Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hi, Derek here. Different format, I know, but we’re gonna have a bit of a time skip and I feel like someone should catch you up to speed with what’s been going on in our lives. And that someone better be me, because Titch would just bore you with work details (nobody cares how many aubergines we’ve sold and how we upgraded our irrigation systems, love), Janae will leave out all social events because he either didn’t attend them or wouldn’t deem them important enough anyway and Johnny… Do you guys want a full chapter about how Priscilla is beautiful but also kind of a bitch but really, really sweet too, but she says such insensitive things at times and-

Well, no, probably not. So it’s up to me, Derek, your assistant and writer (?) to give you a summary.

Now obviously, I have my priorities as well. Somehow, Titch and I are still dating Sam. Somehow, we haven’t broken up with either each other or with Sam over this weird throuple thing we’ve got going on. I’ve been in non-monogamous relationships before, I know they can work – at least for a while, but so far, all of my monogamous relationships have ended in tears as well, so I don’t blame being polyam for that – but I didn’t really expect Titch to be so on board with this. It hasn’t all been sunshine and rainbows though. Sam is very much… I don’t know how else to put this… a guy. He's hot, for sure, especially when he’s in his uniform, being confident and a little authoritative (god my boyfriends are my boss and a police officer. Maybe I need therapy), but he’s also the kind of guy to wear sweatpants and old T-shirts whenever he’s off duty, drinking beer from a can and yelling at the telly because whatever football team he’s a fan of isn’t winning. It’s not like he’s swapping football teams, by the way. I’m just being a dick about this. He's originally from Manchester, go figure. Anyway, Titch has joined in on the yelling at the telly (I’m not sure if he really cares about Man United or just likes yelling) and I feel like a disillusioned housewife, putting the dishes away while the men are doing their man-things. But hey, I get to have two boyfriends so what am I even complaining about?

What else has been going on over the past six months? Janae and his friends have signed up for some kind of robot fight competition, so they spend a lot of time in the barn right now, working on their robot. I’m not entirely sure about their dynamic – I feel like Janae could win this one on his own – but from what I’ve seen and heard, I think Janae is the engineer, Peter the visionary and Julian the marketing guy, haha. Peter’s visions seem to come in the form of “what if the robot had a huge shark head that would eat the other robots?” which prompts Julian to draw a shark-logo that they could print on a shirt while Janae tries to explain to them that “a huge shark head” is very inefficient because they have size limits for the competition. It’s really cool to see them work together like this though. The competition is in September, I think? So they have about two or three months left to finish their robot. I have a feeling it’s gonna be awesome, but maybe I’m just being a dad.

Something less awesome about being a dad is seeing Johnny sad. He and Priscilla have… well, I suppose the average teenage relationship. They’re so in love, or at least Johnny is. Not saying Priscilla isn’t into him, but Johnny is just a very romantic guy. It’s cute, he writes her songs. He recently started learning how to play guitar, though I think he serenades her more in a spoken word kind of way, because apparently she has music-related trauma. Imagine that! But with big emotions come big fights and I know that’s part of being a teen and I know he’ll learn and grow and come out a stronger and more well-rounded person, but I really feel bad for him sometimes. He tends to blame himself a lot and just gets silent when they’re arguing over something. Therapy is helping, I can see, but therapy needs time. So I comfort him and try to lift him up, but he's gonna have to do most of the work himself, sadly.

Oh, there is good news about Johnny too: he’s been asked to play for the school football team next year. Now it’s not an amazing team by any means, the level of Olympia, which he already plays for, is way higher, but he still feels honoured that he’s been asked and didn’t have to try out. His PE teacher just really wanted him on the team. I think it’d also be good for him to meet some new friends, if I’m honest. Hugh and Inga are fun people, but whenever Johnny and Priscilla argue, they pick her side regardless. Within Olympia, he has a few lads he hangs out with, but none he really calls friends, so I hope the school team can help out there. The atmosphere is probably a little lower pressure, so that might help.

Talking about football and Olympia – the football season is over and James has decided that that means he can take a full month off. He’s taken Philip with him to New York, which sucks a little, workload-wise. Starting next week, though, there will be a temporary worker to fill in for him (for Philip, that is. Workload-wise, nobody misses James…). I hope they’ll be cool. I hope they’ll speak English, lol. James and Philip have only been gone for a few days and I’m already guarding my phone like it’s radioactive, so the boys don’t accidentally see some of the pictures Philip’s been sending me. Glad they’re having fun, I suppose.

Titch is stressed out, as always. Poor man. The new irrigation system (yes I’m talking about it anyway, but won’t bother you with the details) was very expensive and came with a bunch of complications, like big projects such as these always do. We started the replacements in early March to be ready for the summer, but the early spring is unpredictable so the whole thing froze over later in the month, before the safeguards for that were installed, or something. I’m not entirely sure what went wrong (I know a lot about plants, but don’t ask me about machinery) but I do know that Titch got very little sleep during the entirety of April while trying to salvage the project. We got it up and running just a few weeks ago, which is great because I have been hand-watering so many plants over the past few months. Now my love is stressed over the temporary worker, because the whole hiring process went through one of those job centres and Titch hasn’t met the guy (or girl?) yet. He’s also stressed because the anniversary of his father’s death is coming up, although he doesn't really talk about that. I caught him reading one of his dad's diaries a few days back and decided to just let him be for a moment while I walked the dogs. When I came back, he was in a better mood but there were also two empty beer bottles in the trash. Not enough to get worried about, but enough to know he’s struggling.

So… that’s what’s been happening with our family over the past half a year. Am I forgetting something? I guess myself! I’ve mostly just been doing my thing, but I have realised I spend a lot of time scrolling on my phone when I’m not working. I’ve tried a few other hobbies, like reading, cycling, drawing… but then I talked about it with Susan and she told me she had been crocheting a lot, which sounded fun. So now I bought some supplies and I’m really starting to get the hang of it! Susan has been sending me photos of her projects and I’m showing her my granny squares. It's not much, but it’s honest work, I suppose. I have a Pinterest board with things I wanna learn how to make, especially crochet flowers. They look so cool! It’s really getting me back into arts and crafts as well. I used to make a lot of little thingies as a kid, but haven’t done so in a while.

I think that was it! At least what comes to my mind for now. Next chapter is back to your regularly scheduled third-person narration! Bye bye!

Chapter Text

The calendar bothered Titch. A lot of things bothered Titch, to the point that Derek had already carefully suggested, multiple times, that maybe he should talk to a therapist about it, but in this case, the calendar really had it out for him. Underneath the ‘mushroom of the month’ – Derek had bought the calendar as a Christmas gift to Titch, but Titch very much suspected that he had actually bought it for himself – was a nice grid that showed him precisely that the anniversary of his father’s death was in a week. Right underneath this day. A normal planner would at least be polite enough to only show one week at a time, so Titch could ignore the date for a little while longer, but not this wall calendar. Next year, he’d ask Derek for one of those where you rip off a sheet every day. Then again, if it was still mushroom-themed, Derek would want to keep all of the pages, which would be a right mess.

In a week, it would be three years since his father had passed and Titch still felt himself dreading the day. He didn’t like being overly emotional – well, he didn’t like showing sadness. Derek had told him enough times that anger was also an emotion and he didn’t mind showing that. Who even needed a therapist with a boyfriend like that? The annoying thing was that the whole irrigation system had just been updated and was working fine now. Well, that wasn’t annoying at all, but it meant he couldn’t hand water plants for hours anymore until his fingers hurt from holding the watering can and he’d forget about his other problems. Derek wouldn’t let him. Now he was just sitting in his office, doing mostly admin again, with that terrible calendar looking over his shoulder, mocking his father’s death with a picture of a mushroom that Derek insisted wasn’t meant to be a phallus symbol and it couldn’t help that it looked like one. It felt unfair, other months had less offensive mushrooms.

James had fled, Titch thought. He went to New York a few days ago, taking Philip with him and having the time of his life, no doubt. Titch had some hypocritical opinions about James dating one of their employees, which he justified to himself with the fact that at least he and Derek were serious about each other. James wasn’t even really dating Philip, he insisted. They just… went on trips to New York for a month where they kissed romantically and from where Philip sent Derek unsavoury pictures of Titch’s brother. But they weren’t dating? Whatever.

Titch felt like he needed some kind of ritual to deal with his father’s death, but he wasn’t really someone who did rituals. Two years ago, he had gone to the grave to put some flowers on there, but it had felt incomplete. His whole relationship with his adoptive father had felt incomplete. Last year, he had brought over some aubergines, which seemed like a good plan when he thought of it, but was just weird while he was there. He had sat opposite of the grave for a while, had tried talking to his dad but it felt a little ridiculous so he had stopped. Father couldn’t hear it anyway. He wasn’t sure what to try this year. He needed some kind of closure. Father’s death had come so unexpectedly – at least to anyone but himself. He had been sick for quite some time but had refused to seek help, from doctors but also from his family. Titch and James only found out once he was already bedridden and only had a few more days to live. He had been a great example for Titch in so many aspects of his life and he just disappeared like that. Now only his diaries were left – well that, and his two sons, one of which kept the farm running.

