Something had changed during their Monday afternoon in the kitchen, and Michael found himself preoccupied the next couple of days with Daisy and Daniel, having very little time to spend with Ian just the two of them. He complained about it to James late one night when the two of them had ran into one another in the kitchen– why James was at his house at eleven on a Wednesday night, Michael didn't ask, nor did he want to know– and his friend had just shrugged his shoulders like he didn't really see the problem and suggested, "why don't you just let Daniel and Daisy do their own thing".

This was something Michael refused to do. Ever since their conversation on Monday, Daisy and Daniel seemed to have a renewed fascination with one another. She had come over every day since– hence Michael's sudden lack of free time– after she had either reached out to him on her own (tuesday and friday), or Daniel had peeked his head into his room in the morning and asked, "Invite Daisy over?" softly (wednesday and thursday).

The first time Daniel had asked, Michael had rolled over in bed and suggested, "maybe you should do something with your girlfriend," but Daniel had just made a small noise of disagreement and countered with:

"She's on vacation this week with her family."

That made everything worse, since Michael highly doubted that Daniel was being honest with Mary while she was gone and had told her he was spending most of his time with his ex-girlfriend, but Michael knew this was something Daniel needed to work out himself, so he had texted Daisy and she was on their front porch fifteen minutes later like clockwork.

Michael knew what was happening, but he wasn't going to leave them alone together. Maybe he would have if they had been reaching out to one another on their own, but by going through him they were putting him in the middle of it, and he was going to make sure that they knew he was keeping an eye on them.

They were too in love with one another to be left alone, too entranced to even consider the reasons why they shouldn't do the things they very clearly wanted to do. It would be different if Daniel didn't have a girlfriend who was conveniently in california for the week, but he did, and as far as Michael was aware, Daniel had no plans to end his relationship with Mary at the moment.

He wasn't the only one who had sensed the tension either. On Thursday they had spent the afternoon in the dining room– for Michael's sake, he supposed– with Daniel and Daisy sitting together at the table and Michael at the counter across from Ian as they waited for the lasagna in the oven to finish baking. "Have they made out yet?" Ian asked him quietly so it stayed just between them.

"No," Michael answered. "I mean, unless they're meeting up behind my back, but I've been careful about leaving them alone together".

"Oh?" Ian inquired, eyebrows raising as he looked up from the petit four he was decorating. He had been doing this over the cutting board when they had entered the room, but moved everything to the peninsula when Michael had taken a seat at it. "Why's that?"

"Because he had a girlfriend," he reminded, and Ian's eyes blinked wide in surprise, his hands pausing, and then lifting the pastry bag filled with pink frosting away from the small cake. "What?"

"They're still together," Ian asked, eyes shifting behind Michael to look at the table. Michael didn't look over his shoulder, but he could hear Daisy laughing as Daniel did something that amused her. "I didn't realize".

"Why do you think I monitor them?" Michael asked. "You think I like watching this? It's gross". It seemed like the kind of thing Ian would laugh at, but he didn't, just frowned at the couple who weren't a couple. "What?"

"Nothing," Ian answered after a pause, looking back down at the petit four that just had the center of a frosted rose. Sighing, Ian crouched down to finish it as Michael watched him, wondering what was going through the other man's head right then and why he looked so sad.

Michael had actually been noticing that a lot throughout the past week, just a general bad mood that had Ian looking distressed at random times. Sometimes it happened when something was said to him that seemed to trigger the change, but other times, when it was quiet and Ian was alone, Michael would walk by the kitchen and catch the man in varying states of sadness.

He thought about it a lot, about what could possibly have happened to put him in that state, but Michael knew that he would never know the real reason without using his words to ask. And while Michael considered stepping in and asking the man what was wrong, he had yet to. Something about Ian's expressions in those moments told Michael he needed to be alone.

It didn't keep him from continuing to worry, though, and Michael found himself doing just that Saturday evening as him and his brother's – minus Kalen who was at James's house– ate dinner. Despite the fact that Joe offered a constant stream of words for him to focus on, Michael found his attention directed to the closed door of the backroom as he thought what had happened to the man behind the door within the past week.

