Page 6 of Daddy’s Little Chaos Gremlin (The Lactin Brotherhood)

6

TRISTAN

It was usually a struggle to sit still and watch a movie, even one I enjoyed, without having something in my hands to occupy me, but with Zephyr pressed against my side on the cushions Daddy had removed from the couches and chairs to spread on the floor for us, and a bowl of nacho-jalapeno cheese popcorn where we could both reach it, I was completely at ease. Daddy always allowed me a notebook and pen, in case my imagination started running wild, but so far it was blank, and I was surprisingly happy about that.

After he’d fed from Daddy, Zephyr had only nibbled on the food, but by then he was no longer pale or trembling. The series of burps he’d let out afterward had brought a little pink blush to his face, and a smile to Daddy’s. He hadn’t needed to miss time with me to go use his pump, either. For the first time in a long time I didn’t feel bad about not being enough. I loved drinking from him, but it was more like dessert for me, or a little snack. Zephyr had nursed from both sides, snuffling and growling on occasion as he’d sprawled across Daddy’s lap, as content as a kitten.

A new name for him popped into my head, alongside little brother. Kitten. I could already tell that he was the sweetest little thing, softhearted with a gentle disposition. I ached to see what he thought of our playroom and all the toys Daddy had stocked it with. Would he enjoy building things with the huge assortment of block kits on the shelves, or would he prefer the puzzles, mazes and games that sat neatly arranged in their cubbies?

I hoped for both and then some, because there were several games I’d been dying to try but hadn’t had anyone besides Daddy to share them with. He was an awesome player, but it was different when there was someone else in the same little headspace.

“Whoa,” Zephyr breathed, squirming for the first time since we’d lain down.

He was up on his elbows with his eyes affixed to the screen, so I looked where he was pointing and saw the moon perfectly positioned over the chimney of a creepy looking house, just as a masked man winked and slid down the chimney, axe in hand.

“Oh yeah, someone’s gonna die,” I giggled, excitedly kicking my feet.

“That, too, but look, look at the moon.”

He wagged his hand, insistently pointing, but I didn’t see anything unusual about it before the scene changed.

“That was a nice shot, you could even see the craters,” I said, figuring that was what he’d been focused on.

“Have you ever done anything with the moon like that?”

“How do you mean?” I asked, finally turning my attention away from the television and the slow stalking movements of the man with the ax as he crept down the hall.

“Like, timing it so it looks like someone is kicking the moon, maybe even while doing a flip, like it was a soccer ball in a pro soccer game,” Zephyr said, the enthusiasm in his voice immediately igniting my own.

I could picture it and snatched up my notebook, making a rough sketch as well as written notes to help guide me along. I thought of Zephyr’s earlier performances and wondered if it would be possible to capture him doing a backflip over the moon, or to catch him mid-summersault frozen in the center of the moon.

“It would be so cool to cartwheel over it just as it was breaking the horizon,” Zephyr murmured, still thinking about the moon, the same as I was, despite the chaos and comedy unfolding on the screen.

I told you not to eat bon-bons in the bed! Now we’ve got rats!

I’d seen this movie at least a half dozen times and knew what was happening without needing to see it unfold. Sounds of destruction poured forth as the man attempted to chop up the rats, the box of bon-bons and the huge woman in the bed who had a bon-bon in one hand and a half-eaten rat in the other. It was gross and ridiculous, but also funny as hell.

I loved the spoof movies as much as I liked the real horror stuff, but Daddy always made me limit my intake of gore and break it up with something funny, even if it was still a little on the darker side. I loved The Addams Family and The Munsters , so they were always awesome choices, and the best part was that Daddy loved them, too. I couldn’t wait to learn what Zephyr thought of this one.

While another character joined the scene with a lighter and a can of hairspray, I scribbled away, trying not to forget a single thought that popped into my head before I could get it down on paper.

“I wish there was a way I could sit on it in a yoga pose,” Zephyr muttered and I froze, trying to remember a tutorial I’d tucked away but never had the chance to use.

It was a levitation effect, and it had all the steps needed to accomplish it. I’d have to find it, and practice, but if I could nail the techniques we could have a ton of fun.