Part of him wanted to drink, so he wouldn’t have to think about it, but it was morning and his temporary worker would arrive in about half an hour. He didn’t know anything about this person, which annoyed him to no end. He only knew they weren’t British, but that could still mean anything. They could be Irish or American, but they could also speak some language Titch had never even heard before. It made him nervous not to know. Now he couldn’t mentally prepare. At least the thoughts distracted him a little from his grief.

The temporary worker was a woman who didn’t know English, the job agency had told Titch at the last moment possible. She didn’t know English, but she was already on the way, so give it a chance. She’d be a hard worker. I’m sure she is, Titch thought, but will she know what work to do, if I can’t talk to her? Despite that, he was waiting for her in front of the farmhouse, hoping to at least welcome her. Maybe she knew a bit of English?

A short, heavyset lady with tan skin and long, dark hair entered his property on her old (maybe second-hand) bicycle. Titch watched in silence while she locked her crappy bike next to the three shiny cars – Titch’s Audi, James’ Range Rover and Derek’s Volkswagen – and walked over to him with a somewhat forced smile.

“’ello, I am Maria,” she said with a strong Italian accent.

Well, shit. Titch had had a little hope that she’d be German or maybe Spanish, because even if he wasn’t fluent, at least he knew some words in those languages. Derek knew a bit of French too, because he was a gay stereotype, but to his knowledge, nobody on the farm spoke Italian.

“I’m Titch,” he said, shaking her hand. “Were you sent by the job agency?”

“Si, l’agenzia.”

“Good, good… bueno…” Titch mumbled. He pointed at himself. “I-” he pointed at the farm buildings around him. “Will show you around.”

“Sei il capo?”

Titch nodded, having no idea what she asked.

“See the farm!” he said, slowly and loudly, and he pointed around again.

“Si?”

“See.” He didn’t feel like she understood him.

“I… work,” she said and mimed shovelling. Well, that was good, wasn’t it? In the end, Titch didn’t hire her to chat with anyway. She was hired to work in the greenhouses.

“Yes, come,” he said, leading her to the greenhouse. In his mind, he tried to think of good ways to explain the work to her. There were a lot of simple tasks to be done in caring for the plants, so he could just show her by doing those himself. For the tasks that demanded a little more precision… most of them came down to numbers on meters, so he could write those down. Surely, written numbers were the same in Italian?

On their way to the greenhouse, they passed the barn where Janae and his friends were busy building their robot. Titch poked his head inside.

“Hey boys, does any of you happen to speak Italian?” he asked.

“I can order a coke in Italian and ask for the bill?” Julian offered.

“Maybe Johnny does,” Janae suggested. “Because he’s so into Romeo and Juliet. What do you need Italian for?”

Titch shook his head. He doubted that Shakespeare would make Johnny study Italian.

“Nevermind, I’ll figure it out,” he said, stepping back outside. He turned to Maria and clumsily said: “barn,” pointing at the barn. She raised her eyebrows and seemed to quietly repeat the word to herself. He decided to just walk on to the greenhouse with her. This was no use.

Derek was at work in the greenhouse when Titch and Maria entered, which was nice. He might be able to help out. Derek turned around and smiled at her.

“Ah, you’re from the job agency, right? I’m Derek!”

“’ello, I am Maria,” she said again. She had clearly practiced that line.

“Welcome, Maria,” Derek said cheerfully. “Where are you from?”

She frowned at him and shook her head.

“Sorry… no English.”

Derek didn’t seem to panic about that, which Titch was quite impressed with. Instead he pointed at himself with a smile and said:

“England.” And then pointed at her. To Titch’s surprise, she smiled back and said:

“Italia.”

“Cool!” Derek said, putting up his thumb. “I went to Venice… ehm, Venezia.” He mimed a steering wheel to make clear he drove there.

“Me Sicilia.”

Titch raised his eyebrows. Wasn’t Sicily totally run by the mob? Maybe that was why she left? That wasn’t a super comforting thought.

“So… work,” he said. He knew Derek. At this rate, they could be talking all day and there was a lot to be done. Titch gave Maria a small tour through the greenhouse, giving very short and clunky explanations about the machinery and showing her how to perform some basic tasks. She picked them up quickly. The job agency had told him that she used to work at a vineyard back home and it was clear that she knew how to care for plants.

Titch let her get to work and leaned over to Derek.

“You’ll let her know when it’s break time and the end of the day and all that jazz, right?”

“Yes boss,” Derek answered. He hooked his hand around Titch’s arm before he left to pull him into a quick kiss, which made Titch smile despite himself. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

And with that, Titch walked back to the office. He’d love to stay and help out in the greenhouse, but there was just too much paperwork to be done. He would just have to accept the calendar in his vicinity.

A few hours later, his work was all but finished and he decided that this was a good time to have the drink he denied himself in the morning. He quickly shot Sam a text to see if he wanted to come over later and got himself a cold beer. Sam texted back:

• What’s for dinner?

Titch smiled. This man was feeling way too much at home on the farm.

• Probably spaghetti, Derek said he’d cook. How late will you be?
• Work till 6, so 7 ish

Seven meant he’d go home first, which meant he wouldn’t show up in his uniform, which sucked because he looked hot in his uniform. Titch asked about it.

• Gotta shower, pretty boy. You don’t wanna smell me now

That was probably fair, it was early July and it was quite hot out.

A little while later, Derek and Maria also entered the farmhouse. They were laughing, somehow. Well, it wasn’t that miraculous how they were laughing, but Titch was still impressed that they had apparently managed to communicate well enough to be laughing together. Derek pointed at Titch’s beer bottle and made a drinking motion at Maria. She nodded. Titch looked at his phone. It was after six, so he couldn’t really stop his boyfriend from offering their employee alcohol. Plus, the greenhouses tended to be pretty hot and humid in summer, so Titch was sure the two needed a cold drink, maybe even more than he did.

“Sam’s joining us for dinner. Do we have enough food?” Titch asked.

“Yeah, I always make way too much anyway,” Derek answered.

They had a full dinner table that night, since apparently Peter was also staying for dinner and Johnny had taken Priscilla home with him. Somehow, that didn’t bother Derek, who happily cooked for seven instead of four.

Having Sam over was a good distraction for the night, but the next morning, when Sam left early to get dressed for work and Derek disappeared into the greenhouse again, Titch was once again left alone in his office with the taunting mushroom calendar and now it was less than a week until his father’s death day. Without enough work to be fully distracted, he tried to think of ways to honour his father. Would he take Derek to the grave? Would he even go there? Or just do something his father had liked? What had he even liked, other than farming? Driving around on the tractor? Listening to music? He used to play records and CDs of old operas. He was into technology as well. Maybe Janae could drive his robot around on father’s grave… Or he could ask the boy to build a ghostmogram, to see if his father wanted to communicate. Then again, father had been a devout man. He was probably in heaven, not at the graveyard. Maybe I should just pray, Titch thought. He hadn’t done that in too long. Derek was a bad influence. A sweet and loving one though, so it was fine.

He felt a little clumsy, folding his hands and asking God for guidance for maybe the first time in half a year – probably even longer. He had been to church for Christmas and Easter, but it had felt like going through the motions, meeting people he didn’t see often enough, enjoying the atmosphere, but some good old one-on-one time with Jesus? That had been a while. He mumbled the words he wanted to say, hoping in the back of his mind that Janae wouldn’t walk in, because he didn’t feel like a discussion about religion right now.

He wasn’t sure if it was Godly intervention, or just some clarity in his mind after having taken a short break from work, but he decided to check up on Derek and Maria in the greenhouse. As he opened the door, her heard their voices through the sound of the machines that were at work. The closer he came, the more he realised that they weren’t talking, but singing together. And not just that, but Maria had an absolutely angelic voice too!

Derek had apparently taught her some sailor-song that she wasn’t singing quite right, lyrics-wise, but man, was it a joy to listen to nonetheless. Titch couldn’t help but smile. He listened for a bit, until Derek and Maria noticed him standing there and they stopped.

“Hi love, what’s up?”

“She sings so well!” Titch said, looking at Maria with something he hoped was an admiring expression. “I was just thinking about a way to honour my father.” His throat closed a bit as he said it and he tried not to let Derek know, but Derek knew, of course, and put his hand on Titch’s shoulder. “Do… do you think she knows any opera songs?”

“I don’t know,” Derek said. He took his phone out of his pocket and typed something which he showed Maria. Titch wanted to facepalm about his own stupidity. Translator apps? Was it really that simple? Of course it was. This was the age of technology!

Maria nodded and thought for a second before singing again. Titch wasn’t sure what opera it was from, but he was sure he had heard this aria before on his father’s records. That was perfect! He took out his own phone, opened a translator and wrote out his question, if she would want to sing that for his father’s death anniversary next week. He’d pay her, of course! She took her own phone in her hand and asked back:

• Why?
• Because he loved Italian opera. I want to honour him.

Maria smiled a warm smile.

• Family is important. I will do it.

