"Where did you say mom was again?" Kalen inquired, and Michael was able to detect his disappointment even without seeing him.

They were sitting at the dining room table, relaxing and waiting for Ian to prepare their lunch for they were tired and hungry from moving the absurd amount of boxes Kalen had out of James's car. Kalen was sitting in the spot that had become his over the years, to the right of Daneil who still seemed grumpy from being pulled from a nap to help Kalen move back in. Beside Kalen, on the other side, where their mother often sat, was James.

Michael was sitting across from Kalen, his head resting in his hands as he listened to the rest of them talk, breathing in the air that smelt sweet from the brownies Ian had put in the oven, trying to ignore James's burning gaze on the top of his head. It had been directed towards him through the entire time they had spent moving, and Michael feared it wouldn't be leaving until they were somewhere alone where Michael could explain himself.

"She's at the spa," Joe answered at Michael's left. "She would be here if she had known you were coming home today, but we all thought we had twenty four hours of freedom left". At this, Michael chuckled, since he was positive that Joe was thrilled to have the youngest of them home and back where he could keep a protective eye on him. "Why'd you end up coming home early anyways?"

"Well, my last exam was yesterday afternoon, and we just thought that it would be easier for me to pack up and come home a bit earlier so we don't have to worry about getting it done at the same time," Kalen explained. "It's kind of inconvenient only having James's car down there, you know".

"Talk to dad," Daniel grumbled, and Kalen made a little noise that Michael knew translated into, I tried that already.

"It ended up being a good idea," James chimed in. "The car was packed full and none of the stuff was mine. My parents are going to come help me move tomorrow since I'm positive I won't be able to fit my stuff, and the rest of Kalen's stuff, in my car alone".

"The rest of Kalen's stuff," Michael repeated, lifting his head for the first time in nearly ten minutes, blinking against the light. "You have more".

Kalen did not look pleased with this, but James chuckled lightly and smiled, absently reaching out to grasp his boyfriend's fingers. "You have no idea," James answered. "We probably only brought back a third of it tonight. I have no idea how he fit it all into our room".

"Determination and tears," Kalen responded, smiling somewhat sheepishly. He looked older, Micahel noted, his hair cut a little shorter than he used to like and his shoulders slightly broader as if he had taken to working out this past semester. Michael would have to ask later.

"So, you're going back tonight then?" he addressed James with this, meeting his friend's eyes for the first time since sitting down. James nodded in agreement, slowly, his eyes bright with a question that had nothing to do with the topic.

"Yeah. I have an exam at eight tomorrow morning," he explained. Beside him, Kalen shifted to lean more into his side to say something softly to him that had James smiling and shaking his head, finally looking away from Michael in favor of the boy leaning heavily against him. "I'm not driving back tomorrow morning, Kal".

Sighing heavily, Kalen dropped his head down onto James's shoulder, a pout pulling at his lips. It was quiet for a moment as they all allowed the youngest to sulk in piece, and then Daniel began to grumble.

"I don't really understand why he's here right now".

"He was helping me move, Dan," Kalen answered, not bothering to lift his head from James's shoulder, golden eyes falling shut. James didn't seem at all concerned with Daniel's distaste, even cracking a small smile as if it amused him. "Also, how was he supposed to go anywhere if I took his car?"

"We could have come to get you," Daniel argued, staring down at the table. "It's not that far. We were planning on coming tomorrow anyways".

At this, Michael straightened in his chair a little bit. He had forgotten about these arrangements, which was unsurprising with how much stress he had been under the week before, but the mention of them reminded him of the plans, as well as Joe instructing him to not forget about them since Michael was supposed to clean out his car before hand, because he was the only one not concerned with how dirty his vehicle would be after taking a trip that long. "You forgot," Joe claimed, reading him like a book, and Michael scoffed.

"I did not".

"No," James chimed in. "You totally did. When we talked on monday I asked you what the plan was for friday, remember?"

"No," Michael responded.

"And what'd he say?" Joe inquired, sounding amused.