“There might be,” I said.

Giggling, he wiggled a bit, clapping his hands. “Ohh, really? That would be so cool.”

“Yup, but we wouldn’t be able to do it here,” I blurted, almost flubbing completely by explaining that I needed my workshop.

I glanced at Daddy to see him watching me with a stern gaze, one eyebrow raised, his cautionary look a reminder to be more careful when I spoke. I mouthed sorry and he nodded, giving me a soft smile. All was already forgiven but he held up one finger to let me know that I’d have an added chore waiting at the end of the day.

That was so fair.

“You’d prolly need lots of space to set up something like that,” Zephyr went on, having missed the conversation going on over his head, thank goodness.

“Yes, I would,” I told him, and the rolling lawn beside the pool would be wonderful for that.

The moment that thought popped into my head, it was immediately followed by several others, and a desire to map out the moon’s trajectory over the pool.

“Can you swim?” I asked Zephyr, because I didn’t want to start down that road if he couldn’t. I never wanted to put him in any sort of jeopardy again.

I’m gonna be the bestest of big brothers.

“Uh-huh, I love being in the water, especially when I get to go skinny dipping.”

I never swam with trunks on unless we had company, but if I said that, I knew he’d want to know where the pool was. His face had lit up with joy when I mentioned swimming, but for now, it, like my workshop, would have to remain a secret.

This was gonna be a long week.

I sighed and sketched several stick figures twisting and flipping off a diving board.

“I used to compete in that,” Zephyr remarked, pointing to the image. “I was too afraid to do the high dive, though. I just did the three-meter springboard.”

My thoughts came crashing to a halt, interrupted by images of the pool at home. Was our board high enough? Was our pool deep enough?

I wrote a note for Daddy, because lots of research needed to happen before this idea became a possibility. The levitation and the potential tricks that could be performed with the moon on the horizon line were photoshoots I could plan for, though, and I lost track of the movie filling page after page.

When Beetlejuice came on, my attention was immediately drawn back to the screen. It was one of my favorite movies. Zephyr looked really into it, too, and missed his mouth with a piece of popcorn that landed on the blanket beside his hand. I held it to his lips once I’d picked it up, and he smiled and let me pop it in his mouth before licking the cheese residue off my finger and making me giggle.

He snuggled up against my side, too, making it impossible to draw, not that I wanted to with him nestled against me that way. I draped an arm over him, tugged the blanket up over his shoulders, and got lost in the movie with him, giggling at all the silly parts and yelling Beetlejuice right along with the characters.

Daddy had to shush us, then held up a second finger to let me know I had another chore. One more and I’d be dusting, but at least the rooms in this space were a lot smaller than the ones at home. We’d be able to laugh all we wanted once we got there, but that was so far away right now.

It felt like the whole ocean was between us instead of just a couple miles. I had a hard enough time being patient, being patient and quiet, oh man, I was gonna be dusting forever at this rate. We wiggled along with the shake your body song, bumping hips and giggling softly when we wound up nose to nose.

“Can I kiss you?” I asked, trailing my fingertips along his cheek.

“Please.”

He was all sweetness as he opened to that kiss and pressed closer as we slowly melted against one another. Make-out cuddles were some of the best cuddles in the whole wide world ‘cause they were gentle and unhurried. His soft sighs made my lips tingle, but none of this was about sex. We were getting to know one another and laying the foundation for what I hoped would be a long and glorious future.

His tummy rumbled and we both giggled as we drew apart. I couldn’t stop staring at his lips as he licked them, which was why I didn’t notice that the popcorn bowl was gone until he reached for some and encountered only air.

“You’re lunch is ready,” Daddy called.

He must have snagged the bowl without us even noticing.

“Coming, Daddy,” I replied and helped untangle us from the blankets.

My leg had started falling asleep, making it difficult to get up, but Zephyr just uncoiled himself gracefully, stood, and helped me up, keeping hold of my hand and half supporting me as we headed for the breakfast nook. Zephyr and I sat on the bench seat while Daddy sat across from us, a platter of sandwich quarters, fruit salad, and cookies already waiting for us. He’d made chocolate milk, too, and I always knew Daddy mixed in a bit of his own whenever he made it. Zephyr must have known it, too, or at least hoped, ‘cause he went straight for the milk and drank a third before reaching for one of the sandwich squares.

