A Birthday Unforgotten
ATF Precious Gems AU
Vin and
JD were worried. No one was doing
anything about Ezra’s birthday. It was
tomorrow and nobody had said a word.
Maybe Chris, Buck, Nathan, and Josiah didn’t have birthdays, like his
mother didn’t? But JD and Vin had promised they would never forget his birthday,
ever. The first year Ezra and Vin had been together, Ezra had gotten sick and babbled in
his fever that he had never had a birthday.
Since then, every time one of them had a birthday, the others would
horde some extra food, and try to find something special for the birthday boy.
This year,
though, since they had been taken in by Chris Larabee more than four months
ago, Vin and JD had thought that Chris would take over
the preparations, but nothing was happening.
Finally the two young boys decided to take matters into their own hands
and set something up. Between them they
had about seventy-five cents, so Vin decided to buy
Ezra some candy. For the first time,
what little money they had didn’t have to be horded for survival. JD also decided to ask Chris to make
spaghetti for dinner tomorrow. It was Ezra’s favorite food.
As Chris
walked into the kitchen the next night to start dinner, JD followed him. “Chris?”
Chris
squatted down to talk to the young boy, “Yes, JD? Want d’ya need?”
“Could you
make pas’getti tonight?” JD asked
quietly.
Chris
frowned momentarily. Although he had
told the boys that they could ask for things, they rarely did, and when they
did it was usually for something very basic that the four men hadn’t thought of
yet. “Sure, JD. Any particular reason?”
“It’s Ezrwa favorwite,”
JD explained quickly.
Chris nodded,
though he still couldn’t figure out what was going on, and stood reaching for
the pasta keeper that held the spaghetti.
He froze when JD continued, he heart pounding in his chest.
“It’s his birwthday, and we werwe hoping
you wouldn’t mind,” JD said. “Ya’ see he
neverwe had a birwthday
before he met Vin, and we prwomised
that he’s always have one frwom now on.”
Chris
swallowed heavily, he had thought that Ezra would tell him when his birthday
was coming, JD and Vin had made sure he knew when theirs
were. Ezra had been going to let the day
go by without bothering his foster father with it. “It’s okay, JD. We’ll have spaghetti tonight.” JD nodded enthusiastically, then left the kitchen to go play with his brothers.
As soon as
JD was out of ear shot, Chris grabbed the cordless phone that sat on the
counter. Hitting the speed dial for
Josiah, he put it to his ear.
“Josiah? Yeah, no, there’s
nothing wrong with the boys exactly, but we do have a problem.” As Chris explained what was going on to the
man on the other end of the phone line, Buck came in the back door. Waving his hand at his friend to keep him
quiet, he and Josiah finished their conversation. After he hung up, Chris recapped all that he
had found out for Buck.
“Damn, I
never thought to ask him,” Buck muttered as he helped Chris cook.
“Yeah, I
figure he would tell me when it got closer or something,” Chris answered. “What kind of mother denies her son a
birthday?”
“The same
kind that dumps him on the street at five,” Buck snarled.
Chris said
nothing for a few minutes as he chopped lettuce for a salad. “Josiah and Nathan should be here in about
half an hour.”
Buck
grinned. “We’ll make sure this is a
birthday that he never forgets.”
Chris
smiled as finished putting together the salad.
His boys were never going to go without again, if he had anything to say
about it.