It was Kalen who answered, his eyes cracking open a sliver to look at Michael. "Sleep".

"See, you forgot. Don't lie to me," Joe demanded and Michael ducked his head and sighed.

"So I did. It's not like it ended up being important anyways," Michael grumbled, eyeing the couple across the table from him unhappily. "So what? I say something to one of you now and the other immediately knows?"

"It's always been that way," Kalen claimed, smiling happily as he allowed his eyes to slip closed again. Michael just looked at James with raised eyebrows, to which his friend responded with a small shake of his head and an eye roll. While Michael hadn't truly been worried that James had outed him to his brother, something in his stomach settled at the confirmation.

"So when are you planning on heading back?" Joe asked, addressing James, who in return checked his watch.

"Um... In a little bit, probably. I want to get back at a reasonable time so I can study a bit before I go to bed". Kalen lifted his head so James could see his sad face. "Don't look at me like that. It makes me feel guilty even though I can't do anything to change it".

"We get Kalen all to ourselves for the whole night?" Joe sounded incredibly pleased with this, but Kalen only looked more disappointed, his gaze on James verging on pleading. If Kalen had been looking at Michael like that– or any of their brothers, Michael was sure– he would be giving in without further thought, giving him whatever he wanted. To Michael's surprise though, James just laughed.

"What do you want me to do, Kal?" he inquired, smiling warmly at his boyfriend as he continued to pout at him.

"Take me back with you?" Kalen suggest hopefully, and the look on James's face told Michael that they had already discussed this, probably numerous times with how persistent he knew his bother to be.

"No, Kalen," James refused softly.

"Why not?" Kalen grumbled, hugging James's arm tightly.

"Because you're distracting when you don't have anything to study for," James accused,

"I am not".

"But you are though," he retired, and Kalen finally sighed heavily in defeat, dropping back down against James's shoulder with a little groan. Smiling, James turned his face into his dark hair to kiss the top of his head

"What's wrong with staying here with us?" Joe chimed in, either unaware that the two were sharing a moment, or uncaring. Michael guessed the second.

"So many things," Kalen answered, looking at Joe with half lidded eyes.

"You two just spent the last four months living together," Joe countered, unamused. "Don't you want a bit of a break?"

Kalen was quiet as he thought about it, taking the question seriously. It didn't take him long to find the answer. "No, not even a little bit".

This made James smile. "We had our break for a year and a half when your father sent Kal to private school," he reminded, tilting his head to rest it on top of Kalen's. Michael just watched all of this with slightly narrowed eyes, wondering how he had forgotten about the couple's somewhat disturbing need for constant contact.

Besides him, Joe also seemed to be thinking something similar, because he made an annoyed tsking noise and said, "you two are disgusting. Are you engaged yet?" He was clearly asking this question because he knew they weren't because he looked pleased with himself when Kalen made a face at him and lifted his head from James's shoulder, putting a little distance between the two of them.

"I hate you so much," their younger brother groaned, lowering his eyes to glare at the table in front of him. Almost nervously, James watched him out of the corner of his eye, worrying at his lip in the process. It was a point of contention between the two of them, Michael knew, since Kalen desperately wanted a ring on his finger that reassured him he would be James's forever, and James didn't see why they had to rush something they knew was going to happen eventually. Last time Michael and James had discussed it, James admitted to wanting to wait at least until after they graduated.

Before the tension could be resolved, Ian approached the table with two plates of food. He offered the first to Kalen, who accepted it with a smile and a gentle, "thank you," that made Ian blink quickly in surprise.

When Ian moved to place the second plate in front of James, he held his hands up. "Ahh, thank you, but I'm not going to be here long enough to eat. I'll stop somewhere on the way back". The plate was then passed off to Michael, and he happily accepted it, hungry after only picking at bacon for breakfast.

Before he could even pick up a fork, James reached across the table and pushed the plate away from him, down to Joe. He stood then and Michael tilted his head back to make eye contact with him. "Can we talk for a minute, Mike?"

