Chocolate Eyes

"I don't want to sleep," Evander stated softly as Brian lugged him into his arms.

Brian shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry," he replied, "But it's already dark and I read somewhere that kids actually need to sleep." Brian took the stairs slowly, slightly nervous that he might teeter and topple back down the stairs.

Evander frowned as his dad carried him down the hall towards his new room. "I'm scared," he said as Brian pushed his bedroom door open.

Now Brian's expression matched EJ's. "Why?" Bri asked as he set the child down on his bed. "There's nothing to be scared about." Brian grabbed for the closest suitcase, hoping he could find the boy some pajamas quickly.

EJ kicked his heels against the frame of his bed. He just swallowed harshly instead of replying to his dad.

"Tell me," Brian encouraged softly, "I want to make sure that you're never scared again, EJ." Brian tossed a long sleeve shirt next to the boy on the bed and dove back into the black suitcase to find a pair of shorts.

"The house," he whispered, his eyes scanning the big room surrounding him.

Brian grabbed the first pair of shorts that he found and slid back up to his feet at the sound of his child's nervous words. He dropped the shorts on top of the shirt and touched his son's back comfortingly. "You're afraid of the house?" he questioned, his eyes searching EJ's as the child tried to look away from him.

"No..."

Brian turned so that he was facing his son directly. "EJ," he murmured, "You can talk to me. We had fun together today, right?"

Evander's eyes slid to meet Brian's identical ones and he nodded as slow as he could.

Brian smiled and touched the boy's thick hair. "We're friends." Brian nodded. "We can talk like friends, EJ." Brian's hand slid down to rest of EJ's narrow shoulders.

Evander nodded again. "It's so big," he stated, "I'm not used to it."

Brian helped Evander unbutton his shirt as he spoke. "It's a little scary at first." He nodded. "But you'll get used to it. It's pretty nice, actually."

"Yeah," Evander breathed, letting Brian push his collared shirt off of his shoulders and pull the other shirt over his head.

Brian reached for the silky shorts. "Where'd you live before?" he questioned, helping Evander off of the bed so that they could swap his khaki pants for the breezier shorts.

"California," Evander replied, stumbling over the large word.

Brian chuckled at the boy's obvious statement. "Where exactly?" he asked as he pulled down the gray comforter and let the child slid in between the fresh sheets. He pulled one of the large pillows out from under the boy's head and set it on the floor at the end of his bed.

"Monterey," EJ replied, having said the word perfectly quite a few times before. He laid back with his head on his pillow and looked up to the man clad in mostly black. Brian wasn't what the child had been expecting when Jake told him that his dad was coming to take care of him. Being only four, he pictured an exact replica of Jake, only with light hair and eyes like his.

Besides the eyes, Brian was nothing like the man that he'd pictured. Evander's fingers traced over the tattoos on the knuckles of Brian's fingers. He didn't know what the red letters meant, but he didn't want to ask. He'd never seen a tattoo before in his life. The TV had been the only reason he knew what they were in the first place.

"What was it like living in Monterey?" Brian questioned, hoping to get as much information out of Evander while the child was losing his sadness to sleep.

"Different." Evander's hand covered his mouth as he yawned.

"Why was it different?" Brian questioned, reaching up to brush EJ's growing bangs out of his face.

"Before Mommy met Jake, I was hungry a lot." Evander yawned again and let his eyes stayed closed this time.

Brian frowned and swallowed back the feelings rising up in him. He never realized that his son could've gone without when he lived with his mother. When Claudia Kent showed up at his front door, he never thought about how maybe EJ would've been best with him in the first place. He was unstable, touring the world with the guys, staying out late, drinking, smoking cigarettes.

But with him, Evander would've never been hungry.

"I'm sorry, Evander," Brian whispered to his son's sleeping form, "I didn't know. I thought you were better off."

Evander sighed in his newly found sleep and curled over on his side, the presence of his father lulling him into a peaceful sleep, absent of the nightmares he'd been fighting since the day his mother was taken from him.