Boone made a sleepy noise of acknowledgement but refused to open his eyes.
"Boone," Jack said again. "Alarm's gone off."
"I heard it," Boone grumbled.
"Alarm means you have to get up," Jack told him.
"No, alarm means you have to get up," Boone corrected. "Noah's not here, I can stay in bed all day if I want."
"But you always get up with me," Jack said.
"Yeah, because I have to get Noah ready," Boone replied. "I'm fairly sure you can tie your own shoelaces."
"But you make the coffee," Jack complained, nudging him.
Boone swatted him off. "It's my birthday, leave me alone."
"It is not your birthday, yesterday was your birthday," Jack pointed out.
"Yeah, but I didn't get a lie in on my actual birthday so I'm making up for it," Boone told him.
Jack sighed and climbed out of bed. Boone smiled to himself and shifted over to the spot that Jack had just vacated, snuggling in the warmth.
"What are you doing?" Jack asked.
"Basking in your hotness," Boone replied.
Jack laughed a little. "I'm going in the shower," he said.
"Have fun," Boone told him.
Boone heard the shower starting up in the next room and started to drift back off to sleep with some pretty nice mental images. He stirred a little when Jack came back into the room and started getting dressed. Then Jack came and sat on the edge of the bed and played with Boone's hair.
"I'm not getting up," Boone told him, keeping his eyes closed and concentrating on Jack's fingertips.
"I know," Jack replied. "I'm not working tomorrow."
Boone opened his eyes. "You're not."
Jack shook his head. "You still wanna get that kid a hamster?"
Boone smiled at him and shrugged a little. "I want him to be happy."
Jack nodded. "I want him to be happy too."
"And a hamster's pretty low maintenance, right?" Boone asked.
"I guess," Jack replied. "I never had a hamster or anything."
"No, me neither," Boone said.
Jack smiled at him. "You're gonna look it up on the Internet today, aren't you?"
"Got nothing better to do with my time," Boone replied.
"Well then instead of looking up small mammals on Google, why don't you look up some jobs," Jack suggested.
"Yeah, I could do," Boone agreed reluctantly. If he could work out exactly what it was he wanted to do he could look it up in an instant but unfortunately he was having a problem with the first part of the equation.
Jack sighed. "I want you to be happy too," he said. "Can I get you a hamster or something?"
Boone smiled at him. "No, I'm good on the small mammal front, I think."
"Okay," Jack said. "Well, you ever actually want something feel free to let me know, I'll be more than happy to help you out with that."
"I know," Boone told him.
Jack nodded and gave him a little smile. "Well, I gotta go eat, all on my own apparently, so I'll leave you to your lie in." He leaned down and gave Boone a kiss. "I'll come see you before I go."
"Okay," Boone said. "I might be asleep."
"Of course you'll be asleep," Jack said, getting up. "But that's my favourite time to look at you, you don't talk back."
Boone gave him a look as Jack smiled at him and exited the room.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Boone watched Noah looking at all the animals in the pet store and couldn't help but smile. He felt kind of mean that he and Jack had disallowed Noah from having a pet for so long. He knew it was something his mother would do and he'd promised himself very early on that he was never going to do something his mother would do. Not that she did everything wrong, just most things. But she wasn't really malicious, well, not with him anyway, she was just completely and utterly clueless, not to mention lacking in any kind of maternal instincts.
"I just thought of something," Jack said.
"I told you to try not to do that," Boone replied.
Jack gave him a look. "Noah breaks everything."
"Yeah," Boone agreed, wondering where he was going with this.
"Well, you don't think he'd get, kind of, overzealous with the petting and, you know, squish his hamster, do you?" Jack asked.
Boone looked at him. "He wouldn't squish his hamster," he dismissed. He looked over at Noah. "Would he?"
"No, he probably wouldn't," Jack agreed. "Maybe we should watch him though."
"Yeah," Boone nodded.
They moved over to where Noah was peering through the glass at all the hamsters, looking them all over carefully.
"I want a boy," he told them. "I don't like girls."
"Okay," Jack said. "Well, those ones there are all boys."
Noah looked them over, chewing on his bottom lip. "I want that one," he said finally, pointing at a brown hamster with a white stripe across it's back.
"Yeah?" Jack asked. "You sure?"
Noah nodded. "I'm gonna call him Pete."
Boone looked at him. "Pete?" Noah nodded. "You don't want to call him Fluffy or Cuddles or Hammy or something?"
"Pete," Noah insisted.
"Okay, Pete it is," Boone agreed, exchanging a look with Jack.
"I'll go tell the guy," Jack said, moving over to the counter.
Boone leant down to Noah. "He's cute."
"Can I carry him home?" Noah asked.
"No, I think we should put him in the little carry case and you can play with him when we get home," Boone suggested.
"I can put him in my pocket," Noah said.
"I don't think that's such a good idea, Noah," Boone said. "He might jump out or something."
"He won't jump out," Noah told him. "He likes me."
"I'm sure he does," Boone agreed. "But it's probably safer if we just put him in the carry case and then when we get home we can take him out and play with him, okay?"
Noah nodded a little and looked back at the hamsters.
"So you like hamsters, right?" Boone asked. "They're cool."
Noah nodded. "I like Pete."
Boone smiled at his son's choice of name. "Yeah," he said. "I think you made a good choice."
"He can be my friend," Noah said.
Boone looked at him. "You get lonely?" he asked. "When you're at home do you ever want someone else to play with?"
"I can play with Pete," Noah said, still looking at the hamsters.
"Yeah," Boone agreed, but he found himself wondering if Noah hated being an only child just as much as he had. No, Noah didn't hate it. Maybe he got lonely sometimes but Boone spent enough time with him that he couldn't really have a huge hole in his life like Boone had when he was a kid. But then being with adults all the time could be kind of boring for kids. Adults seemed stuffy and uptight to kids, or, at least, the adults that Boone knew always did. But he figured he was just starting to project his own childhood onto Noah now. Noah was okay. And Boone knew he was a hell of a lot more fun than Sabrina ever was.
"Can we take Pete round to show Zara?" Noah asked.
"Maybe we should invite Zara around to our house to come see Pete," Boone suggested.
"Zara hasn't got a hamster," Noah said.
Boone smiled at him. "No."
"I like my hamster," Noah said. "Thank you."
Boone smiled at him again and put his arm around him. "You're welcome."
"I want to play with him," Noah said.
"When we get home," Boone told him.
Noah nodded. "Okay."
As Jack came back with the store assistant, Boone observed Noah carefully watching over as 'Pete' was taken out of the cage with the other hamsters and put into his little carry case, keeping a close eye on him at all times, and he couldn't help but smile. Okay, so things always broke around Noah, and that apparently wasn't his fault, but Boone could tell by the look on his face that he was really going to look after his new pet. And it would probably teach him a little more responsibility too, Boone thought, which could only be a good thing. Boone was glad that he and Jack had finally decided to do this, the look on Noah's face was more than reward enough for all the cleaning out Boone knew he was going to end up doing.