“Make sure you at least eat two of those and some fruit,” Daddy encouraged. “After that you can have all the cookies you’d like.”

“Yay, cookies!” I cheered, making sure to keep my voice at a respectable tone so I wouldn’t earn another strike.

Zephyr didn’t join me in celebrating, in fact, he side-eyed the cookies like he was wary of them, even when his tongue darted out to run along his upper lip.

“Don’t you like chocolate chip?” I asked.

With the way he’d dived into the chocolate milk, I didn’t think it was an allergy thing. Maybe he just liked different kinds of cookies.

“I have to be careful of sweats, so I don’t get fat,” Zephyr explained.

There was a sad, wistful look in his eyes as he glanced at the cookies again. “They look amazing, though.”

Daddy picked up a cookie and broke it in half, putting one piece on his plate and the other on mine.

“A half a cookie won’t hurt you, not with all the energy you spend when you’re in motion,” Daddy said.

His tone was gentle and firm, one I knew well after the years we’d been together. He was concerned, but he was also unwilling to back down. He was right, too. Half a cookie wasn’t going to cause Zephyr to gain an ounce of weight. The fact that he was afraid to eat one had me worried, too. I’d read about athletes starving themselves to maintain certain weights or attain physiques. I’d also read that many of them had been taught how and encouraged to do so by their coaches. I didn’t know much about the troupe Zephyr had been traveling with, outside of the troubles that had caused them to break up. I hoped they weren’t behind his fears about eating.

Another thought nagged at me, one that immediately made me fiercely angry on his behalf. Those fuckers better not have been limiting his food intake and controlling what he could or couldn’t have and they damn sure better not have put it into his head that a single anything was going to make him fat. That was a dangerous way of thinking. I’d known a friend back in art school, an awesome guy who was in the sculpture program with me. He’d been a little husky when we were freshmen, but no more than a lot of other guys on campus. We were art students, for fuck’s sake, not athletes. Each year he’d gotten thinner and thinner, and shyer and shyer, avoiding the gatherings, the birthday parties, the midnight Chinese food runs and pizza parties during gallery week. I’d thought he was just laser focused on landing a spot in one of the local gallery displays. There were always one or two reserved for students at the university, since we were also some of the biggest patrons when they had events, and they loved being able to say that they were among the first to display an artist’s work if they blew up in the mainstream. It wasn’t until he was taken out of the dorm in an ambulance, suffering from organ failure due to starvation and constant purging. All because he’d been picked on and bullied so badly in high school that he’d chosen a drastic course of events to ensure that the same thing didn’t happen in college.

It took me a moment to pull out of the memory, and refocus on the conversation taking place, and the way Daddy was studying Zephyr, concern written all over his face.

“I understand that moderation is important,” Daddy said, keeping his voice steady and non-judgmental. “But you shouldn’t have to deny yourself everything. You’re tiny, maybe a little too tiny even for your stature. Would you be agreeable to seeing a physician, just to make certain that you’re healthy and in peak performance shape?”

I knew good and damned well that Daddy cared about way more than if he was able to twist and springboard all over the yard, but Zephyr probably would have protested if he’d put it any other way. We’d both noticed how little he ate, and now we knew at least one of the reasons, but was it healthy? That’s what we were both eager to find out.

He was super tiny for a grown man.

Almost fragile when I’d been clinging to him beneath the blankets.

“I’d be okay with that,” Zephyr replied. “I wouldn’t want to sign your contract and not be able to do what you need me to do. If I, um, earn the contract, anyway.”

“You are well on your way,” Daddy sought to assure him.

I’d hated how sad he’d gotten this morning when he thought he’d screwed up the shoot and I never wanted him to feel like that again. I knew Daddy didn’t, either. We’d already come to feel very protective of him in the short time he’d been with us, and while the trial wouldn’t officially end for a few more days, I’d already come to think of him as my kitten and I wanted him to stay that way.

Always.