There was a moment in which Ian looked worried, but then Kalen got his attention with a loud exclamation of delight over how good the food was. With an eye roll at the blush blossoming over Ian's cheeks, Michael nodded at James. "Yeah, fine. We can talk".

When he got up, Ian managed to shoot him a quick look before Kalen distracted him again with a sincere, "this is seriously amazing, what is this?"

They ended up in Michael's room where they couldn't possibly be overheard. "What do you want?" Michael demanded as soon as James had shut the door, dropping down into his desk chair.

"What do you mean what do I want?" James replied, and Michael dropped his head back against the chair, fixing him with his best bored gaze. "Michael, what the fuck did I walk in on?"

"Nothing happened".

"Something was about to," James accused with a confidence that Michael felt was unwarranted with his lack of information.

"No," he responded simply. "It wasn't".

"Dude".

"No".

"Dude".

"Stop calling me that," Michael grumbled, annoyed. James paused, eyes flicking off to the side momentarily. 

"Bro". Michael couldn't help but laugh, and James cracked a small smile at the sound. "Come on, please. Spill. You got a thing with the cute cook?"

"I'm gonna tell Kalen that you said that," Michael threatened, finding amusement in the way his friend's eyes grew incredibly wide.

"First off, no you're not. You'll have to explain the context if you do, and you have, upon many occasions, informed me that you don't want to do that yet. Second, please don't do that," James pleaded and Michael snicked. With a groan, his friend took a step closer to him in order to kick his foot. "Come on man. You're going to give in eventually. Why not just save us both the time".

This was true– there was no way Michael wouldn't tell James– so he groaned in defeat and dropped his eyes. "We were literally just talking, despite how it might have looked..." He thought about his conversation with Ian and how opposed the other man was to anything happening between them. "Besides, I don't think he's really in the position for things to happen right now, and neither am I, as you know".

James's eyebrows shot up. "In the position? You need a position? I can recommend lots of positions".

Eyes rolling, Michael resisted the urge to chuckle. "That's not an issue".

"Of course it's not. You still fucking all of those online boys?"

"No, actually," Michael admitted, thinking of the app on his cellphone that he hadn't opened in a matter of weeks. "I think I'm gonna be done with that. I..." he trailed off, considering how to phrase the next part without revealing his new relationship with Daisy. That would take far too long to explain, and he didn't want to give James another thing he was expected to keep a secret from Kalen. "I made a friend who convinced me to stop".

"Was it him?"

"No," Michael answered, somewhat exacerbated. "I told you. Nothing is going on".

"But you guys like each other, right? You can't deny that after what I just saw. I mean... you were like, happy and shit and how you looked at one another was just... it was obvious".

Michael shook his head slowly, not to refuse James's words but what was being implied with them. If you both like each other you should be together. "Yeah, but that's only one part of the equation".

"It's good enough!" James exclaimed happily, taking the last step towards him to be able to lean forward and drop his hands onto Michael's shoulders. The position forced Michael to look into his eyes, and he did so somewhat reluctantly. "Michael. Please. For the love of God, just let yourself be happy for once".

He was hearing this a lot lately, and he wondered if it was a sign. Desperately, Michael wanted to give in, wanted to agree and somehow make everything work, but as he had already said, it wasn't that simple. "It would be too hard to hide," Michael pointed out sadly, shaking his head just a little bit. Immediately, James's gaze became symphetic, and he squeezed Michael's shoulders before straightening and taking a step away from him, moving to lean against his desk.

It was quiet. James was clearly thinking about something, and Michael waited for him to gather his thoughts, desperately hoping that James wasn't about to try to convince him to talk to his brothers yet again. Michael had heard the argument enough times at this point to know that it was something that needed to be done, but he just didn't know how, and no one's insite was any helpful to him in that regard.

He was pleasantly surprised when James finally asked, "so what's his conflict then?"

"Huh?"

"You said you thought he wasn't in the position for a relationship. Well, why isn't he?"