Titch thanked her profusely before letting the two get back to work. He felt pounds lighter as he walked back into his office. The mushroom on the calendar looked like a fun guy again, instead of a menacing  dick. He quietly thanked the Lord. Maybe he should pray more. It had worked this time!

Six days later, Titch couldn’t hold back his tears as Maria sung to his father’s grave. It was beautiful – way better than Janae driving a robot over it. He felt Derek’s arm around him, who squeezed his shoulder in a comforting way. It was good. This was good.

Chapter Text

It was safe to say that meeting Derek had meant a turning point in Johnny's life. Coming from a family where masculinity was measured in goals and a lack of tears, Johnny had often wondered if he hadn't been born in the wrong body. Then again, when he had heard of gender transitions for the first time, the thought has horrified him. Surely, all of that wasn't needed, simply because he sooner got scared than angry? Because he'd rather hide away than fight a guy? Because his dreams sometimes upset him so much that he hardly dared sleep the next day?

His dad, his bio dad, had loved using femininity as an insult and masculinity as a compliment, even to mum. "That woman's got balls" was a good thing. "Man up" was yelled at everyone whose emotions inconvenienced dad. "You play like a girl" was usually aimed at Janae, who was afraid of the ball.

Getting out of that environment and living with Derek had been a much needed breath of fresh air. Yes, the man was what Titch liked to call "a gay stereotype", but nobody questioned his masculinity. He was allowed to be sensitive and kind and to call for help, but also to lift heavy things and put big spiders outside when Janae was unwilling to enter their bedroom after having spotted one. He drove a tractor, worked on a farm and cried about commercials with sad animals. It was possible! Johnny had never looked up to anyone in this way. He loved Titch too, of course, but not the way he loves Derek.

Which was why he was all the more surprised when it was Titch who, after everyone had sung him Happy Birthday, told Johnny he had a surprise for him - something even Derek didn't seem to know about.

Titch lead Johnny to the barn, followed by Derek, who seemed equally curious as him, and Janae, who showed about as much emotion as he usually did. He wasn't a very expressive person, but in this case Johnny felt like Janae probably knew what was going to happen. Then again, if the surprise was in the barn, that made sense because Janae and his friend basically lived there now, working on their robot.

Titch pointed at a large thing with a cloth over it.

"Here's your gift," he said. "My father gave me something very similar when I was your age, although an older model, and I thought it might be a good thing for us to bond over, when we... Well, maybe uncover it first."

He handed Johnny a tip of the cloth and told him to pull it off, which went a little less smooth than Titch had probably hoped for. Still, when the cloth was removed, Johnny's eyes went wide. It was a car. Not a very pretty car and very much not a new car, but still a car!

"So," Titch went on with his little speech, "when I turned 16, my father gave me a broken down car and helped me repair it. He was a man of few words, but working together  brought us closer together... By the time it was done, I was almost old enough to get my licence. And I know you like driving the tractor on our terrain, so... What do you think?"

"W...wow..." Johnny uttered, having no idea how to feel. "I hope I can do this... I'm not Janae, he's the technician here..."

Titch put his hand on Johnny's shoulder and gave it a little squeeze.

"We'll get there together and learn a lot in the process."

Johnny had to consciously remind himself to smile and thank Titch as he was feeling mostly overwhelmed by the gift.

"Isn't a car super expensive?" He asked. His parents would've never gotten him something like this. They usually got him football jerseys or books about football, or... a football... but not a car. Titch laughed.

"Don't worry about the money," he said. "This piece of scrap didn't make a dent in my wallet. Fixing it is gonna be way more expensive. But you boys have been working hard over the past year or so."

"Well, you let us live here," Johnny countered.

"Son," Titch said, with emphasis, "happy birthday, here is a crappy car for you. Having it towed will also be more expensive, so just accept the damn thing."

"Thanks, pop," Johnny finally relented. He hugged Titch. "It's an amazing present, I'm just not used to..."

"I can still trade it for some Man United merch if you want," Titch said with a wink.

"Please don't. I love this, I really do. Thank you so much!"

"When my robot is finished and the two of you need some help, let me know," Janae said. "But I really have to finish the robot first. Do you want to see it?" Without waiting for an answer, Johnny's younger brother turned around and walked over to one of the work benches, where the remote control was. He used it to steer his small fighter robot from the edge of the barn towards Johnny. "Look! It has a hammer and a saw." He showed off the weapons. "It needs a little more force behind the hammer though. It can dent aluminium now, but we have to assume that other teams use heavier metals than that."

As Janae kept infodumping about the robot, Johnny used the time to breathe deeply and take a good look at the car. Titch had done a great job finding one that not even Johnny was nervous about messing up. As far as Johnny could tell, the paint had chipped off, at least one of the wheels was flat, it was very dirty in general and he'd be surprised if the engine turned on at all. It looked like no matter what he and Titch would do to the car, it would be an improvement. Of course he could still hurt himself, but he didn't mind that as much as people often seemed to expect of him. Football was a very physical sport; he was used to getting hit with the ball or being kicked by an enthusiastic opponent. The more he calmed his nerves about having received such a huge gift from the man who had already given him so much, the more he felt excited about the project. Titch was right that it would be a great bonding experience! Knowing how Titch got when things didn't go his way, it would also be a cool opportunity to learn some new words, but oh well. It wouldn't be more stressful than being driven by Titch during rush hour, Johnny was sure, and he'd survived that multiple times so far.

Derek wrapped his arms around Johnny.

"Do you love it?" He asked.

Johnny nodded.

"Well, not yet," he laughed, "but I think fixing it will be a lot of fun. Did you know about this?"

Derek let go of Johnny and shook his head.

"Titch said he had a surprise for you and that I shouldn't worry about getting a gift, which of course I did anyway, but I'm really impressed. I didn't know he had it in him." He thought for a second and then smiled. "No actually, I did know. He's quite a gifty person when it comes to love languages. I just didn't expect him to give something that would cost him so much time as well."

It was true, Johnny realised. He had never thought about it before, but Titch had given some great gifts for birthdays and Christmas before. He has gotten Janae a membership to some obscure databank for his birthday and a globe with different coloured triangles for every active, dormant and extinct volcano for Christmas. Johnny had gotten a hot water bottle with a plush cover shaped like a dog, which was amazing to hold when his anxiety got bad. He couldn't really remember any gifts Derek had gotten, but knowing him, maybe those gifts weren't meant for his underage eyes anyway. 

Later that day, Priscilla, Inga and Hugh came over. The weather was nice so the four of them decided to take the bus to a nearby lake, stacking up on drinks and snacks first. Johnny suggested taking the dogs as well, because Rover and Max always enjoyed playing in the water, but Priscilla didn't feel like caring for them during a party and Hugh was kind of anti-dog as well, seeing that his best childhood friend got eaten by wolves when he was very young. The argument that Max, with his floppy ears and fluffy fur, didn't look like a wolf at all didn't seem to change Hugh's opinion. Also, he pointed out, Rover did look like a wolf, because he was pointy.

It was probably best not to take them anyway, Johnny thought when they laid their banket down on the lake shore, because every second he was watching the dogs, he wasn't looking at Priscilla in her bikini. And Priscilla in her bikini was definitely worth every second of his attention. The girls made sure to enjoy all the extra attention they were getting from their boyfriends and Johnny forgot about the existence of dogs within minutes. When he went for a swim, Priscilla followed him into the water, pressing a kiss onto his nose before swimming away as fast as she could.

"Try to catch up!" She challenged him.

She was in good shape for sure, but by no means as fast as Johnny, who trained multiple times a week. He got closer and grabbed her arm, pulling her against him. 

"Oh my god, you're so quick!" Priscilla giggled as Johnny kissed her neck.

"They didn't ask me to become a striker on the school team for no reason," he grinned. 

"I thought they just asked you for your pretty face," Priscilla teased.

"Tssk, I have a pretty body as well."

She agreed.

"I hope you don't mind we ate all the gummy bears?" Inga asked when the two came out of the lake again. "We wanted to see how many we could fit in our mouth and it turned out to be more than we initially thought. Hugh won." She smiled lazily and pointed at her boyfriend, who seemed a little unhappy about having won. He opened his mouth to show that most of the gummies were still in there.

"Gross," Priscilla commented and Johnny couldn't have worded it better.

Johnny told the others about the car he had gotten and Priscilla was immediately enthusiastic.

"Ohh, then I have a boyfriend who drives! That's so badass!" She exclaimed.

"You already have a boyfriend who drives!"

"Yeah, well, a tractor isn't the same as having your own car."

Hugh asked some questions about the specs that Johnny couldn't answer and Hugh then admitted he didn't really know what any of those things meant anyway. He had just heard the words on Discovery Channel at some point. Inga was upset for Johnny that he had to repair the car himself.

"I'd break all of my nails on that!" She complained. Instead of answering, Johnny just showed her his short nails.

"Can't grow them out anyway if I work the greenhouses on the weekends. That would get insanely dirty in no time."

"Yeah, can't have that." Priscilla wiggled her eyebrows at Inga and the girls started giggling.

"No but I'm really excited about it," Johnny said. "I think having a car is even cooler when I fixed it up myself!"

