Title: The Sandbox Chronicles (3/?)
Chapter Title: Scream On
Author: me
Rating: pg-13 (pg for now)
Summary: It all started in a sandbox.
Disclaimer: i own none of this *sigh*
Author's Notes: i love the response i have gotten on this fic. thank you all so much for the lovely comments on the two previous parts :). after this part, the boys are going to start growing up a bit....unfortunately. i want to keep them little alllll the time! lol. but in order to get the story moving along they gotta grow. :)
Part 1:
http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/390471.html#cutid1Part 2:
http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/390471.html#cutid1 True to their word, the boys become best friends. Kris meets Adam at the playground every day except Saturdays for reasons little Kris can’t understand. Their mommy’s have started talking and sitting on the same park bench with each other, and they too became fast friends. Kris loves it.
“Hey, Adam,” Kris starts on a Friday afternoon a month after the day Adam saved Little Foot. Adam is sitting inches across from Kris in the sandbox and his t-rex is sitting right next to him. Kris takes a peek at Little Foot sitting on one of the wooden planks outlining the sandbox. Little Foot doesn’t come in to play much anymore. He’d rather Little Foot not get so dirty.
“Yeah, Kris?” Adam looks up from the pile of sand slowly getting bigger in front of him.
“Will you come tomorrow?” Kris asks shyly, not breaking his gaze from Little Foot. He doesn’t want to see the sadness that flashes through those blue eyes everytime Kris asks the same question.
Adam sighs. “You know I won’t, Krissy.”
“How come you never come?” Kris pouts. He finally looks at Adam. Adam frowns.
“Fine, I’ll tell you,” he huffs dramatically and plops backwards in the sand. Kris scoots across the sand, not caring that he’s getting it in his underwear, and lays down next to Adam. “Momma makes me go visit my grandparents every stinkin’ Saturday. She says we’re only gonna stay a few minutes but we end up staying the whole stinkin’ day.”
Kris giggles, but then gets serious. “So why do you always look so sad when I ask you?”
“’Cause I don’t get to come play with you. I love them, mhm, I do. But I’d rather spend the afternoon playin’ in the sand,” Adam sighs again. He suddenly points to a cloud and Kris squeals in laughter at the fact that it looks like a dinosaur.
“Adam!”
“Kris!”
Kris pouts and looks at Adam. Adam huffs but gets up and together they put all the dinosaurs back in Kris’ plastic bucket. Adam tucks his t-rex into the pocket of his shorts safely and Kris makes sure Little Foot is safe in the bucket. The two boys loop arms and trudge to their mommy’s.
They both have to go separate ways since they live on opposite sides of the playground and town. Every day Kris waves like a maniac at Adam who’s waving like a maniac also, until they’re both out of sight of the other. Kris can’t wait for Monday to come.
***
Fall rolls around and the trips to the playground become trips to each other’s houses when it’s too chilly to play in the sand. The first time Kris goes over to Adam’s house his mommy tells him to watch his mouth and to play nice. He kisses her cheek, watches as she hugs Adam’s mommy, then leaves with a kiss blown in Kris’ direction.
Adam drags Kris upstairs to his room so they can play. They run into Neil along the way and Neil shoves at Adam before taking off down the stairs. Adam just shakes his head and continues to drag Kris along. Kris laughs but knows the feeling. Little brothers are a pain sometimes.
“How old’s Neil?” Kris asks once they’re in Adam’s good-sized room. Toys and Halloween costumes are strewn about the floor. The t-rex sits on Adam’s bedside table and it makes Kris smile.
“Six and a pest,” Adam scrunches his nose up as he lets go of Kris’ wrist and shoves a costume out of the way. Kris picks it up right behind him and stares at it. It looks something like a vampire costume or maybe a pirate; he’s not too sure.
“Daniel’s a pest, too. He’s three,” Kris holds up three fingers and Adam giggles.
“Little brothers suck,” Adam comments and starts yanking on a mask.
