Author's Note: Thank you all for the support this story has received thus far! I'm hoping to update on a weekly basis throughout the summer, but we'll see how that pairs with my poor work ethic. Please enjoy the chapter and leave a review! It'll keep me typing. ;)

Barked commands crashed against his ears as the night swallowed him whole.

Do your goddamned job.

He plundered through a wasteland of dead thoughts and dreams. Pain rained from the sky, and he would've done anything to stop it—to have a last fleeting snippet of serenity. He could've stopped it. He had stopped it.

"Francis."

Resist. Please, resist.

"Let me… Take him home."

"Hey, everything's all right, my frog."

"He's just a child."

"Hush now."

He bolted upright, flinging his arms forward as if to catch something. Lithe fingers inched up his skin and came to rest on his cheek, easing his hammering heart. The thermostat was set too high—too hot.

"A nightmare?" Arthur asked while continuing to pet his cheek. There was an underlying taunt in his tone, and Francis ignored the flush crawling up his face from humiliation. Normally, the twins were the ones in need of such comforting.

He cleared his throat and flipped over onto his side, doing his best to pretend nothing had happened. "I'm fine."

"Don't be a child. Tell me what's been on your mind. Communication is key to any relationship, remember?" Arthur badgered him, sowing fond touches along his back. "You've been keeping things to yourself lately. It's not like you. You were granted the gift of gab, so you may as well put it to good use."

Francis yanked the sheets closer to his side of the bed and let his eyes slip to a close. "I told you I'm not ready to discuss it."

"This is about work again? I told you that you mustn't bother yourself with such rubbish. You did what you thought was right, and that's all that matters. Sod the people who thought otherwise."

"You don't understand."

"Explain it to me, then."

"There's a reason I don't tell you certain things, Arthur."

"And why's that?"

"Because you're so quick to jump to conclusions," Francis remarked, waiting for the backlash he was surely going to receive. He knew better than to play tag with Arthur's temper.

Much to his surprise, however, Arthur didn't seem eager for a round of sparring. He only brought his hands back to his sides and muttered, "If that's the way you feel…"

Francis rubbed his palm against his forehead and wrinkled his nose. "It's not. I'm sorry—my poor sleeping habits are getting to me. It has nothing to do with you."

"I'm going to step outside for a minute."

He raised his eyes to look at the clock on the nightstand and scowled. "Mon dieu,Arthur. It's four in the morning."

"And?"

They didn't need another spark to set them off again, so Francis merely shook his head and returned to his slumber. "Don't wake the boys," he added.

"Climate. C-L-I-M-A-T-E."

"Correct! Take a shot!"

Matthew picked up the plush toy designed to resemble a basketball and aimed it for the bin at the head of the classroom, pensive and poised. A flick of the wrist and the ball made its target, rolling into their makeshift 'basket' and causing one side of the class to burst with applause.

"That's another point for the red team."

"Great job, Matt!" one of the students praised, slapping him on the back.

"All right. The next word is—"

"Mr. Kirkland."

Arthur set the workbook of vocabulary words aside, furrowing at the intruder. Was he ever going to be given the opportunity to actually teach? Dismissal was only an hour away.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Yao. Class, what do we say?"

"Good afternoon!" the children greeted in unison, jittery with excitement. Clearly, they were impatient to get back to their activity.

Yao nodded his head at the students and glued a smile onto his face. "Hello, everyone! What's going on here?"

"Oh, just a friendly round of spelling-basketball. We're reviewing for our exam on Thursday," Arthur jumped to explain, motioning to the points they'd tallied up on the chalkboard. The winning team would earn an extra five points on their tests as well as a piece of chocolate.

Yao's brow twitched in distress. "How nice. Could I have a few words with you later today?"

"Certainly," Arthur said, as pleasant as ever. He wasn't going to make a scene in front of his students, and though Yao look as if he wanted to say more, he let the issue drop for the time being. And then, it was back to their gripping game.

