To Save Our Families, Let's 'Marry' (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 31

Once Samuel, Henry, Joshua and Penelope made it into Henry's apartment – which had ended up being a far more complicated ordeal than they had originally thought once they realised neither Henry nor Joshua could walk without full support – they were all extremely tired. The fatigue had hit the young teenager the hardest. Penelope was instructed to rest, only moving when she needed to as to not overexert herself, after all she was still healing from a bad burn. The girl, however, refused to not be part of the brunch and had managed to convince her family that she would be fine since they would just be sitting and eating. Her light pestering paired with too good puppy-dog-eyes was enough for her to convince them. Of course no one had predicted how exciting the brunch would end up, and while the girl was in no mood to go home yet, she was truly spent.

Henry and Samuel were fast to offer her a bed so she could have a nap. She tried to insist she was fine, but it was Joshua to have a final say.

"Have a nap, Penelope, otherwise you are not going to last the day. If you pass out, you are not going to be able to convince anyone to let you out again until you are completely healed." Even though his sister was keeping her face as respectable as possible, the older brother did not miss her bitterness. Joshua knew that if any of her elders told her to do something, she would follow out of respect, however that did not mean she would be happy about it.

The Reyes brothers found themselves a little confused as they watched the two siblings interact, it seemed the youngest two of the Lore family had a habit of staying formal even with the rest of their families. Henry decided not to interfere, he was not close with the Lore's, even if his parents were. Conversely, Samuel made a mental note to discuss it with Archer tonight once everyone went home.

Once the teenager reluctantly agrees to have a rest, knowing her brother was right but upset that she couldn't spend time with the two new additions to her family, Joshua let out a relieved sigh. Samuel offered the spare room.

"No, she should take my room."

Everyone turned at the unexpected exclamation from Henry. He went a little red as he noticed all attention was on his, something he did not usually do until having met Joshua.

"I-I mean, um, Gin keeps some of his stuff in the spare room."

Joshua quickly picked up what he meant, what little progress they had made on Monday in regards to their suicide mission of downing the Q Group had been put into the spare bedroom.

The man nodded before reaching forward, Henry immediately handing over his pair of crutches to the other man.

While Henry legs hadn't played up to the extent that they had recently in almost a decade, his overprotective family insisted he keeps a spare pair of crutches. On Monday he had gotten Joshua and Gin to grab them from the apartment storage unit. In the end they had become far more useful than anyone could have thought they would be.

Joshua stood up with the support of the crutches, pushing his hair out of his eyes – it was at the awkward length where the ends were at eye level. He nodded to his sister, indicated he wanted her to follow him.

Since the other man was going to his room anyway, Henry decided to put in a request. "Can you get my sweatshirt? It should be on the chair." After a second he added on, "And you can grab our things from the safe." After another moment. "And the charging pad. And my water bottle."

As the list grew, Joshua found himself biting back a smirk, it breaking free once Henry's voice becomes a little quieter; the younger man had realised he was being a little demanding and embarrassing himself. Joshua's sadistic streak once again came to the surface. "Anything else, your highness?" Henry turned away, his sandy hair falling to cover half of his quickly reddening face. Joshua snickered, not even needing to see the expression the other man was making to know exactly how he looked.