"Oh," Michael voiced in understanding before his eyebrows drew together. "I don't really know what's up with him, actually. We didn't get to talk about it".

"Well go talk about it," James encouraged. "At some point, and I bet it's gonna be soon, you're going to find the courage to tell your brothers that you're gay, and then there's going to be nothing holding you back, so you should talk to him about what's bothering him and work it out so he's in the same position you are when you're ready".

For some reason, up until this point, Michael hadn't considered the possibility of him and Ian becoming something after he had come out to his brothers. The hurtle had been too big for him to look past, but now that James had mentioned it, it seemed perfectly plausible. "Thats..." he trailed off and sighed, smiling a little. "I'll talk to him, but I'll probably have to wait a bit. At the moment, I think he's being charmed by Kalen".

A soft chuckle left James at this prediction. "Yeah," he said, acknowledging the plausibility, "Kalen's a charmer". As if the sound of his name had summoned him, James's cellphone buzzed once a message, which he summarized to Michael with a little laugh. "Kalen wants us to come down stairs now. Apparently Joe is-"

"Being Joe?" Michael interrupted, standing from his desk chair. James looked up at him, amused. "Say no more. You should be heading out soon too if you want time to study".

"Yeah," James agreed, following him out of his room and down the hall. "I really wish I didn't have to go back and take that exam. Remind me again why I decided to go to college?"

"You want to be a pharmacist," Michael supplied, starting down the stairs with James on his heels. "You can't do that without additional schooling. Otherwise you're just s drug dealer, and if you think you can get away with that and still date Kalen, you are mistaken my friend".

This seemed to be funny to James, because he laughed, the sound happy and loud. "Are you threatening me?"

"Not seriously. I really don't expect you to start selling drugs to people. You're not sketchy enough for that," he assured, skipping over the last stair and moving down the hall to the entry opening into the dining room. He paused there, eyes wandering until he found Ian back in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove. Before he could be caught looking, he dragged his gaze back to the table, where Joe and Kalen were quietly bickering over their plates of food and Daniel distracted himself by twirling his fork in his pasta. Sighing heavily, because this was something Michael hadn't missed about Kalen's presence, he moved into the room, rounding the table to go take his seat beside Joe again.

His brother sent him a questioning look, probably curious about his and James's conversation, but before he could interrogate him, Kalen spoke, addressing his boyfriend. "Hey," he said, leaning his head back to look at James, who was still standing beside the table. "Sit down".

"I think I'm actually gonna head out, hun," he explained, checking the watch on his left wrist and Kalen's fingers wrapped around his right forearm, his expression falling into something sad. Noticing this, James dropped his hand to the top of Kalen's head and pushed his fingers through his hair. "I'll be back tomorrow".

"Too long," Kalen accused, grabbing the front of James's shirt to pull him down enough to be able to kiss him. In result, the three triplets groaned, all adverting their eyes away from the physical affection directed at their younger brother. Micahel instead looked towards Ian, who had been bringing him a plate of food from the kitchen, but paused at the sight of the kiss– which was going on for a little too long– his eyebrows shooting up. When his brown eyes met Michael's, seeing his distaste for the situation, Ian cracked a little smile and began moving towards him again to set the plate down on the table in front of him.

"Thank you," Michael breathed, smiling up at Ian.

"You're welcome," Ian answered softly, eyes roaming his face curiously. "Enjoy". He retreated back into the kitchen and Michael sighed, wishing that it would be normal for him to invite Ian to eat with them. Then he wouldn't have to deal with them bickering alone.

"I've got to go, Kal," James was saying when Michael looked back at them. Kalen's fingers were still tightly grasping the front of his shirt, but there was at least a little bit of space between them now.

"Ugh," Kalen groaned, his hand dropping down onto the table, releasing him. "I love you. Drive safely please".

"I will," James assured, pressing a quick kiss to Kalen's cheek, not bothering to straighten even though he was able to.

"And call me when you get back".