"We should go on a road trip across Great Britain when you're done!" Hugh suggested. "Visit London, Manchester... Eh, some other big cities..."

"And Stonehenge, and Loch Ness!" Johnny added. "Find the monster!"

"We could go to the places where they filmed Harry Potter!" Inga said.

"Or eat at every McDonalds and rank them!" Priscilla cheered, which was met with a lot more enthusiasm than the idea probably deserved.

Johnny's phone rang and he realised he had missed two calls before this one. It was his mum and for a second, he wondered why she was calling him before remembering it was his birthday. He excused himself and walked away from a his friends to take the call.

"Hello munchkin! Happy birthday!"

"Thanks mum," he said, feeling his energy drain from his body. He had been so excited just now, but talking to his bio parents, even his mum, put a damper on his mood immediately.

“Are you having a good day?” she asked.

“I am. I’m swimming with some friends and my girlfriend and this morning I-” he thought for a second but then decided not to tell her about the car. It felt like such a symbol of his and Titch’s father-son-relationship that he didn’t want to involve his bio-parents into it, not even by them just knowing about it. “-I got some nice gifts from Janae, Derek and Titch.”

“What did Janae give you?”

“He gave me a dream diary,” Johnny said. It’s really cute, light blue with fluffy clouds on it, Johnny didn’t say.

“Oh you boys and your obsession with dreams,” his mother laughed.

“By the way,” Johnny went on, not wanting to get into a discussion about dreams with his mum. She had no idea what his dreams were like – or Janae’s, for that matter. “I’ve been asked to join the school football team! I didn’t even have to try out. They needed a striker and I was their first choice!”

“That’s great munchkin!” Johnny heard some voices on the other side of the line and assumed his mum was telling his dad. And indeed, his dad was next on the phone.

“Hi son, happy birthday! School football team asked you? Of course they did,” his dad said. Johnny wasn’t quite sure if he was taking Johnny’s talent for granted, or didn’t believe him. “Of course, boy. And you turned them down?”

“No, I’m serious, dad. I’m joining the team.” He sort of wished he hadn’t talked about it. He just wanted to hang up and spend more time with his friends.

There was a silence on the other end of the line.

“What about Olympia?” dad asked.

“I’m still doing that too.” Johnny rolled his eyes.

“You’re gonna get injured if you train too much,” dad commented. “Does that school team even have a professional trainer?”

“One of the PE teachers.”

“Yes, I figured. Look, son, I get that it’s flattering to be asked but don’t do it, eh? If Ronaldo is asked by a school team, he isn’t gonna do it either.”

“Yeah… thanks, dad. I gotta go.”

Without really listening to his dad’s goodbye, Johnny broke the connection. He had already said yes. Olympia was fine, he was getting challenged, which was cool, but he just didn’t really connect with his teammates. Would Ronaldo care about that? Probably not. But he wasn’t Ronaldo. He didn’t even want to be a professional athlete. He had been thinking about studying psychology lately. For sure his dad would be happy to hear that, not.

Johnny put his phone away and started walking back to his friends. Priscilla was trying to catch popcorn with her mouth, with the added difficulty of the wind being quite strong and they were all laughing. Johnny’s mouth curled into a careful smile. He wasn’t going to let his parents ruin this day. And he was going to play with the school team. And in just two more years, he wouldn’t even have to worry about his parents wanting him to play for a good team at all anymore! He would have fixed up the car and be taking Priscilla around the country.

“Hugh! Throw me one!” he yelled and was promptly hit in the face with some popcorn. Today was way too good a day to be sad.

Chapter Text

It was quite annoying that there were things to do beyond building a robot. The fact that he got tired was an inconvenience, having to sleep took eight hours out of his day. He had to eat as well and while breakfast and lunch could be had quite quickly, his father figures insisted that he’d join them at the table for dinner. But the worst assault on his robot-building time had to be the fact that the academic year wasn’t quite over yet and his students were still waiting on him to grade their final papers. And they were long. And they were bad. Janae had already suggested once before that academic writing should be a course all students took in the first year, but it ‘didn’t fit into the curriculum’, which might well be true, but it meant that now he had to sit down and read a bunch of papers that lacked structure, punctuation, or in the best case a human touch. Many of his colleagues were upset over the rise of AI, but to Janae it mostly meant that some papers were now written marginally better. They were still boring.

Something else that had gotten in the way of him building his robot, was that there was now another team occupying the barn. When Titch had first brought the old car in for Johnny, Janae had been excited for his brother and had wanted to offer his help, but the more he saw them work, the more he just wanted to get out of the barn. Their teamwork seemed to consist of Titch yelling at the car a lot, which made Johnny a bit nervous at first, but after a while, he started joining in on the yelling. Johnny said that even if it didn’t help the car, it was a great way to get his frustrations out and feel a bit more confident. And all that was great for his brother, Janae though, but it meant the barn was an absolutely unliveable environment for him and even became a prohibited area for Julian once his mum got wind of the language used in there. In the end, Janae, Eve and Titch had worked out a schedule on who could use the barn at which times, so Janae could focus on his work again, Johnny and Titch could yell as much as they wanted and Julian could go back to learning swearwords from the internet, like a normal child.

A third problem, which ultimately resulted in Janae currently sitting at a desk at Oxford, was that Titch didn’t like anyone being in his office when he wasn’t in there. He trusted Janae, of course, but also not, and Janae couldn’t blame him. He didn’t like people being near his stuff either. So with the office at the farm being off limits when Titch was working on the car or in the greenhouses, and Janae spending most of Titch’s office time in the barn, he really didn’t have a good place in the farmhouse to get his academic work done. And that meant that maybe for the first time in his academic career, he was having to engage in small talk with his colleagues, as they entered and exited the small office they shared at the faculty.

“I’m gonna get coffee,” Cliff announced, rolling his desk chair back for the fourth or fifth time that afternoon. “Do you want anything?”

“No thanks,” Janae said.

“No? Tea? Hot chocolate?”

“I do drink coffee,” Janae said and he held up his water bottle, “but I’m fine for now.”

Cliff said something Janae didn’t pay attention to and then left the room, which gave Janae approximately three minutes to read another page. This was the final assignment he had given his students and he was almost halfway done grading them, which meant he had about 15 more to read and form an opinion on. The first half had taken him an entire week, with the papers being quite long and so badly written. Janae was a quick reader, but he was also used to skip over the bullshit, which in his profession sometimes meant he accidentally skipped half a paper and then had to go back to read it again. Just giving a student a failing grade because their paper was too uninteresting to read didn’t feel entirely fair. They were undergrads after all, so of course they didn’t have anything exciting to share.

Janae noticed his eyes had glazed over again once he heard the door open and Cliff came back in.

“They should install an AC here,” he complained at he put down his coffee. “Most of the building is nice and cool, but this office is burning hot!”

“They probably assume vulcanologists like it hot,” Janae joked and Cliff laughed.

“I’m not even a vulcanologist.”

“Neither am I,” Janae said, “but I doubt management knows the difference between a vulcanologist, a seismologist and a geologist.”

“It sounds like the beginning of a joke,” Cliff remarked. “A vulcanologist, a seismologist and a geologist walk into a bar… and then they do something funny. Say, are you even old enough to walk into a bar?”

“Only when accompanied by an adult.” Janae shrugged. “But that’s fine. I don’t like crowded places or alcohol.”

“How old are you, if I may ask?”

“Nine.”

Cliff raised his eyebrows up high as his jaw dropped.

“That’s younger than my boy! And he only just finished elementary school!”

Janae never really knew what to answer to a remark like that. Yeah, he was way ahead of other kids his age, he was quite aware of that. There was also no reason for him to get humble about it or say that his life was hard sometimes. Of course it was, but he didn’t want pity for being smart. So instead, he just shrugged again.

“This works for me,” he said and luckily, Cliff left it at that for now.

It was silent for a bit as Cliff sipped his coffee and worked on his computer, while Janae once again started reading the same paragraph on the printed paper in front of him.

Volcanology is very fascinating and very important for understanding volcanoes, such as Mount Etna’s most recent eruption, which occurred on June 2, 2025. In this eruption, the Southeast Crater experienced powerful Strombolian explosions that produced a large ash cloud rising to about 6,500 meters and intense pyroclastic flows and lava flows that descended toward the Valle del Bove but did not exceed it.

Janae sighed. Vulcanology is very important? You don’t say. Even if Janae didn’t expect more of this particular student, he did expect more of AI. Surely it knew that randomly mentioning the importance of a field of research in the middle of a paper made no sense? He sometimes wondered if people signed up for his courses because they were genuinely interested, or if they just wanted to know what that child-professor would be like.

“So, are you doing anything this summer?” Cliff asked. “Sorry that I keep interrupting, I just can’t focus with this heat.” He picked up a book and used it as a fan while waiting for Janae’s answer.

“It’s fine, I can’t focus with this quality of work.”

Cliff laughed.

“I always go a little easy on my students with their final assignment, so they can start summer feeling good about themselves.”