"Mike, man, what's your problem right now? If you need something just ring the buzzer and he'll come out," Joe reminded, nudging Michael's knee with his own beneath the table.

"Oh," Michael voiced, eyebrows drawing together. "No. I don't need anything. It's just... have you noticed that he's been acting a little weird lately?"

"Ian?" Joe inquired, and something about his voice had Michael turning away from the door to look at him.

"I haven't noticed anything," Daniel chimed in from across the table.

"Of course you wouldn't," Michael and Joe answered simultaneously, though with very different tones. While Michael just shoulded tired, Joe sounded bitter. He was displeased with the presence of Daisy in their household, since it captured the attention of both Daniel and Michael, leaving Joe– who was unwilling to do anything with the girl– to entertain himself, which he wasn't very good at.

"I've noticed," Joe confirmed with a shoulder shrug, his eyes shifting past Michael for a brief second before focusing on his face. "I think I might have triggered it or something".

"What?" Michael inquired, his voice a little more harsh than he intended. "I mean, how?"

Joe's lips twitched up at the corners and Michael wondered what there was to be happy about. "I asked him what the date was on Sunday, and checked his phone and told me, and then he got quiet for a moment and repeated himself, and then he asked to be excused".

"Because of the date?"

"Yeah, I guess. I was assuming it meant something to him but then he seemed put out every day since then so I don't know," Joe answered, and Micahel felt surprised that his brother had been paying close enough attention to pick up on this. "Now you're thinking, Joe's such an idiot, how'd he realize that?" Daniel snorted on the other side of the table as he ate a small red potato off his fork. "Well, you see, I've been so fucking lonely the last few days that I've needed to come down here for entertainment like you used to, Mike, so it wasn't that hard to pick up on".

What? Michael opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out right away. His shoulders felt tense and there was something tight in his chest that kept his words from passing. What is this right now?

"Is that okay with you?" Joe teased, bumping Michael's leg again.

I'm jealous, Michael realized, eyes widening. I'm jealous of Joe. Spending time with Ian. I'm jealous of my straight brother spending time with the man I'm interested in.

"It's..." Michael began, swallowing. "It's fine. Just... it surprised me since you've always been very clear about how the people who worked in our household were only there to serve us".

"Ahh, well-" Joe began, but Michael didn't get to hear the rest of what he had to say, because the sound of Shelly answering the front door caused his brother to snap his mouth shut and turn away from him.

A few moments later, Daisy crossed their living room to get to the dining room, and Daniel looked so stupidly happy to see her that Michael almost felt bad for him.

"Oh good," she said without greeting, setting a beat up black backpack in the chair at the end of the table. "You've eaten".

Without saying anything further, Joe got up from his chair and left the room, leaving his plate of half finished food at the table. They all watched him go, none of them really concerned with the behavior.

"We're in the process of eating," Michael corrected after a moment of silence, picking up his fork again to resume. As he did, he shot Daniel a look across the table, wondering if he had taken it upon himself to invite her this time, or if she had simply chosen to come on her own. Daniel didn't look at him, eyes glued to his ex-girlfriend who was unzipping the backpack.

"That's fine," she said. "As long as you have food in your stomach". Before Michael could ask why, she pulled an unopened bottle of tequila out of her bag and set it on the table. Daniel's eyebrows shot up.

"Daisy, no," Michael groaned, already knowing how terrible of an idea this was.

"Yes," she countered.

"This... this is so stupid".

"Oh come on," she whined. "I'm broke and I want to forget about it".

"You're twenty. How did you even get that?" Michael asked, and she smiled widely at him.

"Josh bought it! You remember Josh, right?" She teased and Michael squeezed his eyes shut in response. "Come on guys! Have some fun".

"I'm in," Daniel agreed happily, and Michael cracked his eyes open to look at his brother. If he didn't go with him, they would just do it anyways, and that would end up being even more of a disaster.

With a sigh to let them know he still wasn't happy, Michael agreed.

