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happiness is

Chapter Thirty-Nine - Happy Anniversary

Plaything

Title: Happy Anniversary (39/??)
Author: tumbling_down
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2100
Genre: Hancest



Zac

I felt terrible when I turned off World of Warcraft and found a post-it stuck to the door saying that Taylor and Tabitha had gone to a movie together. Sometimes I wished that he would just hit me or something to get me to stop focusing on my video games because it wasn't that I didn't want to pay attention to him, I just physically wasn't aware that anything else was going on around me. I honestly wasn't sure how to fix that, other than not playing my games, and that was just completely out of the question.

They came home only twenty minutes after I had shut my computer down. I was sitting in the living room, not really paying attention to whatever was on TV, waiting for them to get back. Taylor was carrying Tabitha and I quickly got up to help him close the door because she was half asleep in his arms. "She stayed up for the whole movie," he told me as I followed them into the guest bedroom. "And on the way back she just zonked out."

"Well, it's almost ten. She usually goes to sleep by nine, I think."

"I know. I always forget that kids, like, go to sleep early and wake up early," he said, carefully depositing her on the bed. She yawned groggily and crawled under the covers, smiling up at us for a second before her eyes closed and she was out.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and we just stood there for a few minutes, watching her sleep. "We'll definitely have to change our sleeping schedule when we adopt," I whispered, kissing his jaw. "I'm sorry I didn't come with you guys."

He turned into me and gave me a quick hug before taking my hand and leading me out of the room. "It's okay," he said with a shrug. He took one last glance at her sleeping before he turned the light off and closed the door halfway. "We had fun...I don't get to spend too much time with just her, so it was okay."

"Well. I'm still sorry," I said, following him into the living room where we curled up on the couch together. "You can like, just pull me away from the computer or something, you know, to like make me pay attention."

"I know. If it was super important I would. But it really wasn't that big of a deal."

"I just don't want you think that I don't want to...like, talk to you or whatever."

He grinned and squeezed me harder. "I know. Sometimes it seems like that but, like, two minutes later I realize you just go into your own little world."

"Like when you're reading," I suggested. If he was reading, he would not pay attention to you unless you physically removed the book from his hands. Then you usually had to wait a good minute or two before he let everything he'd read process. After that, then you could talk to him and have him actually listen.

"Maybe we should go to sleep," he said. "Since you know she's going to wake us up at six in the morning."

"So not tired," I sad, holding him tightly when he tried to get up.

"I'm tired," he whined, trying to wriggle out of my grasp. "We didn't even take a nap today and you woke me up early and last night was exhausting."

I snorted and pulled him back tightly against me. "You slept for nine hours. And I should be the exhausted one."

"Whatever. You can stay up. I want to go to sleep."

"But I want to spend time with you."

"Spend time with me in bed. While I'm sleeping."

I sighed and let him get up and pull me up with him. "You're just going to sleep?" I asked, shooing Princess out of our room and closing the door. "You've been up for twelve hours."

He groaned and pushed me towards the bed. "Fine. Get naked while I wash my face. Then we'll go to sleep."

* * * * * * * * * *

Tabitha woke me up in the morning by poking me repeatedly in the nose until I finally groaned and opened my eyes, rubbing them and staring blearily at her. I glanced at the clock and then down at her. It was five in the morning. Taylor was still sleeping on my chest and I ran my fingers through his hair before slowly sliding him off of me. "Morning, Tabs," I whispered with a yawn. "What are you doing up already?"

"I dunno. I just woke up."

"Alrighty well...give me a minute and I'll be in the kitchen to make you breakfast, okay?"

"Okay," she said quietly and then exaggeratedly tiptoed out of the room. It really wasn't fair that she liked Taylor more and respected his need to sleep for insane amounts of time. I had it in my mind to make him wake up, too, but I figured I'd let him sleep since we'd been up later than he had intended.

After pulling on some sweat pants and a t-shirt, I found Tabitha sitting at the breakfast bar (it still amazed me that she was able to climb up onto the stools by herself, now) with Princess purring next to her. "I'm not hungry," she said to me. "Daddy doesn't make breakfast 'til The Backyardigans come on."

"What time is that?"

"Dunno."

"Alright. Well. Why don't you tell me when you're hungry, okay?"

"Kay. What're we doing today?"

"I dunno. We'll have to wait for Tay to wake up and then decide," I said, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. "Are you thirsty?"

"I want juice. And I want to go to the zoo."

"Why the zoo?" I asked, pulling a juice box out for her and inserting the straw. I sat across from her and almost laughed. I hadn't really taken a good look at her until then and her hair was absolutely ridiculous and very reminiscent of what Isaac's hair had looked like when it was longer and he had just woken up.

"Today's your 'versery, right? And Uncle Tay likes the zoo."

"Well. I can't argue with that, I guess," I laughed. "Should we get you into the bath quick, and then wake him up?"