He thought nothing of the request, seeing as Yao usually had a bone to pick with him. They'd quarrel over the matter for a good thirty minutes and then go about their lives, generally unscathed. Thus, it wasn't troubling news in the least, until Alfred gave him a disgruntled look after the final bell rang.

"Dad," he whined, stomping one foot in protest once all of the other children had left the room.

"I know you're upset that you have to wait outside of the office for me, lad. I'll only be a minute, I promise," Arthur soothed, hating the rancid guilt in his stomach. He led the twins out of the classroom and down the hall, uttering multiple apologies. The two boys occupied a pair of seats next to the school's secretary, and after a stern instruction to behave themselves, Arthur ventured toward the principal's door.

Someone appeared to be inside, so he stood off to the side and checked his watch during the wait, wondering what Francis had prepared for dinner.

"I don't want some faggot teaching my son!"

All of the movement in the office reached a pause, and several pairs of eyes turned toward the scene.

Arthur tensed, slack jawed and bewildered as a middle-aged man stormed out of Yao's office. He caught the angry parent's eyes and steeled himself, lungs constricting at the outburst. He waited for anything—a string of violent curses, a punch in the face—but the man only directed a murderous glare at him before departing.

"Dad?"

His throat was suddenly very dry and when he turned to address Alfred, he realized his mouth was too numb to configure any words.

"Daddy? Are you okay?" the boy was just as frazzled as he was, gawking at him with large, blue eyes.

Matthew looked much the same, hanging onto every inhale of breath.

He hadn't been prepared for that.

"Arthur? You can come in now."

Although his mind struggled to register proper thoughts, he was soon standing in front of Yao, gaze petrified and cold. "Yes?"

It was a brief conversation, from what he remembered. There were not-so-fervent apologies on Yao's end as he released the atomic bomb, killing all dissent. This was the end, and they knew it. He was brushing the finish-line with the tips of his fingers.

"I'm going to have to let you go."

He had claimed it was because of the bickering over the curriculum, but Arthur knew better. The reason he was fired had been clear from the very start.

"I deeply regret that things had to come to this," Yao droned, rearranging the pens on his desk. His general disinterest in the situation added insult to injury. "You will be missed."

For a long moment, he couldn't move. His legs were steel support beams drilled into the floor, unwilling to walk away and spare what dignity he had left.

Don't give him the satisfaction of seeing the look of disappointment on your face.

Arthur swept out of the room and slammed the door behind him, nearly snapping it off of its hinges. He yanked the twins out of their chairs and led them down the hallway, unable to vent the anger boiling through his veins.

"Daddy, slow down!" Alfred cried as they made a prompt exit. The fear in his voice was unmistakable.

"Arthur? Is everything all right?"

He pursed his lips at Gilbert as they passed him, and his fellow colleague seemed to get the hint because meandered back into his own classroom, silent and downtrodden. He did, however, creep out of the room a second later to say, "Take care of yourself."

The car ride home left the atmosphere nothing short of caustic, and Arthur went through four cigarettes by the time they reached the driveway once more. Ringlets of smoke occasionally found their way to the backseats, and the twins turned up their noses at the smell. Neither boy dared to speak, so they exited the car in haste, taking refuge in the foyer.

Loneliness had seemed beautiful then.

Arthur rested his head against the steering wheel, keys dangling from his limp hand as he agonized over the situation. Francis was going to kill him. He couldn't show his face anymore. It was his turn to sleep on the couch.

One minute of wallowing soon became ten, and that was when Francis's concern overtook his frustration. The man carefully made his way over to the car with worry glittering in his eyes. He knocked his fingers gently against the window on the driver's side, full of unspoken sympathy.

"Mon chou."

"Not now… Please, not now."

"Oh, open the door, Arthur. I can't leave the boys unsupervised in the house for too long."

Obediently, Arthur unlocked the car, and Francis was upon him within seconds, carding a hand through his hair and whispering sweet nothings into his ear. Funny, he'd done exactly the same thing for Francis over the past two months.

