Nutella (Alternate Version)

. 58 .

"Can we color, Cali?" Luke asks as they enter the play room.

"Sure." Calum shrugs, running over to his art shelf and grabbing coloring stuff. Luke comes over and looks around, seeing a black box with a lid on top of the shelf.

"What's that?" He asks, and Calum glances up.

"It's finger paints, daddy puts them up there so I don't use them without him. Do you wanna play with them?"

"Didn't you just say we're not supposed to without Mikey?" Luke giggles and Calum smirks mischievously.

"He'll never have to know." Calum giggles. He grabs a notebook that has really large paper and tape, taping some to the wall like daddy does when they play with this.

"Cmere Lukey." Calum says, standing by the shelf, and Luke walks over. Calum bends down and picks the boy up under his butt, making Luke giggle and also making him tall enough to grab the basket.

The two boys get out the paints they want, getting one color at a time and making handprints and smears on their paper.

"Oh no, Cali!" Luke shrieks and giggles when Calum accidentally puts a hand with paint all over it on the wall to support himself while he paints with the other hand.

Calum gasps and then bursts out laughing when he pulls his hand away and sees the bright red handprint with smearing going down.

"It looks like blood!" He giggles, putting more red paint on his hand and making another smeary handprint that drags down the wall, and then some splatters.

"Calum!" Luke shrieks shocked, watching wide eyed. He then decides he wants to try too, putting red paint on his own hands and re-enacting a dramatic scene as he puts them on the wall and drags them down, falling down the wall dramatically.

Calum laughs and begins smearing other colors on the wall. The two continue this way for a while, they're not sure how long, getting paint splatters on the carpet and wall more than they do on their paper, when they hear Michael call from downstairs.

"Boys! Lunch!" He calls and their eyes widen, realizing how badly they've screwed up.

"Oh no." Calum whispers, looking around nervously.

"Cali! Are we gonna get in trouble? How are we gonna hide this?!" He worries and Calum glances to the other boy.

"Umm, okay. Let's wash our hands and put on long sleeves-" there's paint all over their arms and shirts. "And then we'll just go downstairs and when we come back up we'll clean it all up, it'll be fine!" He assures and Luke reluctantly agrees, hurrying to wash his hands as Calum calls down "one second!"

Calums right behind him and washes his arms and hands as well as getting the bit of paint off his face, and the two rush to put on new shirts and throw the others in the laundry before running downstairs, looking as innocent as they can muster.

"Hi loves, you ready for lunch?" Michael asks, glancing at them as he sets plates on the table.

"Yes daddy." Calum says sweetly.

"Yes Mikey." Luke follows and Michael smiles.

"Okay, good. Come sit, I made chicken and cucumbers." The boys sit at their assigned place with their plate of food the way they like it (Calum likes his cucumbers cut in sticks and Luke strongly prefers circles,) thanking Mikey and digging it. They both finish quickly and ask to be excused and Michael looks up at them and frowns, suspicious of their quietness and politeness, when he spots something.

"Lukey, cmere honey." He requests and Lukes eyes widen, but he listens and makes his way to the man. Michael grabs Lukes waist and pulls the boy closer and then grabs his head and tilts it to one side, brushing at a blue smear under the bows ear on his jaw. Luke frowns confusedly and Calum looks on horrified, biting his lip when Michael's dark eyes look over to him.

"Calum?" He asks and Calum hums quietly in response. Michael let's go of Luke who embarrassedly scurries a few steps back as the caregiver summons Calum over with a finger curl, grabbing the boy and turning him around, examining his body and finding a smear of paint on his upper arm, just above his elbow, that looks like it's been gently washed but not enough.

Michael sighs but doesn't say anything as he stands and heads for the stairs and the two cringe.

"No! Daddy!" Calum shouts.

"Mikey! Wait, please don't go up there uncle Mikey!" Luke whines, tearing up.

"And why shouldn't I?" He asks as he continues up the stairs, shadowed by the two boys who tug on him.

"B-because!" Calum says.

Luke is the one to break. "Don't be mad!" He begs, pulling his arms back to himself rather than tugging on Michael's arm and rubbing his eyes. "We didn't mean to! W-Were gonna clean up!"

Michael ignores them and opens the door to the playroom, gasping. The mess is much worse than he expected, as he'd envisioned that they'd just painted and maybe got a bit on the walls or table or something, and that the issue was gonna be that they- Calum, at least- knew better than to paint without his supervision. No, there's paint all over the walls, splattered on the wood floor, and some on some toys.

Luke immediately starts sobbing when he sees Michael's angry expression, and Calum scurries away to try and hide, trying briefly to drag Luke along but the boy falls to the floor sobbing and calum decides last minute the boy can fend for himself and takes off to hide under his bed.

"Calum get your ass back here! Luke, why are you crying?!" Michael snaps. Calum does not obey and Luke only sobs harder, making Michael take a deep breath. He decides to leave the boy to calm down as it probably wouldn't be smart to deal with him before he calms down and goes to fetch Calum.

He knows exactly where the boy is without trying and drags him out swiftly, scooping him up and laying the boy over his lap, not hesitating into giving him a good quick five smacks over his sweats to start with.

"You know damn well you're not allowed to play with paint without daddy watching you and you especially know not to paint on the walls, Calum hood!" He scolds. Calum sobs out a weak attempt at an apology and begs to be let go and for the spanking to cease but Michael pulls down his pants and doesn't let up until Calums gotten another twenty or so smacks before lifting the boy back into his lap and making the sobbing brown eyes look at him.

"You knew that was wrong, didn't you?"

"Yes!" Calum cries.

"Are you going to do that again?" He asks, tone calmer now.

"No! I'm sorry daddy!" The boy sobs and Michael sighs, pulling him into his chest and hugging him tight to comfort him. He sits for a minute and sighs in frustration, realizing he's kind of fucked up. He yelled at and in front of Luke, left him terrified and sobbing, punished Calum in anger (he's not worried about Calum so much, the boys tough and won't get his feelings hurt, and it's not like Michael went overboard on the punishment or Calum was terrified or didn't know he deserved what he got) and Luke almost definitely heard the ordeal and is probably now 5x as terrified as he was before.