Simple//Tradley:Jonnor

Dear diary.

The next day at breakfast, all four boys were fairly grumpy from the lack of sleep they'd received. Well, James seemed to be more on-edge than grumpy, but he was on-edge all the time so it didn't really make much of a difference, and Brad couldn't exactly show grumpiness, but Tristan just assumed that he would be grumpy if he felt emotions, therefore he was grumpy. All four boys had single-sessions, and Tristan was half relieved and half disappointed that there wasn't a group session; he was relieved because they pissed him off so much he felt he could explode, but he was disappointed as he kind of wanted to watch Brad through the day and see how he would act. The shorter boy was definitely showing some type of emotion the night before, even though he didn't realise it. Although, it bothered Tristan less than it would that he couldn't watch the brunette through the day, as he had a master plan:
That night, before Brad came up to bed and wrote in his diary, Tristan would go and read it. That way, Brad would come to their room for bed and catch the blonde reading his diary, and hopefully he'd get mad and shout or cry or hit the taller boy or something, any display of emotion would please the older boy at this stage. He knew that Brad would probably go crying about it (well, not literally but figuratively) to Doctor Miller, so he'd probably get in loads of trouble, but honestly, if he was helping her to do her job then obviously they couldn't punish him... he hoped. If it didn't work, he wasn't sure what he'd do after that.

Meanwhile, Bradley was thinking about his dream, and wondering why he had been smiling and why the blonde boy was in the dream. It confused him greatly, as he hadn't had a dream before (none that he could remember, anyway), and he had never smiled, either. He wasn't even sure what he looked like when he smiled, so how could he picture himself smiling? It really made no sense. But Brad wanted to know what he looked like when he smiled, he wasn't too sure why, but he felt like he needed to know. So, stating that he was going to the toilet, he rose from his seat and scurried back to the room he shared with Tristan, before standing in front of the full-length mirror and staring at his reflection. He looked at his lips, the pink flesh stiff in a straight line, then into his dark brown eyes, and told himself to smile. He watched the corners of his lips as they slowly lifted, then parted to show a row of white teeth. His eyes held no happiness as he wasn't actually feeling happy, but his lips looked like James' did when he looked at Connor. He was smiling. The brunette lifted his hand slowly and gently rested his fingertips on his bottom lip, watching in the mirror as they traced the soft skin around his pearly teeth. His wondering fingertips went up to his cheeks, feeling how high his cheekbones were and how chubby his cheeks had become now he'd lifted his lips into a never-before-seen smile. "I am... smiling" he whispered, staring at his lips. For the first time since he could remember, he'd lifted his lips and displayed an emotion, despite the fact that he wasn't even feeling it.
Then, his mind flicked to his sister, smiling back at him.

"I'm so excited! Are you?" The girl questioned, her eyes sparkling with excitement and happiness.

"Yes yes yes!" Brad replied, his voice sounding younger, showing equal excitement. "It's going to be the best day ever!" Natalie grinned at his response, and the two shared a moment of happiness, until there was shouting. And screaming. And blackness.

"Bradley, are you okay?" Brad's eyes opened, his vision blurry, and he could see a pink blob. He blinked a few times, and the blob focused to reveal Tristan, James and Connor, all looking down at him with frowns on their faces. Connor looked concerned, James looked fearful and Tristan looked confused, not that Brad could tell which emotions they were showing. "May I ask, why is everybody staring at me?" Brad question, his voice croaky. The three boys quickly sat back and helped Brad into a sitting up position, letting him lean against the cold wall, next to the mirror.

"I found you passed out. I didn't know what to do, so I got the others. What happened?" Tristan questioned, his voice slow, as if Brad was a toddler who had trouble understanding English. Brad wasn't too sure why the three boys were frowning at him like he was some undiscovered species, but he ignored it and thought about his answer to the question. What had happened? Why had he passed out? What had he been doing before he passed out?