble son of a farmer.”

Timmy glares at him, as he picks up a random book from the twins' little bookcase. It's one of those big books with more images than text. This one is about a duckling who has to go to meet his family at the pond and while he walks there he meets all kind of different animals, like every main character in every kid's book. “You're so gonna pay me back for this, Alex.”

“I can't wait,” Alex says, smirking.

Harper looks from one to the other and frowns. “What does it mean?”

“It means,” Timmy says, clearing his throat, “that you now listen to the story and then go back to sleep.”

The twins nod simultaneously, then rest their heads on the pillows and watch him carefully as he reads; Harper holding her doll and Logan sucking at his thumb. Everything looks extremely peaceful now, even with the storm still raging outside, as Timmy opens the book and starts to read of Jimmy the duckling.

He knows that it won't take them a lot of time to fall asleep now. They like the sound of his voice speaking, it doesn't matter what he reads. Two pages tops and they'll be sleeping again, so he will be able to ravage Alex a little more, now that they're both awake again. Everything's gonna be alright, there's nothing to worry about.

But fate hates him. He must have done something in a previous life – or even in this one – for which he's been punished, because the moment he turns the first page, the lights go out and not only Logan starts to scream again, but his sister too.

“What's going on?” Alex asks, and there's a hint of fear in his voice too. Great.

“The lights went off,” Timmy says as he puts the book aside and picks up Logan, who's already standing again. “But the power generator should kick in any second. Dads had it installed two years go.”

Harper pulls at Alex's shirt and he picks her up, looking around. He doesn't like darkness. He's not really afraid of it, but he doesn't like it that much and the fact that he can't show how nervous he is because that would scare the kids makes him even more nervous. The twins are sobbing but clinging to them seems to keep their hysterics under control. They wait for a minute, and then two, and then three more just to be sure, but the lights don't come back and the generator doesn't kick in. “Timmy?” Alex asks, tentatively.

Timmy goes to the window, still holding Logan who has buried his face in his brother's neck and doesn't wanna know anything about what's happening right now, whatever it is. “The whole neighborhood is in the dark,” Timmy says, watching the street.

“What about the generator?” Alex asks, that hint of fear again.

“Apparently, it doesn't work,” Timmy sighs. “Here, take Logan. I'll go check.”

Logan instantly clings to Alex, who sways a little under the weight of both twins. “Wait! What...? Where?” Alex stutters, shocked. “Are you leaving me here alone?”

“It's gonna take five minutes,” Timmy says, moving blindly towards the door. Alex can barely sense his figure in the dark. “I think there are some candles in my desk. First drawer. Light them up and just stay with the twins.”

“Do you know that's exactly the line someone says before disappearing in an horror movie?” Alex says, more to keep him there a little longer than to inform him.

In the darkness, Timmy's chuckle sounds crystal clear. “That's a good way not to scare yourself even further, Alex,” he mocks him. “I'm gonna be alright. The only thing that could hunt this house is the gay ghost of Christmas past. Now, go get those candles. I'll be back before you know it.”

And then he's gone. Alex takes a deep breath and tells himself that this is ridiculous. This is just a house – a house he knows since he was three – and the lights just went off. No big deal. He can go through this. He has to go through this because of the twins. The twins need him. This seems to calm him down.

“Can we go find the candles?” Harper asks. She is scared, but she doesn't like to be, so she tries to focus on something else.

“Yes, that's exactly what we're doing,” Alex nods, walking carefully towards Timmy's room.

Finding something in Timmy's desk is not an easy task. He's usually a very tidy person, but drawers escape his control completely. He puts in there everything for which he has no other place, so they're always incredibly cluttered.

Alex makes the twins sit on Timmy's bed as he searches through the drawer. It's not easy to convince Logan to let go of him, but Harper takes over, and Logan clings on to her instead. “My friend says that monsters come out when it's dark,” Logan says. There's a sob that threatens to escape his lips, but his sister shushes it with a kiss on his cheek. She's incredibly tender with him when nobody's looking.

“Monsters never come out because they don't exist---oh, here they are!” Alex holds the candles in his palms as if they were precious things. He grabs the lighter too and lights them up. The room comes out of darkness, and he can suddenly see the twins' faces, a little ghostly but tender. “See, there's nothing to worry about.”

He has just finished speaking when the loudest, meanest growl they've ever heard comes from the hall. They all turn around and, a moment later, something big grabs Alex and slams him into the floor. Everybody starts to scream again, Alex included who kicks and trash on the ground in panic. The thing is way bigger than him and holds him tight. It doesn't even make an effort to pin him down.

Alex is so scared that he can only scream and it takes him five whole minutes and a kiss on the neck to realize that the thing is Timmy. “You idiot!” He screams, hitting him on his shoulder one, two, three times. “You're an asshole! And a bastard! Oh my God, how much I hate you!”

Unaffected by Alex's weak punches, Timmy rolls on his back and laughs. “You should have seen your face!” He says, breathless. “You really thought I was a monster!”

Alex blushes. “You could have been a prowler,” he protests.
“But you weren't thinking that,” Timmy can't stop laughing and he keeps rolling right and left on the floor, under his siblings' confused eyes. Whatever is happening is so weird that they're not even scared anymore.

“You are horrible and I hate you and I don't wanna be with you anymore,” Alex says. He walks past him. The plan is to storm out of the room, but he can't because Timmy grabs him and brings him down to the floor again. He hugs him tenderly and kisses him on his neck again. “Come here. You're not really angry at me.”

“I am,” Alex protests, pouting but not moving.

“You found the candles.”

Alex sighs and, won by cuddles as he always is, nods. “And you didn't make the generator work.”

“Couldn't even find it,” Timmy shrugs. “But, I found these.” He shows Alex three torches and he turns one on. The torches makes enough light to show their faces very clearly. The twins clap their hands, finally happy, and Harper instantly demands a torch for herself. “And, I also found Leo's old camping gear. We can go downstairs and camp in the living room. It's gonna be a little adventure and the kids will be too excited to be afraid.”

Alex chuckles, stroking his hair. “You are crazy.”

Timmy purrs under his fingers. “Say that again, but in a sweeter voice.”

Alex doesn't say anything, but the kiss he gives him is sweet enough.

*

When Blaine and Leo come back ten days later, the tent is still in the living room.

“Did we host a boy scout meeting and I didn't know?” Blaine asks as he takes off his coat. Both he and Leo seem very relaxed indeed. Leo just smiles the way he would if he were high. He's in this blissful state that always follows his holidays with Blaine, when no matter what happens, he's always okay with everything.

“Oh, that?” Timmy asks, as he helps them with their suitcase. “No, the lights just went out one night.”

Leo frowns just for a moment. “Is it me or aren't these two things related in any way?” He asks his husband. Blaine just shakes his head. He's not sure he wants to know.