"I heard what happened."

"Alfred told you?"

"Who else? He's my informer, isn't he? We should have him work as a government agent someday."

Arthur slumped his shoulders and tightened his fingers around the wheel until his knuckles were white. He'd done it now. They went from two stable paychecks to no source of income in a matter of nine weeks. "We have to sell the house."

"Don't say that. We'll cross that bridge later. We're okay for now." Francis eased, kneading his shoulders. "Besides, we can talk about this tomorrow. Until then, you need a good cup of tea and an evening with someone who'll take good care of you—and I know just who's ready for the job."

"Matthew?" Arthur mocked with a miserable grunt.

"I'm glad to see you have enough resolve to be sarcastic," Francis commended with a roll of the eyes. He tapped the other man's shoulder softly and urged him to stand. "Come, sitting around here isn't going to fix anything… How do you think they found out?"

"Our informer let the secret slip, I'm sure. I'm willing to bet he harmlessly told someone he has two fathers."

"We can file a lawsuit for this, you know."

Arthur scoffed and finally rose to his feet. "It's suburban Pennsylvania, Francis. Things like this happen all the time with no repercussions. It's technically legal."

"We'll move to a more liberal state, then. I've always wanted to visit California."

"Woe is me."

"Or Massachusetts. Boston is nice, don't you think? There's also Chicago, New York—it's your choice, really. I'm not picky."

"How about we focus on that tea first?"

Francis hummed in approval and swung the front door open. "We'll find a solution. It'll just take a little more patience."

"You know that's a challenge for me," Arthur griped, dragging himself into the kitchen with a long groan.

"Well, it's a good thing you still have your cigarettes to cling to. You're going to need them."

Sometimes unspeakable things happened, and it wasn't good to talk about them—Alfred knew this much. So, he didn't talk about the day Daddy lost his job. He pushed away the memories like foul cough syrup and didn't linger on them. He whitewashed the words and went to school with a cheery smile duct-taped to his face.

He paid no mind to his new teacher—didn't even bother to catch her name on the first day. He wanted to tell her that Daddy was better at giving definitions to adjectives, but he was so heavy and tired that it didn't seem to matter anymore.

And when his classmates spoke horrible things about his family, he forced himself not to hear them. He hadn't even known there was anything wrong with the way he lived until everyone jeered at him during recess and avoided him like he was contagious. He was a bad apple from a forbidden tree.

He was the kid from the weird family.

Mattie stopped what little speech he used to utter. For a week or so, Alfred worried that his brother might've actually become sick, and that his voice had been taken away from him. How awful it seemed to live without being heard.

They did, at least, speak to each other whenever possible, but there wasn't much to say, and Alfred was starting to think his voice was being taken from him too. When a group of older boys knocked his lunch to the ground one day, he tried to get himself to scream but couldn't. The silence was spreading everywhere like fire.

After school, Papa would help Mattie and him shrug out of the straps of their backpacks and ask, "What did my bumblebees do today?"

Their response was well-crafted and executed the same way each time. The boys would exchange flat expressions, wiggle their brows in contemplation, and then say, "Nothing really, Papa."

The lies were eating them.

On occasion, they'd eavesdrop on Daddy and Papa's conversations. Ear pressed tight against the door to their bedroom while Mattie hovered nearby, Alfred listened to far too many of their evening debates. Sometimes they were just whispers in the dark, and other times, they escalated to verbal attacks until one of the two remembered to keep quiet.

"Shh, the boys will hear."

"Please go and talk to Antonio."

"I'm not going to beg the man for a position."

"It wouldn't be begging."

Alfred didn't know who this man named Antonio was, but Papa must've finally spoken to him because by the following week, he had a job as a patrol officer uptown.

Tensions went from boiling to simmering. Papa was happier when he was working, even if he complained about his low-rank job. It was nice to be able to see Papa as a cop again—Alfred used to brag about how he caught bad guys all the time, and now he'd be able to resume his gloating.

