James eagerly went inside, glad to have a roof over his head tonight and someone who cared - even if that person had been emotionally bribed into doing so. "Shall I make porridge?" The boy offered.

[cw: references to alcoholism. ok i think we got all of them now]

"It's late," Anthony said. Truth be told, he didn't really have any preference, but he just wasn't really in the mood for eating...anything, really. "don't you want to...go to sleep, or something?" A new weight had been added onto Anthony's shoulders as soon as he had arrived back home. With a sigh, he quickly set himself to gathering up all or most of the bottles that were laying around, and placing them somewhere out of sight. The subtle smell of alcohol still remained, but he couldn't do anything about that.

To James, sadly, this was a perfectly normal sight. "I can make you some food first. It's important to eat and drink water when you're drunk." He nodded to affirm his own statement.

"I'm not drunk—" Anthony started off again, but figured that there was no convincing this kid otherwise. "you know what? Sure. Do whatever you want to do." He wasn't about to question why this kid knew so much about being drunk. Not today, at least.

"Okay...." He patted Anthony's arm. "I'm gonna look after you." And he disappeared to the kitchen to look for oats.

Anthony didn't like the idea of this kid....helping him. If he's a parent he should be helping and taking care of his kid, not the other way around. But, right now, he was a bit too tired and in a bit too much pain to care about that. He kicked off his boots and sat down, trying to figure out how to nurse all his little wounds. That took priority over helping James.

James lit the stove. He couldn't find the fire poker and so he used a wooden spoon to stir up the flame. He put the spoon on the coal rack and began putting oats and water in a pan, quite unaware of how the coals started glowing. Then a cloth, nearby caught flame. "Uh oh...." James muttered when he turned around and saw the fire.

Anthony had, rather naively, trusted James entirely. He was entirely ready to just take this time alone to reflect and take care of his own damn self — at least, until he felt the subtle smell of smoke in the air. Anthony considered for a moment whether it was just a hallucination or something he was making up. And then he remembered how he had given a child free reign of his kitchen. His kitchen, a place where you could easily set multiple things on fire. "...James?" he called out, to try and make sure everything was okay. He was hoping everything was okay.

James took the pan with oats and water and poured it over the cloth and coals. The upper part of the cloth, however, was still burning, and now part of the wooden wall caught fire. "Fire!" he shouted back, when Anthony called out to him.

Oh, shit. Anthony quickly put his boots back on, and ran to the kitchen. It was painful, but it was going to be even more painful if this entire place burned down. Sure enough, there was fire. Not a lot, but more than enough to freak Anthony out. It took a moment for him to actually comprehend the fact that there was an actual fire in his house, but when he did.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," he whined, immediately going off in search of some water, or actually anything he could possibly douse a fire with. It was good for him, then, that he quickly got himself some water he immediately splashed over the wall.

The flames soon got bigger, and James stared at it with eyes wide, paralyzed. He vaguely heard Anthony swear and run off, and still he watched part of the wall burn. And then suddenly there was a splash of water that left the wood smoldering, but extinguished the fire. James' lip trembled. He began to cry.

The fire went out, so that meant that everything was fine again. Anthony was a bit too shocked about this all to even start crying — the thing that snapped him out of that state was that he heard James cry. Though Anthony was kind of angry at him, and rightfully so at that, he was physically incapable of ever being mean to children. "It's okay. Everything's fine, now," he said, placing his hands on James' shoulders. "everything's...okay. Nothing's on fire anymore." He was not the best at comforting children.

"I'm sorryyyyyy..." James sobbed. "I can make porridge and home and I never set owt on fire, I swear.... Don't be angry..." He wiped his snotty nose on his sleeve.

Anthony had every right to be angry, but he wasn't. He was just tired. "It's okay. I'm not mad at you," he said. He's never going to let James even go near the kitchen again, though. "it was....an accident. Accidents happen."

James sniffed and wiped his nose again. "Sorry I ruined the porridge..." He pointed at the oats that covered the wet coals.