“Nobody deserves to feel good about this,” Janae said and then remembered the earlier question. “I’m building a robot this summer, for a competition in September.”

“Metal Battle?” Cliff asked.

“Yes, that one! Do you know it?”

“My son and his friend are competing too! They’re making a- oh, I shouldn’t tell you of course.”

“Are they making their robot from scratch as well? Or using a remote control car as a basis?”

“They’re doing almost everything themselves,” Cliff said enthusiastically. “My Chip is good with tools and his friend is high functioning, so Chip does most of the hardware and Thomas works on the software.” He smiled as his gaze slowly changed into a stare. “I wish his mum, my late wife, were here to see it.”

“Well, I’m really looking forward to September. I hope we can beat your son,” Janae said, before realising most people would probably offer some comforting words when someone was grieving. Oh well. Cliff showed him a watery smile.

“Let’s all just give it our best shot, eh?”

Janae tried to get a little more work done, but Cliff was right about the heat in the office and it was about time to catch the train if he wanted to join the family for dinner. He didn’t really want to join for dinner, but it was free and healthy food, so he’d endure the social side of it. In his mind, having talked to Cliff for about ten minutes was already enough interaction for one day, but the world seemed to disagree with him on that.

He took the pile of papers with him, hoping that he could maybe grade one or two more papers on the train ride home. His noise-cancelling headphones did a good job of drowning out the voices of the kids that were playing some kind of unfair game a few seats over (they were probably about Janae’s age, he reasoned, but they seemed much younger). An elderly lady sat down next to him and glanced at what he was doing, raising her eyebrows as she realised this young boy was not only reading, but marking university papers. She cleared her throat. Ugh…

“Working hard, I see?” she asked in a friendly tone, like she was playing along in some kind of make-belief.

“Yes,” Janae answered, because he was.

“That looks complicated!”

“It’s only undergrad stuff,” Janae said. “Quite rudimentary, to be fair. There’s very little math involved in this assignment too, it’s mostly about testing if the students know all the jargon they need to know. Well, most of them let AI write their assignments anyway, but that’s their problem, I’d say.”

She clearly wanted to answer, but was too perplexed to think of anything and decided to focus her attention on a book she had with her instead. Something about the power of manifestation. Janae suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.

Someone had copied and pasted part of the Wikipedia entry on Krakatoa into their paper, which Janae knew because he had edited that page. It was a good source, but apparently the student thought it wasn’t and had neglected to mention it was a quote. Plagiarism. Janae put a red line under it. He’d decide later if he would report it to the examination board or talk to the student himself. Right now, he was just happy to get through this pile. Another student somehow managed to call the Mid-Atlantic Ridge the “Mid-Atlantic Rim” for half of their paper, which was quite a spectacular mistake. Since when were rims in the middle of anything? And these were the people accepted into Oxford! Janae felt bad for the rest of society. How anything even managed to function at all was beyond him.

He rode the last part of the journey, from the train station to the farm, on his bike and put it next to the barn. His phone told him he was probably just in time for dinner and when he entered the farmhouse, he smelled that he was correct.

“Hi kid, how was your day?” Derek asked, while carrying plates to the table on the patio behind the farmhouse.

“long and boring,” Janae answered.

He brough his backpack to his bedroom and walked back downstairs. Titch stood at the barbecue, beer bottle in hand, as was apparently an obligation whenever it wasn’t raining. Johnny had a bottle as well. Janae frowned at it.

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Only if I buy it,” Johnny answered. “Titch gave me this one and I’m older than five, so technically…”

“Well, it’s not much worse than getting a football against your head,” Janae said. He wasn’t in the mood to argue, because arguing meant having to talk and getting all worked up.

“Are Julian and Peter coming over tonight?” Derek asked and Janae shook his head.

“Julian has swim practice and Peter… well, knowing Peter, he might show up anyway. I’d better text him.” He quickly did so, to make sure he wouldn’t have to entertain that personified bunch of ADHD. Maybe he would work on the robot a little more, but he would do so alone and in silence.

Chapter Text

Susan: Angie, look, I made you!

Derek smiled at the photo of a small crochet angel she sent him.

Derek: Ahw, Ditz, he’s so cute!

Susan: What are you up to?

Derek made a photo of what he saw in front of him: the living room with the tv on and his two lovely boyfriends doing their thing of yelling at it.

Derek: Wondering if conversion therapy would work on me. Love, why are men?

Susan: Conversion, like to not be gay?

Derek: Dating a woman sounds lovely rn.

Derek: Look at this!

Derek: Look at what I’m dealing with!

Derek: I have two hot men in my living room and they’re just arguing over how many wickets Ronaldo Messy ran at the last Olympic Wimbledon or whatever!

Susan: Isn’t Ronaldo a footballer?

Derek: I DON’T CARE! I also want to crochet an angel and for them to be like: oh, how cute, here let us drown you in kisses and hugs and stuff.

Susan: And stuff.

Derek: DITZ! But yeah, so boooooooooored.

Susan: Come to London!

Derek was about to write back about how he’d love to but… and then realised he didn’t really have a but. Sure, it was a bit late now and it felt weird to just up and leave, but he could easily go there tomorrow. Maria worked hard, Titch seemed to be itching to get his hands dirty again after so much admin work and Johnny was home a lot as well, now that summer break had officially started for him. He could just go for a spontaneous weekend in London.

Derek: I’ll ask the boss if I can get two days off. What are you doing this weekend?

Susan: ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ really??!!!!!! Brunch with Trace on Saturday, then pottery class and then… nothing! You can join me and Trace! And pottery!!!! That’s gonna be so funnnnnn!!!!

Derek smiled at his phone and then looked up. Should he ask now? The timer on the screen told him that it was almost the halftime break, so he held out for a couple more minutes until the commercials started, while mentally praising himself for being such a considerate boyfriend.

“Love?” he said to Titch, when Sam got up to get more beer. “Is it okay if I take two days off? Susan’s inviting me over to London.”

“When?” Titch asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“And Sunday?” Titch looked at the ceiling for a second before nodding. “Yeah, should be no problem. I’m gonna need you on Monday though, since Maria doesn’t drive the tractor. you’ll be back then, right?”

“Absolutely!” He leaned down to kiss Titch on the lips. “Thanks boss.”

“Mind if Sam is here while you’re gone?”

Derek shook his head.

“I’m actively fleeing you guys’ masculinity, so please have all of your shirtless beer barbeques and woodcutting competitions and whatever else men do this weekend, so I don’t have to witness it.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” Titch rolled his eyes. “And you’re also a man. You know what men do.”

“Crochet and collect small statues of smiling toadstools.” Derek winked. “You’re fine, love.”

“And you’re not going to find some…” Titch frowned as he tried to find a word and Derek waited patiently, trying not to show an evil smile. It was nice seeing Titch trying to be non-offensive. “… flamboyant-” he landed on and Derek kissed him again.

“I’m going to London to hang out with my friends. We’re gonna have brunch with Tracy and do pottery and knowing Susan, probably shop and watch bad romantic movies. You know, add some yin to my yang, feng my shui, get my chakras in order and stuff like that.”

“None of that made sense.”

“Nope. Love you,” Derek kissed him one more time on the cheek and went to sit on his chair again to text Susan he’d be coming over the next day while Titch mumbled “love you” back. He wasn’t too upset about Titch being suspicious, seeing that he didn’t like Tracy at all and honestly for good reasons. Tracy was definitely one of those friends you caught in college and never really seemed to get rid of. If Derek had met her last year, instead of over a decade ago, he probably wouldn’t like her either, but now they had a ton of good memories together and he just really enjoyed her company, even if she was, frankly, a bitch. And yeah, he had told Titch he was going to meet Susan, but Tracy lived in London as well. Titch was smart enough to reason he’d probably meet with her too.

Susan was very excited to have Derek over and told him he could stay in their spare room, that Stevie was okay with that and that she couldn’t wait for brunch tomorrow, to have mimosas and chat. It made Derek smile. Mimosa brunch, that was what being gay should be about! Not about yelling at football! That was for the straight men. Titch and Sam clearly hadn’t gotten the memo, because the second half started along with the second bottle of beer and Derek wondered if the dogs would like to go to the park for an evening stroll.

It could be a three-hour drive, Google Maps told Derek, but he decided to take it easy and leave at 7. Brunch was at 11, so he’d have plenty time to get into traffic or, best case scenario, stop for some horribly sweet coffee on the way, without Titch shooting him looks. He could get a frappuccino with whipped cream and little marshmallows and actually, yeah, he was going to do that. Especially if he had to drive in traffic, because what better way was there to creep forward every few seconds along with thousands of annoyed drivers than sipping something akin to a coffee milkshake while singing along to ABBA? Maybe singing along to Chappell Roan, Derek decided, as he scrolled through his Spotify playlist. The car behind him was getting impatiently close to his rear, because there was at least a two-car gap in front of him, which he could fill back up within seconds and he would have travelled a whopping ten yards. How exciting. The car behind him honked. The driver was an agitated guy in his early twenties and Derek had half a mind to make some kind of dirty joke at him about how he seemed eager to come so close to his back end… but that would mean getting out of the car and the car was quite comfy.