He ate one last bite of chicken and then emptied his plate onto Joe's, stacking them. "You done?" he asked Daniel, who still hadn't looked away from Daisy. With a hum, he slid his plate across the table and Michael took it with an eye roll, bringing them to the kitchen. "Is Ian not here?" Daisy asked, watching as Michael began to wash the plates.

"He is," Michael answered, shooting a quick look at the closed door. He had to be quiet, or Ian would come out and scold Michael for washing the dishes instead of going to get him.

"Michael's worried about him," Daniel told Daisy. "He thinks Ian's been off the last few days. Joe agrees, apparently, but I haven't noticed anything".

"Oh". Daisy actually sounded concerned by this. "Well... you should see if he wants to drink with us!" she suggested happily, and while Michael was all for the idea, he knew from experience that Ian didn't feel comfortable drinking during work. As he began to run the sponge over the last of the dishes, he said as much. "Well that's no fun. What are you going to do to make him feel better?"

"I don't know," Michael admitted, rinsing the plate and setting it carefully in the drying rack. "I've been thining about it, but I don't even know what's wrong. Besides, it's not like I really know a lot about him. He hasn't really shared a lot of information about himself with me". He turned off the sin and then watched the water in the bottom of it funnel down the drain.

During his time spent with Daniel and Daisy, they mostly just focused on one another, so Michael had a lot of time to think. The majority of it was about Ian, and the more he thought about them, the more uneasy he felt. Sure, Ian had admitted to liking him a while back, and he had grown more physically affectionate towards Michael lately, but he was still a mystery to him. It felt like Ian knew everything about him while Michael could only recall a few things he had learned about the other man. There had to be a reason for that, a reason why Ian still didn't want Michael to know who he was.

"Michael-" Daisy began, sensing his discontent, but Michael just cut her off with a smile he tried to look reassuring and grabbed three crystal glasses from one of the cabinets.

"Come on," he urged, holding the glassware up. "Let's go upstairs".

They followed behind him, up the stairs. "So why is it that you want to get drunk so bad?" Daniel asked. "Something happen?"

"No," Daisy answered, sounding amused. "It's just been a really long time since I did last".

"Joe and I went to the bars about two weekends ago".

"You didn't join, Michael?" she asked, probably just to include him, and he shook his head no.

"I don't like to drink very often," he answered, leading them down the hall to his bedroom. "It's fun and all, but I end up feeling like shit the next morning and I wonder if it's worth it".

"I feel that," she responded, flicking on the light to his bedroom as soon as she was able to do so. "The last time I drank was with Josh and some friends and I woke up with the spins". As Michael and Daniel both hovered in the doorway of his room, Daisy made herself comfortable and launched herself across his bed. "Ahh, rich people beds are amazing". She stretched her legs out to toe off her black shoes, dropping them off the end of the bed. "Wanna pour me a drink?"

Daniel, who was holding the bottle of tequila by the neck, just looked down at it for a moment before raising his eyes to the glasses Michael had brought with him. "Um... Daisy, you may be more hard core than the two of us".

"There's a bottle of the margarita mix stuff in my backpack," she explained, gesturing to the bag that Daniel was also carrying. With a smile, he removed it and brought both bottles to Michael's desk, where he had arranged the glasses. "The tequila shots begin after we get buzzed".

"Oh jesus," Michael groaned, watching Daniel pour their drinks, adding more tequila than Michael would, but he didn't complain, only smiled a little and took the first glass when it was offered to him.

***

It all seemed like it was escalating so quickly. For a while they were just drinking and laughing, and then Daisy took a seat on the love seat beside Daniel and his hand dropped down onto her knee fondly, and then the words, "Michael, I wanna see you in eyeliner," were leaving Daisy's lips.

While he wasn't fully drunk, he was on the edge of it, so it took him a moment to process the words. When he did, he lifted his head from where it was resting against the back of the desk chair and looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Uh? No".

"Why not?" she whined, which she did more often than usual when she was drunk. "You have really pretty long eyelashes and your eyes are so blue".