Anthony had not yet omprehended the fact that he was going to be the one who had to clean all that up, until James had brought attention of it. "It's fine," he repeated. "you know...why don't we...just...get out of the kitchen? We can try again with the porridge sometime else, okay?"

"Okay..." Another time. Did that mean he was going to be adopted. James would super use this against Anthony. He walked back to the bedroom, lay down on the bed and fell asleep almost instantly with that happy thought in mind.

Anthony was very glad that James just listened to him and left the kitchen. He wasn't glad about everything else, though. Having to clean up this mess, try and tend to his own wounds, take care of this child, talk to Elijah tomorrow about this all — yeah, his life wasn't very ideal, right now. He wasn't sure if he could even manage all this, but he was willing to try. ...With another sigh, Anthony set himself to cleaning up the mess in his kitchen. At least that'll keep him occupied.

After a little while, James came to the kitchen. "Is it the mornin'?"

Anthony had managed to clean up the goddamn mess in the kitchen, and was now just lingering there, trying to figure out why his life is how it is. He was almost ready to just put an end to that lamenting and try to go to sleep, when James returned to the kitchen yet again. "No, it isn't," he responded. Though whether that was true or not was questionable — he had basically lost track of time entirely. "I don't think it is, at least." He was hoping it wasn't morning. The longer it isn't morning, the longer he can go without having to go and talk to Elijah about this.

"Oh..." James rubbed his eyes. "How long before it's the morning?" James wanted it to be the morning. The sooner Anthony spoke to his boyfriend, the sooner James knew whether he was going to have a new family, or whether he would have to start a blackmailing campaign first.

Anthony shrugged. "I don't know, James," he said. To be fair, he could just go and look out the window or something to be able to gauge the time, but he didn't want to. If he doesn't know it's morning, that means he doesn't need to go and talk to his boyfriend about this child he adopted. "a couple of hours, maybe? Some time."

"Oh..." he said again, sounding disappointed. "What are you doing?"

Anthony was hoping for James to deal with that answer and go back to bed, but it seemed that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. "Nothing. I'm not doing...anything, really," he said. "just standing here and....thinking." That was, essentially, the truth.

"What are you thinking about?" The boy asked. The notion of privacy had never occurred to him.

"Nothing important," Anthony said. It was only somewhat true. "just thinking about what he — my boyfriend, that is, — will think about all this." Not even only the whole 'adopting a child' thing, but also the 'getting yet again beat up by a teenager', 'almost burning the house down', and 'depression' things.

James stared at the man and frowned. After a moment of silence, he asked somewhat anxiously: "Are you going to cry again?"

Anthony glanced at James. Is crying his 'thing' now? His signature move? He wasn't surprised. "I mean, I wasn't planning on it," Anthony shrugged.

"Oh... good," the boy said, sounding relieved. "I'm hungry."

Anthony didn't trust either of them to do anything in the kitchen, right now. Besides, who starts cooking something at whatever ungodly hour it is right now? Not him. "...Can it wait until morning?" Amazing parenting, Anthony.

James gave Anthony a puppy face. "I might have died by then..."

Anthony's not going to even try to cook anything for, like, at least a week, lest someone's house is almost burned down again. And he was also just really not in the mood to cook. "When did you last eat?" If the answer is 'yesterday' or something like that, Anthony will sure as hell be sending this kid to bed on an empty stomach. One day without food isn't even that bad, right?

"This mornin'." He said with a pout. "Ain't eaten all day."

Which, thankfully, given the evening full of cringeworthy moments, was a lie. James had eaten earlier that evening.

"Well, you won't be starving to death anytime soon if you ate this morning," Anthony reasoned. Though he felt bad, of course, he had to take care of himself as well. "just....go to sleep. First thing I'll do tomorrow morning is get you something to eat, okay? I promise."

"Oh the woes of being an orphan child..." James whined dramatically. But nevertheless, he returned to the bedroom.

Anthony was not immune to James' whining, but he couldn't just let himself give in to every demand. "Right. Goodnight, James," he called out, before turning back to what he was doing before — just standing around and being depressed.