“GOOOOOOOD What have you done? You’re a Pink Pony girl, and you dance at the club…”

Someone else filled the gap in front of him from another lane and Derek rolled his eyes. This is why traffic jams exist, people, he wanted to yell, but nobody would hear it anyway. If everyone just patiently waited for their turn… He decided to get off at the next exit and avoid the motorway as much as he could. He had enough time anyway.

Parking on the outskirts of the city and taking public transport to avoid insane parking costs, he finally arrived at Susan and Stevie’s apartment. Susan greeted him enthusiastically, pulling him into a tight hug while yelling “ANGIE!” He yelled “DITZY!” back in a similar high-pitched voice. The three of them, Tracy, Susan and him, had recently texted about their old nicknames and how Angel was the only one that had really stuck, because it was a nice way to differentiate between Derek and Tracy’s Derek. But now that they had talked about it, Ditz and Queen had come back as well. There was little time for Derek to put his bag in the guest room and say hi to Stevie before Susan dragged him along to the lunchroom where they would have brunch.

“Did you tell Tracy you were coming?” Susan asked as they sat at their table, waiting for their fashionably late friend.

“No, I thought you would.”

“Oh, she’s gonna be so surprised!”

She was indeed, when she walked in about 15 minutes later, dressed like a supermodel – a severely underpaid one. She dropped her oversized sunglasses to the tip of her nose as she saw Derek and grinned, eyebrows high.

“Angel! What are you doing here?!”

“Fleeing from my boyfriends,” he answered, getting up to hug her.

“Ugh, men,” she sighed into his curly hair. “Are we doing mimosas?”

“Yess, and Nutella pancakes,” Derek made jazz hands and Tracy laughed.

“I should start working on a farm as well. Look at your body! You’re so hot, even though I’ve never seen you eat anything but sugar! And here I am, doing Pilates three times a week, eating salads-”

 “Well first of all,” Derek interrupted, “Titch usually cooks and he’s a health nut. And second of all: you drink. A lot. Well, that, and farm work is genuinely a great workout, that’s true. Also also, you only have a fat ass because of your bbl. Your waist is tiny, so shut up.”

Tracy rolled her eyes and sat down, dropping her fake Louis Vuitton handbag on the floor like the useless thing it was. She scanned the menu and sighed dramatically.

“Okay, you know what? Fuck it. Pancakes sound great. By the way, I just gotta complain for a second, okay? So, Derek – my Derek – is on a fishing trip this weekend, right? He took the car and drove off into the sunshine, and you know with who? Angus fucking Campbell. You know, that older Scottish guy I took home a couple of weeks ago! Literally, I saw him and was like ‘oh, muscular man, hot’, nothing else. But apparently, he and Derek bonded and now they’ve gone on a fishing trip together?? Like, how am I supposed to feel about that?”

“Love, that’s the dream, what are you on about?” Derek asked. “They like each other, you like both of them… that’s great!” It sounded pretty similar to his ‘problem’, to be fair. Dating a bunch of manly men and doing the surprised Pikachu face when they ended up doing manly things. But Derek didn’t really hate it, he just got bored because he had different hobbies. That was normal, right?

“No, but, like, Angus has this crazy strong accent I can hardly understand and he’s like 20 years older than me. He was meant to be a one night stand! Why is he still in my life? Can’t he just go back to Scotland??? I mean, he is in Scotland, but still in my life, somehow. I even know his last name! How fucked up is that?”

Okay, definitely a different problem, Derek thought, relieved. He wanted Sam in his life, including his Manchester accent and last name. It was nice, having a friend like Tracy. She always made him feel better about himself by just being the worst possible person. No, that wasn’t fair. There were definitely worse people out there, but she was incredibly selfish.

Instead of voicing any of that, Derek just nodded solemnly.

“It’s an actual crime that you have to deal with that.”

“Thank you! I knew you’d understand!”

They ordered their pancakes and mimosas. Susan talked a bit about Stevie’s theory that Tracy’s husband was actually gay, which Tracy very much disagreed with and she talked about her counterarguments in such detail that Derek looked around embarrassedly to see if any of the other guests at the lunchroom were listening in. Then Tracy suggested that it was just wishful thinking from Stevie’s side, to which Susan argued that Stevie was the most stereotypical straight man she’d ever met. Derek told her that Titch, James and Sam were all also the most stereotypical straight men he’d ever met and they were all dating guys.

“I’m so glad I’m here,” Derek said between two bites of pancake. “I love my boys, the kids and my boyfriends, but I really miss you bitches sometimes. I just need people in my life who complain that the foundation they bought is either not pale enough or not orange enough and Titch simply doesn’t do that.”

“Titch could use some foundation,” Tracy said.

“What, no?!” Derek exclaimed.

“Girl, his skin is so uneven!”

“Those are freckles! They are cute! I love them!”

It was nice to be able to blow off some steam. Back home, that was sometimes hard. He tried to be the best possible father to the boys, so yelling at them or being mean was out of the question. Titch didn’t take his bitchy side that well. There were times where they could bounce off each other, but more often than not, Titch just found something better to do when Derek was in a mood to be mean. Philip was good at it, but he was currently living the dream – or at least some kind of dream – in New York, so he wasn’t available to be fought with. Tracy was exactly the punching bag he needed.

A little later, they hugged each other good bye, with Tracy telling Derek he should come over more often and Derek asking for future updates on the situation with Angus. Tracy rolled her eyes and promised she’d let him know.

Pottery was harder than it looked, sort of. Trying it for the first time, Derek realised that it did actually look kind of hard, but he had still envisioned himself making a toadstool-shaped vase on his first try, instead of the asymmetrical lump that was threatening to launch itself off his pottery wheel if he didn’t do something quickly. Susan was giving well-meaning advice and ingenuine compliments while she tried not to laugh too hard at him.

“I can make you a mushroom, if you want,” she offered. “And then give it next time we see each other. Does that sound good?”

Derek nodded gratefully.

“Titch will love you for that,” he laughed. “He already thinks I have too many trinkets.”

“Well he shouldn’t have married a magpie then,” Susan said and Derek agreed, even though they weren’t married and magpies liked shiny stuff, not mushrooms per se.

Susan cooked that night and Stevie complained that the food was too spicy. Susan tried to explain that cilantro wasn’t spicy, Stevie said there was something else in there that made it spicy and Susan argued he managed to find ketchup spicy and if he was sure he wasn’t just confusing sour and spicy. There was lime in the dish, after all. When Derek asked if Stevie was maybe allergic to lime, since that sometimes made people perceive fruits as spicy, he got a confused look back.

“I’m not allergic to anything, it’s just spicy,” Stevie told him and Derek shrugged. Not his circus, not his monkeys.

There was another small argument about the telly, because Susan wanted to watch a movie with Derek, but Stevie wanted to see the eight-o-clock news, which, yeah, he could also watch on his tablet, but this was his ritual and couldn’t they just watch their movie half an hour later? Yes they could, so half an hour later, Stevie had retreated into the bedroom and Derek and Susan sat on the couch, looking for a sappy movie to watch and cry about.

“I wish it was winter,” Susan sighed. “We could watch a Hallmark movie and drink hot chocolate and get cozy under a blanket.”

“Now we can drink white wine and watch a Mama Mia,” Derek suggested and Susan squealed enthusiastically.

“And we can sing along to all the songs!” she added.

So that’s what they did, turning subtitles on to fill in the gaps in their knowledge of the lyrics of some ABBA songs. Getting a little tipsy off the wine and absolutely drunk on the good vibes, Derek danced across the room, singing his gay little heart out. It was a great night, until he checked his phone and saw he had a bunch of missed calls from Titch, along with a few texts asking him where he was and what he was doing. He sobered up immediately. Is something wrong with the boys? Was his first thought. Maybe Johnny had a bad panic attack. Maybe Janae got injured working on his robot. Maybe there was something with Sam or with Titch himself or James…

“Can you pause the movie for a second?” he asked Susan, before calling Titch back, who answered almost immediately. “What’s wrong, love?”

“Ehm…” Titch answered sheepishly. “Probably nothing… I was just wondering what you were doing?”

“What I’m doing?” Derek asked, irritated. “Thinking someone is dying is what I’m doing. Did you seriously call me four times just to ask me that? What did I say I’d be doing?”

“Watching a movie with Susan…” Titch said.

“Exactly. Here, open WhatsApp.” Derek took a photo of the television and the coffee table with their wine glasses and snacks and sent it to Titch. “Happy? Fucking hell, love. What are you doing then?”

“I spent most of the day with Johnny in the barn and the greenhouses,” Titch said.

“And…?”

“And Sam is here… but you said that was okay!”

“I did say that was okay, just like I said I’d have a girls weekend and watch a movie with Susan. So instead of wondering if I’m laying in the arms of another man, go lie in the arms of another man yourself, while I do exactly what I said I’d be doing, okay? And don’t give me heart attacks like this again, please. At least trust me that I’ll look at my phone every hour or two and answer your texts.”