After we got her cleaned up, I left her in the living room with a Rolie Polie Olie DVD on. She was surprisingly understanding about letting me wake Taylor up with his coffee and a banana nut muffin and patiently (or not so patiently, probably, but she pretended well enough) waited for us to reappear once I disappeared into the bedroom. Sometimes I couldn't believe how well behaved she was, especially with Lindsay as her mother.

I climbed back into bed with him after setting the coffee and muffin down on his night stand. Lots and lots of kisses were administered all over his face until he was laughing and pushing me away from him. Then he looked at the clock and groaned and tried to hide under his pillow, but I took it away. "It's time to wake up. I've already been up for three hours," I informed him. "And gave Tabitha a bath."

"But I'm tired," he whined.

"That's what the coffee is for!"

He grumbled something that I didn't pay attention to and then he picked up his coffee and took a sip. "Happy anniversary," I said.

"Mmhmm...it'd be happier if it wasn't eight in the morning."

"Tabitha woke me up at five. You got to sleep three extra hours."

He sighed and flopped down against me, nuzzling his face into my chest. "Can't I sleep for one more hour?" he pleaded. "I'll totally make it worth your while. Sexually."

I snorted and kissed the top of his head, running my hand over his back. "Are you that tired?" He nodded lazily. "Alright, one more hour. But then Tabby wants to go to the zoo."

I could feel his facial expression change against my chest, even through my t-shirt. "Really? The zoo?"

"Yes."

"Maybe I could wake up now," he said, glancing up at me with a grin.

* * * * * * * * * *

We got to the zoo a little after ten in the morning and it was surprisingly empty. I was pretty sure I had seen Jodi and Nancy following us, but at least they gave us our space, so it wasn't too terrible. I just hoped Taylor didn't do anything ridiculous that they would take a picture of and post online. We got one of the dolphin shaped wagon type things so that we wouldn't have to carry Tabitha around. The first thing we did was take Tabitha on the carousel. Then we took the train towards the African animals because Tabitha wanted to save the penguins for last.

We looked at giraffes and ostriches and zebras and tons of other African animals (which was pretty cool since we'd seen them in person only nine or so months before hand on a safari in Africa) before we made our way to the water animals. There was a show starting soon, so we got seats and sodas and an ice cream for Tabby and a seat up front by the water. It was already insanely hot out and only eleven, and Tabitha liked to get splashed by the sea lions. I did not really like getting splashed by them because I didn't particularly enjoy smelling like fish for the rest of the day, but how could I argue with Tabitha and Taylor? It's just impossible.

After the show was over and we all smelled properly like wet, slimy fish, we stayed around so that Tabitha could feed the sea lions. We had to pay ten dollars per person to do this, but she got an ear full of educational information about sea life. You can't put a price tag on learning, right? And Taylor's grin when he tossed his sea lion - which he named Garrett even though our marine biologist said his name was Sammy - was totally worth the thirty dollars. Also Tabitha's squeal and giggle fit when Taylor swooped her up and threatened to feed her to the sea lion if she didn't let him have some of her mostly melted ice cream (which was disgusting since it probably had fishy water all over it).

When we finally made it to the children's area, Tabitha was very insistent that we feed the goats. We put our quarters into the machines and entered the pen and I mostly just dumped the food I had onto the ground and then took pictures of Tabitha and Taylor together while they played with the goats. It was really, really cute, watching them.

It got even cuter when one particular goat took a special interest in Taylor. It was a bit smaller than most of the other goats and while Taylor walked around, it trailed behind him. At some point, Taylor began walking a little faster, but the goat followed him. He tried to shoo it away, waving his hand about and shouting, but it just stared up at him like Taylor was its long lost father, or something. I was amazed with my thinking skills and happened to video tape the entire thing. Tabitha decided to join in, trying to chase the goat away from Taylor, but it just wasn't working.

I just about died laughing when the goat literally tackled Taylor, sending him onto his ass, and started licking his face. I filmed for another minute, laughing hysterically while Taylor batted at the goat and tried to squirm away, but he couldn't. "Za-ac," he whined, glaring at me. "Stop being a jerkface and help me!"

I turned the camera off and pushed the goat away, still laughing, before heaving Taylor into a standing position. "Stop laughing," he said with a scowl. "That was not funny."

"Oooh, you have no idea," I laughed, clutching my stomach because it was incredibly painful by that time. "I can't wait. I can't wait to put this video up on h-net."

He narrowed his eyes at me and scowled. "If you put that video anyplace, I will never, ever have sex with you again."

I laughed again, slinging my arm around his shoulders. "After your makeout session with that goat, I'm not so sure that-"

"Watch it," he said in his warning voice. "Or I'll never suck your dick again, either."

I laughed and squeezed his shoulders tightly. "I love you," I said quietly, watching Tabitha as she ran towards us, a huge grin on her face.

I hadn't noticed it until then, and I dropped my arm from his shoulder quickly, but Jodi and Nancy were standing outside of the fenced in area with their own video camera pointed in our direction.

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