I hate writing from Adam's perspective. He's the only one who doesn't call Shiro Shiro.

"Let me get this straight."

"But neither of us are -"

"No, none of your jokes right now. I'm being serious. This kid stole your car… and you want to take him in?"

"It would only be for a few months. Once the school year starts he'll stay in the student barracks."

"And that's another thing. This kid is a criminal. Why are you pushing so hard for him to be accepted?"

Takashi sighed and leaned back in his chair. "You saw his sim scores. No one has ever done that great right off the back. He's a prodigy."

Adam nodded and set down his tea. "Maybe so, but -"

"And it's not just that." Takashi scowled at the ceiling and ran his hand through his hair. "You should have seen the look on the teacher's face when I asked about him. The way she talked about him - the way his social worker talked about him - no one believes in him, Adam. He's still in middle school and everyone's already written him off! Eventually he's going to give up on himself. If he hasn't already! He could go so far if someone would just give him a chance, I know it!"

Adam sighed and leaned across the table to take his boyfriend's hand. "I get it, Takashi, really. It's just… You're taking a big chance here."

"He's worth it. I promise."

Despite his doubts, the kid moved in two weeks later. Keith Oriol was, admittedly, not as bad as he'd been picturing. He was tiny, for one. Really tiny. And while he was scowling at Adam as Takashi introduced him, his large eyes and slightly chubby cheeks made it almost look more like a pout. He hardly looked like the criminal teen he'd been picturing.

Heck, he hardly looked twelve, let alone fourteen.

"Keith, this is my partner, Adam. He lives here, too. Adam, this is Keith."

"Hey."

"Hello, Takashi's told me a lot about you."

He saw the kid mouth Takashi , but said man was already turning him towards the bedroom they'd set up for him. Technically it was supposed to be Adam's, but he hadn't used it for anything more than storage in over a year.

"This will be your room," Takashi explained, opening the door. "The bathroom's right there and that's our bedroom," he added, gesturing to the other two doors in the small apartment.

The kid tilted his head and frowned. "You're not sharing because of me, right?"

"Uh, no, um…"

"Takashi and I are dating," Adam said blankly, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend's fussing.

"Oh, okay." The boy slipped into the room and glanced around.

They hadn't done much to it other than clean out their things and put fresh sheets on the bed. Takashi had considered getting a few decorations, but Adam had suggested letting Keith decide how he wanted the room to look. Other than the bed, there was just a closet and a desk with a built in computer that had come with the apartment.

"It's not much. I figured we could go out and you could pick out some things to liven it up tomorrow," Takashi said.

"Maybe some clothes too," Adam added quietly, eyeing the small backpack the boy carried, the only thing he'd brought with him from the group home.

The boy must have somehow heard him because he shot him another glare and Takashi quickly intervened. "Yes, some new clothes for a fresh start!"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," the boy huffed, turning away.

Adam turned to Takashi, who gave him an appeasing look.

"We'll just let you get settled," Takashi said before closing the door. "Go easy on him."

"I'm trying, but he isn't making it easy."

"He's been in the system half his life, never staying anywhere for more than six months. Going through all that, it does things to kids. He's grown wary of… everything, really."

Adam wouldn't know. His parents were estranged, not dead. Takashi would have a better idea, even if he was older than Keith was now when he entered the system.

"Just give him time."

Adam thought about the kid's pouting glare and little bag that could hold all his worldly possessions.

Okay, maybe he was starting to see why Takashi had taken an interest.

"Alright."

"He punched a - You punched another student," Adam groaned.

"He was a dick!"

"Language," Takashi scolded.

"I don't care if he was a dick!" Adam said, setting his hands on his hips. "You can't just punch people."

"Adam, language," Takashi hissed, waving at Keith.

"No one cares about our guttermouths right now, Takashi. I'll teach him to curse in Hindi later."

"That's not the problem!"

"No, the problem is that your son is assaulting his fellow students! We need to discipline him!"

Keith gaped at him while Takashi started blushing. "Wha- He's not my -"

"I'm not his -"

Adam rolled his eyes and pointed at Keith. "You're grounded."