Not long after that, Daddy became a substitute teacher. He went from school to school and told anecdotes about all of the students. Some schools were better than others, and Alfred could tell whether a school was good or bad by how tired Daddy would be at the end of the day. A good school meant that Daddy would take time out of the night to read to Mattie and him. A bad school meant he'd go straight to bed, one hand cradling his head to soothe his migraine.

Daddy was the best reader in the universe. The boys loved whenever he chose a tale from their well-stocked bookshelf with his reading glasses perched on his nose and a tepid cup of tea at hand. He'd settle himself onto Mattie's bed and wait for the twins to lie on either side of him, tucked in and adequately cuddled, before beginning the narrative. Papa's readings just couldn't compare.

Alfred's personal favorite was Where the Wild Things Are. He wasn't sure why the story stood out to him, but each time it was read to him, he'd be overcome with an inexplicable mix of euphoria and sadness. It brought back some of his voice and warmed his sleepy mind.

Daddy made all of the words sound right.

"And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all."

A few more minutes, and it'd be time to part ways again.

"What did the wild things cry?" Daddy asked just as Mattie fell into a doze. He was slumped against Daddy's shoulder, lips slightly parted.

"Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!" Alfred supplied with a grin as Daddy pecked Mattie's forehead.

"That's right. Now, it's high time you go to sleep, my boy."

"Already?"

Daddy gave him the softest of smiles and tickled his side, causing him to squirm. "Yes, already."

"Goodnight," Alfred muttered, pouting.

"Sweet dreams."

And so, they marched onward into the future, treading with care as to not stumble again. One day, Mattie presumed to ask if they would ever be taught by Daddy again, and their father's response was immediate.

"Of course you will. I teach you every day, don't I?"

It wasn't exactly the answer they'd been looking for, but they should have anticipated it.

They marched and they marched. Third grade came and went, so did fourth, and fifth. The house became emptier over the years—bare, almost. They were on a tighter budget now, but that wasn't the only reason for their sparse décor. They all became colder—cynical beyond their years.

Sixth grade was a breath of fresh air. The boys went on to a proper "middle school" and found that, at least on the surface, it was far more welcoming to them. No one knew their names. No one knew their family. No one could tell them they were living wrong or that they were going to hell. They were free.

Not to mention the school had a track team of their own, which Alfred immediately joined. Running was still his most valued hobby, and he raced and raced until his stomach felt queasy and his feet had blisters on them. Hot showers now consisted of picking calluses the size of nickels off of his heels and soles, but he didn't mind. The track was his addiction—it called to him and whispered into his ear, challenging him to run faster each time.

Where Alfred excelled in athletics, Matthew followed suit in academia. He made the honor roll during his first semester and surrounded himself with only a handful friends, preferring to keep to himself. He was still a child of few words, but that only prompted others to share their rapt attention with him when he did have something to share. His brain was a sponge, soaking in everything around him at all times.

Unfortunately, as the winter season rolled in, outdoor track was put on hold. Alfred still ran inside whenever a race presented itself, but he spent a fair amount of time at home after class, roughhousing with Matthew. A good wrestle every now and then was their preferred alternative to playing outside in the cold, and as the weeks zoomed past, their matches became increasingly more tactical and skill-oriented.

There were still bad days, though.

Like when Daddy came home one day and paced around the living room until midnight, waiting for Papa to return. Papa wasn't around as much anymore, and Daddy didn't drive them to school anymore because they usually just took the bus. The boys would go through most of the day without seeing either parent, and to see them stressed during the night only made them feel worse about the distance between them.

"Dad? Where's Papa?"

"I'd like to know the same thing," Daddy growled, livid. He fiddled with his cellphone and then slapped it on the coffee table in frustration. "Go to bed, Alfred. It's past your bedtime—follow Matthew's example."

"But I'm old enough to stay up later."