“Sorry…” Titch mumbled, which melted away some of Derek’s annoyance. Titch wasn’t one to randomly apologise. “I’m just-”

“-a control freak,” Derek finished his sentence and Titch laughed a little.

“Yeah…”

“Susan asked me to paint her nails after the movie,” Derek said. “And we’re giggling about weird memories from our time in uni. I’ll text you good night and good morning and let you know when I’ll start driving home tomorrow, okay? Whatever happens in the meantime, please just trust that I’m being a silly bitch with my friends.”

“Okay…” Titch said and he paused for a moment and sighed, apparently deciding to say what was on his mind. “You’re not just there to complain about me, right?”

Derek rolled his eyes, even though Titch couldn’t see that.

“I haven’t said anything today that I haven’t also told you to your face, and most of it was positive. You’re worrying too much, love. I went here because I was bored, not because I hate you. But I do want to go on singing Mama Mia right now, so love you, say hi to Sam for me and good night.”

“Good night, sorry, I love you too,” Titch said. He was about to start another sentence with the word ‘but’, but Derek felt like he had done enough reassuring, so he pressed the red phone button and put his phone back into his pocket.

“Trouble in paradise?” Susan asked and Derek shook his head.

“Just Titch being Titch.” Derek stretched his arms above his head and turned his neck before looking at Susan again. “Movie?”

Chapter Text

“Love, can we talk?” Derek asked. Titch felt his jaw clench. He didn’t want to. Was that childish? Probably, but it’d be really nice if Derek could just ignore what had happened on Saturday night.

“About what?” He managed to ask. Please say something else…

“About you calling me four times because I didn’t answer a text within an hour.”

Titch didn’t really know what to answer, so he just kept silent, which apparently prompted Derek to talk more.

“It genuinely scared me. I thought someone here had had an accident or fell ill or something.”

Titch stayed silent.

“And then when it was just you being jealous, that kinda ruined the mood for me in London. I know people are jealous and I know you’re a control freak and that’s fine, usually… but, just one text would’ve been enough, all right?”

More silence. Just stop, I know…

“I’m not ignoring you, I’m just not looking at my phone and calling four times isn’t gonna make me look at my phone if it’s on silent. And if I am ignoring you, calling me more won’t help either, because then I’ll just not answer. Okay? So… please don’t do this again?”

“So no matter what I do, I won’t know if you’re ignoring me or just doing something else?” Titch asked. It was a dumb rebuttal, but he didn’t really want to think about all the other stuff Derek had said. He had just been nervous, that was all. He didn’t want to ruin Derek’s weekend, he just wanted to reassure himself. How came that everyone was allowed to ask for reassurance from Derek apart from him?

“Love, when have I ever ignored you?” Derek asked.

“Well, apparently, I cannot know!” Titch said, tossing up his hands. “Schrödinger’s ignorance, or whatever. Maybe you’re always ignoring me when you don’t answer your texts!” It all came out a lot angrier than he had wanted it to. Derek had this annoying habit of overexplaining things when Titch didn’t want to talk about them. He wasn’t stupid, just stubborn. But apparently, Derek didn’t understand that and thought talking to him like a child would help him open up. Generally, it had the opposite effect.

“What are you even on about?” Derek asked, now also raising his voice. “I’m not ignoring you, I wasn’t ignoring you this weekend. I was literally singing along to a musical. Did you even hear what I said? You made me think something was wrong for no reason!”

Titch rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I already said sorry on the phone,” he sighed. “What more do you want from me? Should I write you an apology letter? Sing you a fucking ukelele song?”

“Ukelele songs don’t have the best track records as apologies,” Derek said, his mouth twitching into a little smile before he went back into serious mode. “I just want to be able to talk about this like adults. I felt like you didn’t trust me this weekend and that hurt me and I want to be able to say that out loud without you yelling at me or being sarcastic.”

“Okay, well,” Titch said, not sure what would come next. He didn’t really want to say sorry again. Saying it once had been bad enough already, but Derek clearly wanted to hear it again. Derek never had trouble apologising. He was the kind of guy who’d apologise for being in someone’s way when they walked into him. And if that was his thing, fine, but he couldn’t expect everyone to want to humiliate themselves like that. “I didn’t mean to ruin your weekend,” he settled on. It was kind of what Derek wanted to hear and he said it in a soft tone that he hoped would convey ‘sorry’ without having to say the word. Derek seemed to agree with that, because he nodded and relaxed his face.

“So, will you please not call me multiple times again if I don’t pick up? Unless someone is actually dying, or the farm is on fire or something like that. Because that’s what I assume happened if you call me so often.”

“I’ll try,” Titch said. Derek spread his arms.

“Hug?” he asked and Titch pulled Derek into his arms, mostly just happy that the moment was over. “You know what?” Derek mumbled into Titch’s hair.

“Hm?”

“It’s way more fun when you’re angry with me, than the other way around,” Derek said and Titch chuckled. “You’re so hot when you’re angry.”

“You’re an annoying mom when you’re angry,” Titch answered.

“Sometimes you deserve an annoying mom,” Derek said

Chapter Text

Johnny wondered if slurs for cars could exist. They weren’t exactly a minority, right? But the way Titch kept yelling about how Johnny’s new car was a bale of scrap, or a heap of rust… they felt like slurs for sure. Johnny started to feel bad for his car.

Today was an especially sad day for the mental health of the car, because Titch had decided he’d be able to get a dent out of the body of the car by hitting it with a mallet somewhere else. And that would be super cool and chiropractor-like if he had actually been able to do it. Sady, Titch’s session with the car had only lead to more dents, until Johnny told him to stop and Titch directed a few more brand new swearwords towards the poor vehicle.

“We can still fix it,” Titch mumbled, when his frustrations had calmed down a little, and Johnny wasn’t sure if Titch had said it to make himself or Johnny feel better.

Even if working on the car with Titch was somewhat stressful and even if it was hot today and Janae was impatiently waiting in the door opening for his turn to work in the barn and things weren’t going the way they should… despite all that, Johnny couldn’t hold back a proud smile as he put the tools they had used today back in their intended place on the wall. They did make progress today. Johnny had managed to clean some parts of the engine, which now looked way better and was a little less dangerous to start. He also started to learn more car-related words and understood more about how the car functioned at all. Between the swearing and kicking the tires, Titch was actually a good teacher and he knew a lot about this technical stuff. And, now that he was 16, Titch was okay having a beer after a few hours of hard work. Even if Johnny wasn’t too keen on drinking alcohol after the disaster that had been the sleepover at Hugh’s, one beer didn’t hit him too hard and tasted pretty good in the summer heat. The whole thing made him feel very mature and manly, in a way. He absentmindedly wondered what his dad would think if he saw Johnny sitting here, in dirty jeans and an old T-shirt, oil smears on his arms and a cold beer bottle in his hand… it wasn’t football, but it was also very far removed from actively having a panic attack. Surely, that was a step in the right direction?

Dad had made some tasteless remarks before, during phone calls, about how he worried that living with a gay couple would rub off on Johnny, who was already a softie. Weirdly, he didn’t seem to have the same concerns about Janae, even though it was Johnny who still played football, was fixing a car and had a girlfriend. Even though Janae didn’t seem to care about girls or masculinity at all – or football, for that matter! But he cried less, so that probably made him straight.

“Are you all right?” Titch asked. Apparently, Johnny’s inner monologue was showing on his face.

“Dad thinks I’m gay,” Johnny blurted out, still half in thoughts.

“Derek?” Titch frowned, a little confused.

“No, I mean my bio dad,” Johnny clarified quickly, remembering that he did also call Derek dad.

“Your bio dad is an idiot,” Titch said. “What’s he basing it on? Did he find something while cleaning your old room?”

“No!” Johnny exclaimed defensively. “I don’t know what you mean, what he would find, but I don’t have any of that anyway!”

“Right…”

“No, he just thinks it because I’m so emotional…” Johnny sighed.

“Crying makes you fall in love with men,” Titch summarised sarcastically. “Does anger count as an emotion too? Because if so, nobody would be as gay as football hooligans. Well, football hooligans and me,” he added with an eyeroll.

“I don’t think anger counts,” Johnny said, “because dad is also often angry but not gay, of course.”

“I hardly ever cry,” Titch said. “I just drink a lot and yell when life is hard. I’ll go inform Derek that he is a woman.”

“Yeah… and I’ll text Priscilla that she’s a boy then.” Johnny smiled. “She has this weird inside joke with Inga that she’s actually a bald man with a beard. I don’t know where it came from, but maybe that’s why I love her. Maybe dad is right.”

“Probably,” Titch agreed, raising his beer. “Cheers to gayness then.”

“Cheers.”

Johnny took a swig from his bottle and took his phone out of his pocket. He wondered how Priscilla would react if he randomly told her she was a man. She probably wouldn’t want to hear the real explanation – she had seen him anxious or sad often enough, she didn’t need to be reminded of that surely – but it would be funny to see what she’d say. So he texted her and saw he had another text from a number he didn’t know. The notification started with “Hi, this is Andrew and Jimmy we were…” which sounded only slightly scammy, so Johnny decided to open the text.