"What!?"

"If Takashi isn't going to punish you, I'll have to. And clearly he's not. In fact, where have you two been all day?"

Keith crossed his arms and scowled at the ground.

Takshi flinched and shuffled in place.

Adam's eyes narrowed. "You were out on the hovercycles, weren't you?"

"Adam -"

"He gets in trouble and y-" Adam shook his head. He focused back on Keith. "Did you guys eat?"

"Yes."

"Then straight to bed."

"Curfew isn't until -"

"Bed. We'll discuss the terms of your grounding tomorrow."

Keith growled - and Adam was sure he'd never get used to how inhuman that sounded - and turned to Takashi.

Adam turned to his boyfriend as well.

The man looked between the two before setting his hand on Keith's shoulder. "Go on. We'll talk tomorrow."

Keith's jaw dropped before he gave Takashi a betrayed look and disappeared into his room.

"He punched a kid and you took him out on the hovercycles," Adam hissed quietly as soon as the door was shut.

"I had a point to it."

"Oh really. And what was that?"

"He needed to learn patience, and I think I got through to him."

"And how did you do that?"

Takashi fidgeted. "I drove off a cliff."

"TAKASHI!"

"I'm fine. I had everything under control. I've done that maneuver hundreds of times."

"Our son is going to grow up to be a maniac," Adam bemoaned, walking over to collapse onto the couch. He only caught a quick glimpse of Takashi's red face before he buried his own in his hands.

"He's not our kid."

"Takashi, you adopted him."

"Technically the Garrison has legal custody. I've just been granted partial custody so he has someone acting in loco parentis."

He considered dropping it, but then he remembered both of their faces when he'd said it. A little teasing was exactly what they deserved. Especially considering how true it was. "You adopted him."

"I'm twenty-two, Adam. I'm not old enough to be a father."

"I'm the same age, Takashi, and I'm pretty sure we both agreed that we didn't want kids. Yet here we are, with our son in the next room."

"He's not -"

"Why is he here anyways?" Adam cut in before it could become repetitive. "Shouldn't he be in his barrack."

"His roommate is the one he punched."

"Griffin, right?" Adam asked. He didn't have the boy in any of his classes yet, but he'd heard good things. He was supposedly smart and a teacher's pet, if a bit prideful.

"Yeah."

"Keith said he was being a dick?"

Takashi frowned, but nodded. "He made a jab at Keith. He admitted it when asked, but neither of them will say what he said. He's getting punished for bullying and had to give an apology, but considering Keith escalated it into a full-blown fight, he's being let off easy. Command didn't like the idea of them sharing a confined space without supervision, though, so Keith's going to stay here for the weekend to give them time to cool off. They didn't say it, but I'm pretty sure they expect him to stay inside the whole time, only leaving for his detentions and the extra drills Iverson assigned their class."

"Iverson assigned their entire class drills because the two of them got into a fight?" Adam finally looked up, confused. Iverson could be a jerk, but why would he assign drills for something unrelated to the class.

"No, Keith… went a little rogue in the group sim." At Adam's look, he hastily added, "In his defense, I think we all did that at least once during basics."

"Speak for yourself, Takashi."

"What are we going to do for Keith's birthday?"

Takashi looked up from the game he was playing with a frown. "What?"

"Keith's birthday. We are going to do something, right?"

"Oh, yeah, but it's still not for another…"

Adam raised an eyebrow as the pause dragged on. "Today's the sixteenth."

"I know that."

Adam waited a moment, then asked, "Takashi, you do remember our son's birthdate, correct?"

"He's not our son."

"But you did forget."

"… Is it the thirtieth?"

"You are a horrible father."

Keith frowned as he stared at the bouquet sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. "Why -"

"You're father is terrible at remembering important dates, including, apparently, our anniversary."

"He's not my father. And remembering dates is hard."

"I had to remind him about your birthday."

Keith proceeded to question the legitimacy of Takashi's birth in near perfect hindi.

"At least tell me you know when your birthday is," Keith sniggered from his spot on the kitchen counter as Adam unwrapped his (belated) birthday present.