“Adam!” Mrs. Lambert scolds and stops at the bedroom door. Adam grins sheepishly and apologizes. She smiles, tells them both to behave, and closes the door behind her.
Kris doesn’t know how long they sit there and play dress-up and with cars. Mainly because he doesn’t know how to tell time but he knows it’s been a long time. He’s currently coloring in a picture of a dinosaur and Adam is laying in front of him coloring a picture of a pumpkin. It reminds him that Halloween is coming up soon.
“Adam what’re you gon’a be for Hall’ween?” Kris pokes his tongue out, concentrating too hard on making sure he’s in the lines.
“I wanna be a fairy. But momma told me the store is all out of fairy costumes. So I’m gonna be a pumpkin,” Adam says matter-of-factly. Kris nods along with him, serious. “What ‘bout you?”
“I’m gonna be a dinosaur,” Kris answers proudly.
“Of course,”Adam snickers and dodges a bright blue crayon flying towards his head. “I’m just kiddin’ Krissy.”
Kris smiles.
An hour later Kris finds himself hiding under Neil’s car shaped bed with a snickering Adam laying next to him. Adam has on a werewolf mask and Kris has on a zombie mask. They’re waiting for Neil to come into his room and Adam can’t stop giggling while Kris just stares at him through the holes in the mask.
The door opens and Adam shuts up. Kris holds his breath, waiting for the “signal” to move. Adam pokes him in the side and that’s their cue. He and Adam jump out from under the bed, screaming and growling and making as much noise as possible. Neil screams like a girl and runs out of the room crying. Adam falls onto the floor laughing, tears streaming down his cheeks. Kris joins him, and thinks that maybe he and Adam should try this on Daniel, even though he’s three and it might scar him for life.
“Adam Mitchel Lambert!”
Kris goes wide-eyed. “Oohhhh, Adam’s in trouble.” Adam pokes him in the side again, this time just to see Kris giggle.
“Get down here, Adam!”
Adam huffs and puffs on his way out of the room. Kris can hear him stomping all the way down the stairs. So Kris waits and listens but doesn’t hear much of anything except Neil screaming like a banshee once and Adam laughing. Kris laughs quietly as he skips to Adam’s room. He goes straight for the bed, sits on the edge, and waits some more.
Eventually the screaming and yelling between two brothers stops. Two pairs of feet come clomping up the stairs and the yelling starts again. He looks towards the bedroom door just in time to see two blurs go rushing by. A second later Adam’s mommy is running by the door chasing after them.
“Give it back!” Neil screeches. Kris wonders how a six year old can have a voice like that. But then again, he is Adam’s brother.
“NO!”
There’s a loud thud and another screech followed by something hitting a wall. Kris jumps and runs out of the bedroom, narrowly missing getting hit by a shoe. It bounces down the hallway, down the stairs, but Kris ignores it. He runs to the end of the hallway and peeks into a bedroom. Neil has Adam pinned to a bed, screeching his head off about some car that Adam stole.
“Adam, give it back! Momma make Adam give it to me!” Neil turns to their mommy who’s standing off to the side letting the scene play out on its own. Kris eyes her and when she smiles at him he smiles back.
“You two can settle this on your own. Come on, Kris. I just baked some fresh muffins,” she says and leads Kris out of the room. “Those boys. Does your brother act like that?”
“All the time,” Kris nods furiously.
Before they can make it downstairs Adam and Neil are bolting past them and into the living room. Kris follows while their mommy goes to the kitchen to get the muffins. He stands behind the couch, watching Adam and Neil roll around, Adam holding a shiny blue car high in the air. Neil’s curly brown hair is disheveled and his cheeks are tear-stained. Kris wonders what Adam could’ve done besides steal the car.
“Adam, give itttt!”
“Only if you stop being annoying!” Adam says back. He sticks his tongue out at Neil and Neil grabs the tongue between his thumb and index finger. Adam’s eyes go wide and Kris covers his ears. He knows what’s coming before it even happens.
