James' Perspective-

James peeked into his living room and watched as his father watched the football game.

He took a deep breath and felt a hand grab his shoulder. He gasped and quickly turned around, seeing his brother.

"Liam! Watch it." He huffed and Liam chuckled.

"Sorry, sorry." Liam chuckled, holding his hands up in mock surrender. "Just wondering why you're stalking dad."

"I'm not stalking our dad." James rolled his eyes, "I'm just about to tell him something."

"Ooo, what?"

"None of your business." James shoved him away.

"Why can't I know? I've never done anything to you!"

"Yeah well- you...can embarrass me a lot sometimes." James sighed.

Liam frowned and James turned back to the living room to see their dad standing up.

James quickly scurried over.

"Uh- dad! Can I uh- ...what're you doing?"

His father raised an eyebrow.

"I'm about to get ice for my tea." He said, "..do you need something?"

"Um- I can help you, sometimes cracking the ice trays can be annoying." James plastered a smile on his face, his heart racing and palms sweating.

They walked to the kitchen and James helped crack one of the ice trays, handing it to his father to fill it up with water.

They stood in silence for a bit before James took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

"Dad I...I've been wanting to share my achievements with you." He said slowly.

His father looked up, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Y-you know Tumblr? That website you let me post my art? I- I want to talk to you about it." His hands started shaking and he swallowed, trying to control his breathing.

"My art tends to do really well and a lot of people really like my stuff and support me." James said, looking up at his dad.

His father looked confused.

"Why would I not support you?"

James' eyes widened.

"I- I just thought...in the past you would freak out whenever I tell you about Tumblr and you thought I was doing inappropriate stuff or being bothered by strangers and tried to shut it down and- and I just...always feel like I'm trying to balance on a tightrope while there's spikes on the ground trying to get me. Just like I'm so close to falling." James said, not even realizing the tears were falling down his cheeks.

James felt his father hug him and he gasped before fully breaking down, hugging his father tightly.

"I'm sorry- I'm so sorry- " James cried.

"No, no don't be. I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I want to support you and your life online. I just want you to be safe too." James' father said and James sniffed, leaning back and wiping his eyes.

"W-well my art reached the top when you searched a tag." James said, smiling a bit.

James' father whistled, impressed.

"That's great! I'm really proud of you."

James smiled brightly.

"I don't want you to feel like you have to hide that, James. I wanna be there to support you."

James giggled and he felt the tears keep falling, despite him being happy.

-

"I don't think I'm gonna tell him about you for a while. I wanna open up a bit more slowly just to test the waters, but I think outright telling him about you would be bad" James messaged his boyfriend.

"Yeah you probably wanna wait. But that's great I'm glad he was okay with it!! I'm really proud of you."

James smiled and he felt his heart swell with warmth and love.

"Thanks, I really couldn't've done it without your encouragement."

"Well I'm glad you finally got it off your chest, cause I know that was causing you a lot of stress and you don't deserve to deal with that."

"I don't deserve you, you goof." James texted, giggling.

James blushed as Noah sent back a heart and he smiled, looking up at his bedroom door.

He took a deep breath, feeling a huge weight get lifted off his shoulders.

"I can do this." He whispered, "Just a couple more weeks and then dad can know about Noah."

Shout out to Juju who helped convince me to tell my dad about this. Not all the way there yet, but he was very supportive of me and happy that I made it this far.