"So are Daniel's," Michael reminded, gesturing to his brother, who had raised his arm to throw it around Daisy's slim shoulders. Michael followed the action with his eyes, but didn't say anything about it, feeling far too fuzzy to care. "Make him do it". It would probably be easy to convince him, Michael thought, given the fact that Daisy had Daniel wrapped tightly around her finger. She could probably ask him to do anything at this point and he just would without question.

"But Daniel can't put it on himself," Daisy explained, and Michael opened his mouth to answer but paused when he understood what her words were implying.

"Wait, what?" he asked, and she threw her head back into Daniel's shoulder to laugh while his brother very clearly looked anywhere but at him.

"He's so good at it!" she claimed happily. "He has very steady hands. He used to help me all the time when we were dating".

"Is she serious right now?" Michael asked his brother, watching as the younger's cheeks got progressively pinker.

"It's really not that hard," he mumbled, watching as Daisy pulled herself away from him to cross the room and begin digging through her backpack again, pulling out a black eyeliner pencil and turning to point at Michael with it.

"No".

"Michael, yes," she urged, still looking at him as she returned to Daniel and made him take the pencil.

"He's drunk! I don't want him anywhere near my eyes with that thing," Michael protested, horrified to see Daniel taking the object from Daisy and rising from the loveseat, proving his theory that his brother would do anything the girl asked.

"My hands are still steady," Daniel promised him. "I haven't even had that much to drink. Less than you at least".

"That's not reassuring," Michael grumbled, pushing his desk chair back until he had no where to go. "Why don't you just put it on Daisy?"

"I will when I'm done with you," Daniel promised, as if this was really what Michael was concerned about instead of getting himself out of the situation. "Just tilt your head back and close your eyes".

"You have no idea how many people I've said that to," Michael responded as he sighed and accepted his fate, doing as he was asked. At the joke, Daniel made a disgusted noise, while Daisy laughed loudly. Michael smiled, and then Daniel's hands were on his face and he stiffened.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Daniel claimed, gently pulling the skin of his eye tight. As something pressed against the lid of his eye, Michael curled his hands around the arm rests of his chair. "You are so overreaching". Then, because Daniel was kind of drunk, he laughed.

The sound made Michael even more nervous about the whole thing. "It's just that-" Daniel released the skin of his left eyelid and went to the right. "That you smell like tequila and you are holding a thing against my eye and I don't even want this to be happening-"

"Why don't you trust me?" Daniel asked. "Aren't I supposed to be one third of you or something? We're supposed to have perfect trust in one another".

If anything, the last couple of months was definite proof that they clearly did not have perfect trust in one another, but Michael didn't say this explicitly, only cracked his eyes open once released and told him that, "that's not his triplets work, Dan".

Daniel just blinked down at him from where he was leaning above him, eyes roaming his face. "That make your eyes look much brighter," he claimed, backing away from him. "It's kind of shocking, actually".

"The correct word is striking," Daisy cut in, and when Michael managed to raise his head to look at her, she dropped one of her eyes into a wink. "I'd love to see that on Kalen, too. Actually, I'd just love to see Kalen in general. Where the hell has he been?"

"He practically lives at James's house," Daniel answered, returning to the love seat and sitting beside Daisy. Gently, he took her hand and brought the eyeliner pencil to the back of it. "Part of me thinks that he's trying to make a point. He wants dad to let him and James get an apartment over by school so they don't need to come home over breaks, but dad said no, so now Kalen's trying to show him that it's not like he'd be here anyway. Another part of me though just thinks that he's obsessed with his boyfriend".

"Yeah," Michael agreed, not specifying which statement he was talking about– both of them, probably– as he watch Daniel draw on Daisy's hand. "What are you doing, Dan?"

His brother didn't respond right away, waiting until he was finished. "It's a daisy," he explained when Daisy looked at the back of her hand with raised eyebrows. The expression shifted into something more fond, and it occurred to Michael right then that they were probably going to kiss.