Daddy raised a brow at him and gestured for him to leave. "Not this late."

"I'm eleven! Only little kids go to sleep at this time."

"Alfred, don't test me right now. I'm not in the mood," Daddy warned him, forehead creased. He was tired. A bad school, probably. "Off with you."

"But I—"

"Alfred!"

He wasn't going to win. He wanted to stay up and greet Papa so they could talk about his upcoming race, but he knew Daddy wouldn't let him lose sleep.

By the time he reached the bedroom, his enthusiasm had been extinguished.

Matthew cracked his eyes open and stared at Alfred's bed for a long while, unsure of what to do.

"Want to go sledding tomorrow?" he suggested.

"I don't want anything anymore," Alfred whispered back, heaving the covers over his head.

"Can I ask you something?"

His eyes fluttered open from their dormant state and focused on the young man in the passenger's seat of their patrol car. The static from the radio was slowly beginning to drive him mad. "What is it now?"

"What are you doing here?"

Raivis, a rookie officer with a childish demeanor, was—regrettably—his partner. In essence, he was still a boy, inexperienced and cowardly when times called for action. Perhaps that explained why he was assigned mindless patrols, something had to be done to keep him away from wracking havoc and mass hysteria with his fledgling figure.

"Excuse me?" he asked the boy, scoping the perimeter of the street they were parked on.

"I mean, we sit here every day, right? Nothing really goes on—we're just here to maintain peace. I get that I'm in this role because I'm new and have to work my way up, but you—you seem like a guy with some experience up his sleeves. So, what are you doing here?"

Francis clacked a piece of hard candy against his teeth and sniffed. The shift was almost over. "I don't think that's your business. I'm here because this is where I need to be."

The coffee shop on the corner caught his attention. A couple was getting into some kind of argument, but their shouting was muffled by the windows in the car.

Raivis followed his eyes and said, "Want some late-night coffee?"

"Maybe some decaf," Francis agreed, stepping out of the car just as the boyfriend grabbed a fistful of his girlfriend's hair and nearly tore it from her scalp. Within seconds she was howling for help.

"HEY!" Raivis called to them, and the man immediately released the girl. "Take it easy!"

Francis approached the pair as Raivis muttered something into his walkie-talkie and waited by the car.

"Are you okay?" Francis asked the girl, hoping for a sincere answer. He had zero tolerance for any kind of domestic abuse, and he wouldn't hesitate to put the boyfriend behind bars if he didn't cooperate.

"I'm fine, thanks. Things just got out of hand, officer."

"Yeah, she's fine now," the boyfriend affirmed, tightening a hand around the girl's forearm. "It's been a tough week. I think we both need some time to cool off."

"Let her go and take a few steps back," Francis ordered, waiting for a reaction.

"She's my girlfriend, and you have no right to get involved. Why don't you just mind your own business?"

Francis lowered his gaze to the man's hand, which was still squeezing the girl's arm and said, "That's battery and assault. I have every right to get involved. Let her go."

Of course, he'd expected a struggle, so when the man tried to take a swing at his jaw, he restrained him in one swift movement. He hauled both of the man's brutish arms behind his back and handcuffed him with a sigh.

"And that's assaulting a police officer. You're under arrest. I'm going to have to take you down to the station."

The man was still straining to free himself, but Francis pressed his head down and directed him in the direction of the patrol car. He was going to be home late.

Raivis widened his eyes in awe. "We're actually arresting someone? Wow!"

Young and naïve.

Francis ignored his partner's amazement and plonked the boyfriend in the backseat. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?"

"Uhhh… Yes?" the man grunted, beginning to calm down.

"Aww, why did you get to read him his Miranda rights? I've never had the chance to do it before!" Raivis complained, looking far too excited.

"Just get in the car and drive," Francis snarled, turning up the heater as he slid into the passenger's side.

"But wait! What about the coffee?"

Francis bit his tongue and grumbled under his breath, "I'll kill him."