Takashi rolled his eyes. "Yes, Keith. We celebrated it, didn't we?"

"So…"

"The twenty-eighth of February, smart aleck."

"That is a blatant lie and you know it," Adam scoffed, pulling out his new watch. "His birthday is the twenty-ninth. And get off the counter."

Takashi sent him a betrayed look that Adam met with a blank face. He deserved any ridicule the kid gives him. It was almost a week after Adam's birthday, after all.

"There's no such thing."

Both adults turned to the teenager, who was frowning at them.

"What?" Takashi asked.

"There's only twenty-eight days in february."

The three stared at each other for a few minutes.

"Keith, my son, you're fifteen years old. How do you not know what a leap year is?"

"I'm not your son!"

"And did I not just tell you to get off the counter?"

"Lt. Wrona, your kid's in the instructors' lounge."

"I'm not his kid!"

Adam sighed and set down the coursework he was looking over. "Where's Lt. Shirogane?"

"The kid's got a soda."

"On my way."

Hanging up the phone, Adam rubbed at the bridge of his nose before heading to the lounge. When he got there, Keith was sitting on the couch, sipping at one of the sodas they may or may not have kept hidden in the fridge depending on the rank of the person asking. PO3 Fierro was staring down at him with annoyance, but turned to Adam when he approached.

"I found him like this. He's lucky I'm the only one that saw him."

"Dos Santos saw me, he just didn't care," Keith muttered before taking another drink.

"Thank you. I'll deal with it."

She nodded, sent Keith another annoyed look, then left.

"Veronica's not even an instructor. I have as much right to come in here and drink the contraband as she does," Keith pointed out.

"I'm not a cadet, so no you don't," she snorted, peaking back inside. "Just because you're Shirogane and Wrona's kid doesn't give you an edge. You don't see me sneaking my brother in here when I'm on base, do you?"

"I'm not their kid!" Keith shouted as she disappeared again. He glared at Adam. "I hate you for spreading that around."

"Don't speak to your father that way." Fury filled Keith's face, but Adam carried on before he could act on it. "Who told you about the soda? Takashi?"

"I think we both know that if Shiro knew about the soda it wouldn't last nearly as long."

Good. Adam had worked hard to keep that off of Takashi's radar. An overabundance of caffeine dulls the effects of his electro-stimulators. He was just lucky Takashi hated the taste of both coffee and tea.

"No, it was that mouthy pilot. I heard him complaining about how his sister wouldn't sneak him one, whoever she is."

"You just met her."

Keith frowned. "Veronica is mouthy's sister?"

"His name is Lance, Keith. You've been in the same class all year. Honestly, have you learned any of your fellow students' names?"

"James," Keith snapped immediatly.

"You two are roommates and detention buddies. I'd be worried if you didn't know his name. Do you know anyone else?"

"… Lance?"

"Where did we go wrong with you?"

Adam narrowed his eyes as he heard Keith mutter something into his drink.

"I didn't teach you that so you could use it against me."

Adam double checked the detention listing as he neared the room and was grateful to see that it still listed only Fierro and Apamemea. He disliked detention duty, but those two could at least be counted on to remain seated and quiet as long as they were placed next to each other and allowed to whisper while they worked on homework. Maybe he could get some of his own work done during the hour.

That idea went out the window when he opened the door to see Keith and Griffin glaring at each other from opposite sides of the room.

"What are you two doing here? You don't have detention."

"Lt. Shirogane told us we had to come, sir," Griffin said, immediately straightening up.

"Why?"

"Shiro caught us fighting," Keith said, doing the opposite and slumping against the wall.

"You don't look like you were fighting."

"He stopped it before it got physical, sir."

"You shoved me! How is that not being physical?"

Adam sighed and moved over to the instructor's desk as Griffin sent Keith a quick scowl before returning to attention.

"The full story." Keith opened his mouth and Adam quickly added, "Griffin, you first."