Briefly, he considered if he should say something to disturb the moment and snap them out of it, but he reminded himself that they were adults who had to make their own decisions, and rose from the desk chair. If it happened, which it probably was going to be determined with one last look at the two, showing him that Daniel had raised a hand to cup her face, Michael wouldn't stop it, but he certainly wasn't going to watch it.

To give them privacy, he left his room, and then paused briefly in the hall, wondering where to go. It wasn't a hard problem to solve, and after a second of thought he began moving back towards the staircase, hoping that he would still find Ian in the kitchen despite the hour.

To both his surprise and delight, he did.

Ian was standing in front of an open cupboard, which it seemed he had empty and placed all the contents of on the counter. He was cleaning it, Michael noticed, which was slightly confusing to him since it wasn't his job to do so, but he didn't comment.

Actually, he didn't say anything, just waited silently the few moments it took of Ian to notice he was there and turn to him. "Oh," he began, throwing the rag he was using into the sink and then leaning back against the counter to face Michael. "Hey".

Michael joined him in the kitchen, moving to stand directly next to him, the counter pressing into the small of his back as he turned his head down to look at the cook.

"Your cheeks are red," Ian observed, one of his hands rasing slightly as if he was going to touch his face, but then lowering again. "How much have you had to drink?"

In answer, Michael held up his thumb and pointer finger a short distance apart and showed it to the man, who then huffed out a little laugh.

"Light weight," he accused, and Michael huffed lightly in mock offense as he continued to stare down at the slightly shorter man. Ian looked tired, but not as unhappy as he had the last couple of days. That didn't make Michael forget though, and he found himself on the verge of asking Ian what had been wrong and if he could do anything to fix it. Before he could find the words though, Ian spoke again. "Are you... wearing eyeliner?"

Oh. Michael raised a hand to touch his eyelid, but then paused, afraid to smear the make up. "Yeah," he confirmed, his voice coming out a little rough. "Fucking Daisy". Ian didn't say anything, didn't laugh like Michael was expecting him to. Instead, he just kept looking at him, his cheeks flushed pink. "What?"

"Nothing," Ian breathed, blinking slowly. "It just makes your eyes look... blue".

Michael thought of the word Daisy had used. Striking. "My eyes are always blue".

"I know," Ian said, eyes a little wider than usual. "I just mean that they're like... blue blue. Purple blue. More than usual". Something seemed to be happening, and Michael wasn't exactly sure what, but he was suddenly thankful that Daisy had had the stupid idea to put eyeliner on him in the first place.

It was tense as they stood there like that, just looking at one another silently, and then Ian broke it with one downward look at Michael's mouth. Immediately after, his brown eyes widened slightly and he turned his face away.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to-" he began to apologize, but he didn't get to finish, because Michael had reached down to turn his face up to him and kissed him, full on the mouth, right there in the kitchen where anyone could walk by and see them.

Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was just because it was Ian and Michael had wanted this for so long, but he didn't really didn't care in that moment, or the next one, when the tenseness from surprise left Ian completely and he kissed him back.

It was just a regular kiss, closed mouthed and a little sloppy, but it made Michael's insides feel on fire, more so than the tequila had. With a soft groan, he shifted his body closer to Ian's and brought his hands down to grip the other man's waist, pulling him closer still. Ian allowed it with a soft sound that made the heat in Michael's stomach spread, but then Ian completely froze beneath Michael's fingers, his lips stalling.

Slowly, Michael pulled back, his eyes cracking open to look down at Ian, who was already looking up at him with unfocused eyes glazed over. "Fuck," he breathed, not in a fuck that was good way, but a fuck, what did we just do way.

All confidence left Michael then, and he mumbled an embarrassed, "sorry," before pulling away from him and leaving the kitchen.

He would think about it tomorrow, he promised himself as he claimed the stairs and rubbed his hand over his tingling lips. He would sleep off the alcohol and then deal with it in the morning.

When he pushes open the door of his bedroom to the sight of Daniel and Daisy passed out in his bed, both fully clothed– thankfully– but tangled up in one another, Michael figured he wasn't the only one who would need to address something in the morning.

With a sigh, he turned off the light, closed the door, and then went to Daniel's room for the night.