• Hi, this is Andrew and Jimmy we were wondering if do you want to go out, like, get to know, hang out this weekend? Were also on the school football team, so that’s why.

Johnny had to read the text three times to understand what was going on, but decided that fellow footballers Andrew and Jimmy had probably tried to write a text together and wanted to meet him before they were on the team together. He kind of wanted to check if that was correct, but he didn’t want to insult these guys before he had ever met them. “Hey, did you mean to write this?” sounded a bit mean, right? So he just texted back:

• Sure, where and when? I’m free each night.

It didn’t take long for Andrew and/or Jimmy to reply.

• Arcade on Friday night? At 8?

Johnny texted back that that was great and then chuckled as he turned back to face Titch.

“Guess I got a date with two boys,” he joked.

“Like father, like son,” Titch answered. “Is Priscilla now two boys? I thought she was one man?”

Despite it obviously not being a date, Johnny did feel a little nervous getting ready to leave that Friday. He faced the impossible challenge of looking good, but casual, like he hadn’t put any thought into what he’d wear, but he already had put about half an hour of thought into it. With Pris, it was easier because she was quite vocal about which of his clothes she loved and which ones she hated. He’d usually wear black jeans, a colourful T-shirt and a zip up hoodie that she would steal at some point. But with these guys... he was probably overthinking it anyway. They were in the same school, so they had probably seen him before and knew what he looked like. Yeah, he wanted to make a good impression, especially because if he remembered correctly, they were both a year above him. Trusting in Priscilla’s sense of style, he opted to just wear his black jeans and a colourful T-shirt anyway and hoped he wouldn’t run into her and make her think he was on a date with someone else.

He shouldn’t have worried, he realised as soon as he reached the arcade and saw the two… well, frankly, nerds waiting for him. He vaguely remembered seeing them at school, but had never talked to them before. Jimmy was the tall Asian looking guy. He wore a T-shirt with a cheerful print, cargo jeans with a bunch of whimsy keychains dangling from the belt loops and Converse All Stars in two different colours. The way he stood, awkwardly putting his weight on one leg and not being quite sure what to do with the other leg, reminded Johnny of Janae a little – although Janae generally looked more confident. Andrew was about Johnny’s height, with a hair colour between blonde and ginger, glasses with a transparent frame, and an outfit that made Johnny think that his girlfriend had at some point told him that dark blue looked really good on him.

Johnny walked up to them and was immediately greeted enthusiastically by Jimmy, who waved with both hands.

“It’s our new star athlete!” Jimmy said and Johnny had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. Of course the only thing they knew about him was that he played football, but he was so done with being known as the football guy.

“Hi guys,” Johnny said. “Thanks for inviting me out.”

“Of course, we wanna get to know the new recruit,” Andrew said. His accent was vaguely familiar to Johnny, but he couldn’t quite place it.

“And we thought, why not the arcade, To see if you’re good at games,” Jimmy said. “Better than Andy, because you’ll beat me anyway.”

“You’re not that bad!” Andrew didn’t sound very convincing and Jimmy laughed awkwardly.

“Yes I am. I’m really clumsy.”

“So eh, are you good at football?” Johnny asked, low key hating himself for it. Yeah, football was the thing they had in common, but he felt so much like his dad asking this.

“Andy is,” Jimmy answered, pointing at Andrew for emphasis. “I’m, eh… there for the vibes.”

“Our in-team cheerleader,” Andrew added.

“Right…” Why is he on the team then? Johnny wondered, but tried to push that thought away, along with the other conclusion he had drawn upon seeing Jimmy’s clothes. Surely, if emotions didn’t make someone gay, neither did fashion? And good vibes were pretty important for an amateur team, of course.

As they went into the arcade and started playing some games, Jimmy proved that he was indeed pretty clumsy. He didn’t get half Andrew’s score on a shooting game, kept pressing the wrong buttons during a rhythm game and managed to fall off the fake motorbike in a racing game. He was very fun to be around though. He didn’t take himself too seriously and was genuinely happy for Johnny and Andrew when they were acing a game. Andrew was more competitive. He couldn’t stand having a low score, which only hyped Johnny up to try and beat him at every game. It was an environment he was used to, in a way. Competitiveness was something he knew. And even if Dance Dance Revolution wasn’t necessarily the coolest thing to be good at, he and Andrew were both very unwilling to lose. When Andrew finally gave up, Johnny noticed he was out of breath himself as well.

“Good game,” Johnny said, holding up his hand for a high five. Andrew squinted at it for a moment but then did give him the high five.

“Good game. You really are a pro athlete, aren’t you?”

“Not a pro,” Johnny answered while the three of them sauntered over to the bar to get drinks.

“I thought you played for Olympia?” Andrew asked.

“Yeah, for the club, but not as a pro.”

“But you have been scouted then!” Jimmy said. “You can’t just sign up for Olympia, right?”

Johnny shrugged.

“My uncle is one of the trainers, so getting scouted was easy… but I haven’t been kicked off the team, like my younger brother, so there’s that.” Uncle felt like a good enough term to use for James. He didn’t really feel like explaining his family situation.

While they sat and talked a little more about football, school and themselves, Johnny got out of the competitive vibe just enough to notice how incredibly loud and obnoxious the sounds and lights in the arcade were. As if the whole space was designed to overstimulate him. With the adrenaline of playing the games and making new friends, it had been fine, but now it quickly became too much. He noticed himself zoning out a little, to lessen the amount of stimuli. His therapist, Egbert, had been teaching him how to set his boundaries when it came to busy places and loud noises, but Johnny felt a little dumb telling these kids he had only just met that he couldn’t handle being in an arcade. So he didn’t and just became quiet himself.

“Are you okay?” Jimmy asked and Johnny tried to look alert and awake.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit tired I guess. I worked on the farm today.”

“Do you want to go home?” Andrew suggested. Johnny shook his head.

“No, I’m having fun, I promise!”

“Or maybe we could do something else,” Jimmy said. “It’s so loud here! My throat hurts because I’m screaming so much just to talk to you guys.”

Johnny breathed a sigh of relief when Andrew agreed and they went to change their tickets for prizes at the counter. Before Johnny could even begin to doubt if he would get laughed at for picking out the huge plush raccoon, Jimmy was already fawning over all of the cute toys there were and was over the moon when Andrew gave him a bunch of his tickets. So a little while later, all of them had a big stuffed animal under their arm as they were looking for a place that served ice cream this late in the evening. Once they found one, they ordered their ice cream, sat down at a table with four chairs and put the animals in the fourth chair, as if they were joining them. It felt very childish and Johnny hardly dared to admit to himself that he loved it.

“I could always say it’s for my girlfriend,” Johnny remarked, thinking out loud and pointing at the raccoon. “If someone is being a dick about it.”

“Or that they are mine and you are just kind carrying them. Do you have a girlfriend?” Jimmy asked.

“Yeah, Priscilla,” Johnny said, unable to hold back a smile when thinking of her. “What about you guys?” Do you have a boyfriend?

“Nopidee nope.” Jimmy shook his head. “I’m happy having good friends.”

“I had a girlfriend, but she broke up with me during that whole shitstorm two years ago,” Andrew said. “And now it’s just us… well, us and Jasper. And the rest of the football team is cool too, by the way, but not really friends-friends. They’re in different years too.”

“What happened two years ago?” Johnny asked.

“Stuff at home, don’t wanna go into it. But I moved here with my uncle, lashed out at school because of everything, got in-school-suspension which was psychological torture by fockin’ mister Nigel, for real, and my girlfriend back in Manchester was like ‘I don’t know who you are anymore’ and like, fuck, neither do I… so… well, now I have Jimmy to keep me cheerful and Jasper to keep me grounded, so it’s all right I guess.”

“Didn’t he want to come?” Johnny asked, unsure how else to react to this trauma dump than to just ignore most of it.

“They,” Jimmy corrected him. “And no, they said they’d rather read a book than meet a new person.”

“Fockin hell Jimmy, you could’ve said they just didn’t have time,” Andrew laughed, apparently shocked out of his depressing train of thoughts by Jimmy’s honesty.

“They did have time though!”

“But you’re making them sound like some kind of hermit nerd!”

“I mean…”

“Yeah, no, true… but they’re a cool hermit nerd.” Andrew turned to Johnny. “Jasper is really smart. They know a lot about biology and herbs and stuff.”

“They’re a witch!” Jimmy added.

Johnny just kinda nodded, not really sure how to react to all this. Either way, it was refreshing to hang out with these guys. At the very least, Johnny didn’t feel like he had to pretend to be cool or something, because both of them were so clearly… well, at least not conventionally cool. And they were so open about things that bothered them, without getting angry! Jimmy had said he didn’t like the sounds at the arcade and Andrew had immediately agreed to leave! Johnny thought about his friends, Hugh, Inga and of course Priscilla. They were so fun, but never quite this relaxed to be around. He felt like he could tell Andrew and Jimmy that he was feeling anxious or overstimulated and they would just know how to react to that in a helpful way. That feeling, and the fact that he had an ice cream and a big stuffed raccoon made this night pretty fucking great.