"Yessir. We had our group sim final today and during practice Oriol started messing around again. I was just warning him not to screw up the final for the rest of us, but then he said something in a language I didn't understand. I assumed since Lt. Shirogane mentors him, that he had said something in Japanese."

"Does Shiro even know Japanese?" Keith scoffed.

"Some, but not much. He only really uses it during the yearly call to his aunts in Japan," Adam answered. "He wouldn't be able to teach you anything you'd want to know, though."

"I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know how to curse in English," Keith snickered.

Adam rolled his eyes and gestured Griffin to continue. Honestly, Takashi had just as big a guttermouth as Keith. He didn't understand how his boyfriend had managed not to curse in front of the kid during the entire time he'd known him.

"Right, as I was saying, I assumed it was Japanese so I told him I didn't know the language. And then he -"

"He also called me an idiot."

"You are an idiot. You get it from you father. Continue, Griffin."

Both boys' jaws dropped before Keith's face screwed up in anger. "He's not my father!"

"Griffin."

The other boy was biting his lip, clearly trying to hold in laughter. He quickly tried to compose himself and cleared his throat. "S-so, um," he breathed, laughter still in his voice.

"I swear, James, if you say one word about this, I will -"

"Keith, don't threaten your classmate. Griffin, if you would."

"Yessir, sorry. After that Keith yelled about how it was Hindi, not Japanse and that I was a… Well, the last part is too crude to -"

"I called him a dumbass."

"Keith," Adam groaned. "The reason I taught you to curse in Hindi was so that you wouldn't curse in a language everyone around you knows."

"Well, he wasn't getting it when I said it in Hindi," Keith muttered, slouching down more.

"You taught him Hindi?" James asked, not hearing the other boy.

"Only curse words. He doesn't have the patience for anything else."

"HEY!" Keith shouted as Griffin snickered.

"Now what happened after that."

Griffin immediately went quiet.

"That's when Shiro got there. He heard me yell and was coming over to tell us off, but James must not have seen him because that's when he decided to shove me."

"You were in my face, I was just pushing you back!"

"So he sent you to me to deal with," Adam tutted.

Keith shrugged. "Pretty much."

"He said that as long as we behaved during the final, he'd let us off with just a week's detention. He wouldn't even write us up."

"Which is probably a good thing," Adam snorted. "I don't even want to know how many times you both have been written up for fighting."

"He's the one that always starts it!"

"Maybe if you didn't have to act like a screw up all the time! And how many times have you punched me?"

"You deserved every punch."

"That's enough. You two are going to sit down and behave or I will write you up in Lt. Shirogane's place, understand?"

"Yessir."

"Yeah."

"Good. Then sit."

Both boys drift over to seats. Griffin at a desk just in front of the instructor's and Keith making a break for the back of the room.

"Keith," Adam calls before he gets too far. Once he's got his attention, he points at the desk directly to Griffin's right. "Sit.

"But -"

"Sit. You two need to learn how to be within three feet of one another without fighting."

Keith scowled and stomped over to the desk. As he dropped onto the chair, he cursed at him in Hindi and Adam responded in kind.

A moment later the door slid open to admit Fierro and Apamemea and Adam turned to them to check if they had work to do. Apamemea didn't, but he'd brought a book on cooking techniques to keep himself occupied.

"Daddy's bo-tssssss!"

Adam turned back to Keith and Griffin to see them apparently concentrating on their tablets, though Griffin's right hand was twitching towards his calf.

"Oh great, Keith's here!" Fierro moaned.

"Who are you again?"

"Hey Keith -"

"I'm not in the mood."

Adam turned a corner to see Griffin and Keith standing outside a classroom. Keith was staring at the opposite wall with a blank face while Griffin was giving him a considering - almost concerned - look.

"Shouldn't you be in class?" Adam said and the two boys jumped and spun to face him.

"Yessir. Sorry, sir," Griffin spluttered before ducking through the open doorway.

"Keith."

"Are-are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you su-"

"Did he send you?"

"No. He told me that I should stay out of it."

"Then you should listen to him. It's the only good idea he's had in awhile," Adam said pushing on past the kid towards his own classroom.

"I -"

"Class, Oriol."