"Of course".

"And before you go to bed".

"Kalen," James said, making it sound like a scolding even though he was laughing.

"Yes, Kalen," Joe chimed in, voice sharp with annoyance. "If you don't let him leave within the next five seconds I will forcefully remove him from the premises".

Neither James not Kalen seemed concerned with this threat. "He's not even supposed to be here," Daniel grumbled. "Dad's gonna flip shit when he finds out". Now that got Kalen's attention, and he slowly turned, giving all three of them individual long looks before speaking, voice cold in a way that many people didn't know sweet Kalen Bradford's voice could get.

"Dad's not going to find out," he claimed, sounding incredibly sure of himself. "Want to know why?" All three of them remained silent, but Michael was almost positive he heard Joe gulp to his left. "Because I have something on all three of you that I could share with him that I'm positive you don't want him to know".

It was tense for a full minute, even James looking uneasy, and then Joe snorted. "Imagine thinking that Kalen is the nice one".

With a sweet smile, Kalen stood up from his seat, reaching out to grasp James's hand, either unaware of the fact that his boyfriend currently looked terrified of him, or unconcerned. "I'm going to walk you out," he told him, looking back at his brothers just long enough to say, "guys, don't touch my food".

"I don't want your food," Daniel answered. "It had touched your fork which was in your mouth which is possibly fifty percent James's DNA at this point". Kalen shot Daniel a look to convey his annoyance even though Daniel was staring pointedly at his plate, before leading James out of the room by his hand. "Fucking disgusting". Joe barked out a laugh and Michael rolled his eyes, picking up his own fork to begin eating.

It took Kalen five minutes to say goodbye to James for the night, and when he returned to the dining room his mouth was red. "Why must you guys make my life so hard?" he demanded to know, dropping back into his chair. "You like James. Why must you guys be dicks?"

"If it's any consolation," Michael began, even though he wasn't the one being a dick, "I think that you're the only one distressed by the teasing".

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Kalen grumbled, taking a large bit of his pasta. Immediately he moaned around it. "How is this so fucking good?"

In the kitchen, Ian chuckled, and Michael didn't need to look at him to know that his cheeks were flushed red.

"So," Joe began, pressing an elbow into Michael's side to get his attention. "What did you and James talk about then?"

"If it was something that I wanted to talk to all of you about we would have just discussed it right here," Michael pointed out, pushing another forkful of food into his mouth. Joe huffed in offence turning to Kalen, but Michael payed him no mind, too caught up on the fact that Daniel was staring directly at him, eyes narrowed in an anger that Michael didn't understand. 

"Why doesn't it bother you that Mike and your boyfriend are keeping secrets?" Joe asked Kalen, and Michael forced his eyes from Daniel to the youngest, feeling uneasy with the heavy blue gaze that still remained on his face.

"Huh? Oh, I don't care. If it was something to do with me, James would tell me". Kalen shrugged. "If it's not, I'll probably find out eventually. I mean, I found out Tyler and Pierce were fucking".

"Yeah, you showed up at the apartment at the wrong time, not because James told you," Joe pointed out, and Kalen narrowed his eyes at him as he licked his fork clean.

"Why... must you be so nosy? Kalen asked him, and Michael couldn't help but laugh, his eyes shifting to look at Daniel, who normally would find the joke funny. Dan was just staring at his plate, not eating.

"Fucking geolog majors," Joe mumbled as he got up from his chair and angerily fled the room. The content look on Kalen's face told him that's what he had been intending to happen.

Sighing, Michael shook his head. "Welcome home, Kal," he offered, and Kalen smiled happily at him. This seemed to trigger Daniel somehow, because he also got up from the table and stomped from the room after Joe. With curious eyes, Kalen watched him go.

"Now what's his problem?"

"I have no idea," Michael admitted, eyes lingering on the empty doorway.

It was quiet for a minute, and then Kalen shrugged, reaching over to pull Daniel's still full plate in front of him. "Well, I'm not letting this go to waste".