Anthony had accidentally fallen asleep in a chair. Though when he woke up he was initially confused, it wasn't long before everything came rushing back to him — which definitely wasn't helped by the soreness and pain in his entire body that instantly reminded of what had happened last night. Everything that had happened was so weird and almost felt like a fever dream, but he was inclined to believe that it was actually reality.

Anthony stretched and stood up, realizing quickly that it was morning. He walked towards the bedroom, and knocked on the wall. "Hello? James? Are you awake?" Best case was that he was insane and talking to himself, worst case was that it wasn't just a fever dream and that there was actually a child in this house. He was, rather selfishly, hoping that it was the former was true — mostly because he knew that he was absolutely not fit to take care of a child, and also because he didn't want to talk to Elijah about essentially adopting a child.

James was sitting up in bed. Today was the big day. He was either going to be adopted and make two men's lives very difficult, or he was not going to be adopted and make two men's lives very difficult. "Aye," he replied. "Did you not sleep at all?"

Oh, no. He did actually manage to adopt the child. Well, it was too late to turn back from this, so might as well just try and go with it. "I slept just fine, so don't worry about that," Anthony said. Not that it seemed like James was worrying at all. "so........yeah."

"Are you goin' to make me food now?" the boy asked. He was actually genuinely hungry now.

Anthony didn't particularly want to, but he was willing to do anything to try and delay the inevitable. "Oh. Right. Sure, I'll make you something," he said, and immediately went off to the kitchen, not waiting for any acknowledgement or answer from James before doing so.

—

It didn't really take long until he emerged from the kitchen with porridge, since that was really basically the only thing he knew how to make. Anthony set it down on the table, calling out to James with a vague 'it's ready' to let him know that.

James got off the bed and rushed over, - "thank you!" - but he found that he had to wait, for it was too hot. "Are you goin' to talk to your boyfriend now?"

Anthony had almost hoped that James had forgotten about that. "Right. I should do that, I think," he nodded. "do you...want to come along, or something?" That wasn't really a question. Anthony would absolutely not trust him to be alone here without burning the house down or something.

The boy nodded and began to eat his porridge. "Why don't you live together?" he asked with his mouth full.

Well, okay, at least he won't have to drag James along by force. "Because....we don't," Anthony shrugged. He quickly rushed to fix together some bullshit reason. "I mean, I don't want to really give up living here, and I'm sure he doesn't want to give up his own place either."

"Why not?" Having had a good night's rest meant lots of energy to ask obnoxious questions.