A loud, ear-splitting scream greets Kris’ covered ears and he cringes at the fact that he can still hear it pretty good. He dodges the blue car that’s suddenly flying over the couch. It bounces off the wall, Neil stumbles across the hardwood to the car, and Adam streaks after him. Neil has the car in his hand and then he’s racing upstairs.
“Hey, Kris!” Adam throws over his shoulder. Kris waves dumbly back, jaw dropped. Usually by now he would be exhausted from fighting with his three year old sibling. But Adam and Neil are still going at it.
A plate of muffins comes into his view and he ignores Adam’s flash of blonde hair disappearing around the corner. Kris takes a muffin gratefully and he starts talking. He tells Adam’s mommy about his bucket of dinosaurs, Little Foot, Adam’s t-rex that Kris gave him, the bully that Adam saved Little Foot from. She laughs and listens, hands him another muffin, then yells up the stairs that the boys are going to miss out on the muffins if they don’t stop beating each other up and get downstairs.
Kris laughs and takes another bite.
***
The first time Adam comes to Kris’ house-only three days later- Kris has to clamp a hand over Adam’s mouth immediately. Adam already has a loud greeting ready and Kris has to shut him up before his mommy can scold them both.
Daniel pitter-patters into the room, grinning cute like only a kid his age can do, and he latches himself around Kris’ waist. Kris pats his hair like he’s a dog then unwinds Daniel’s arms. So Daniel latches on to Adam’s waist. Adam makes a face that has Kris laughing and Daniel squeals out in baby-laughter.
“Daniel, go find mommy,” Kris orders. Daniel giggles and leaves the room. Adam shakes his head and follows Kris down the hall to Kris’ bedroom. “This is my room!” Kris says in a voice that means he’s proud. Adam takes a tour for himself, bounces on his toes a little when he sees the bucket of dinosaurs, then turns to Kris with a toothy grin.
“Awesome!”
They sit in the middle of the floor with dinosaurs and a bunch of cars spread out around them, and Kris thinks he could play like this all the time if Adam is around. He likes how much laughing he does when Adam is around and he likes the fun they have together.
It’s not until later, Kris doesn’t know when, that his mommy comes into the room with a warm smile and a plate of cookies and two glasses of milk. Kris gives her a kiss on the cheek and she ruffles Adam’s hair.
“Having fun boys?” she asks, sitting on the bed to watch.
Kris nods, fuzzy brown hair sticking up in odd places from the movement, glasses sliding down his nose. He absently pushes them up while waiting to see what Adam says. Adam makes a motorboat noise as he rolls a car through their make-shift replica of San Diego. “Definitely, Mrs. Allen,” he answers finally.
“Call me Momma Allen, sweety,” she smiles. Adam looks up at her, shocked. Kris grins at his mommy and she runs her fingers through his hair.
“Okay,” Adam says quietly and goes back to rolling cars through the city.
***
That night Kris crawls under his navy blue covers, turns his night light on, and stares up at the ceiling. Adam went home not too long ago and Kris was sad to see him go. But Adam promised they’d see each other the next day. Kris can’t wait.
“Someone wants to say goodnight.” Kris props up on his elbows, rolling his eyes when he sees his mommy holding Daniel. Daniel coos softly as he’s carried to Kris’ bed. “Mommy,” he whines but gives Daniel a kiss on the cheek anyway. Daniel lets out a squeal.
Kris tells them both goodnight. His daddy comes into the room a few minutes later to say goodnight, kiss his cheek, then shut the door on his way out. Kris sighs and turns onto his tummy. Little Foot is sitting underneath the lamp on his bedside table with his book “Goodnight Moon” and a rolled up pair of socks that never made it to the drawer. He thinks of Adam and how much fun they have, and he wishes that they could see each other every single day.
A smile on his face, he closes his eyes and falls asleep to dreams of Little Foot and costumes.