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It’s not really a surprise when Garrett moves out right after graduation. Anders already has an apartment, and although it’s a dumpy kind of place in a bad area of town, Malcolm understands the need for one’s own place, out from under a parental shadow. Even if that shadow doesn’t fall in quite the same way as most. He helped them move; mismatched dishes, Ikea furniture, and a mattress on the floor that they coax him down to before he leaves, a thank-you orgy, Malcolm in Garrett and Garrett in Anders.
And finally Carver’s got his own room for the first time since he was born, something he’s been begging for since he was eight years old. But he’s nearly eighteen now, big and broad, too tall for his bunk. Malcolm has seen the way his feet hang over the end. So when he crawls into bed with Malcolm just after midnight on the first night Garrett is in his new apartment, Malcolm just smiles at the mumbled “It’s too empty” excuse Carver offers and kisses him.
The next night there’s no excuse, just Carver in his bed, and then Carver in his body, and they fall asleep with legs tangled, Carver’s head on his chest, Carver’s feet securely on the mattress.
Malcolm used to tell the kids bedtime stories. When Garrett was about ten, he decided he was too old to sit and listen and would interrupt, making up all sorts of things – inserting dragons crawling up skyscrapers, champions in a suit and tie with magic up their sleeves. Carver would yell at him to shut up and stop ruining the story, and Garrett would yell back, and one of them would shove first and the other would shove back and Bethany would start crying. Leandra would peek around the doorpost and say wryly, “I thought you were going to put them to bed.”
In the end, everyone got put to bed without the story being finished, and Garrett would pretend not to care, and Bethany would sniffle and ask what happened to the princess or the shepherd boy or the brave Ser Aveline, and Malcolm would kiss her nose and tell her everyone lived happily ever after. She’d smile and close her eyes, and that would be enough.
But in the middle of the night, Malcolm would wake to a dip in the mattress and a warm, tiny body crawling under the covers next to him, tiny hands curling on his chest, face tucked into his neck where he couldn’t see. And Carver would mumble, just barely loud enough to hear, “But what happened, Daddy?”
Malcolm, groggy and half asleep, would whisper the rest of the disjointed story into Carver’s hair, feeling the tension gradually ease out of his body until he was snoring against Malcolm’s chest. Behind him, Leandra would chuckle and reach over Malcolm to stroke her son’s face.
“He sounds just like a baby dragon,” she would say.
Now Leandra and Bethany are gone, Garrett is still too big for bedtime stories except the ones he and Anders tell each other with their bodies, and Carver is taller than Malcolm. But he still sleeps against his father’s chest, hand loosely fisted at the small of Malcolm’s back, and snores softly against Malcolm’s throat. Malcolm kisses his hair and thinks of happy endings.