InsaneJournal

"Quiet in there," Riley whispered to the blanket covered cage on the floor. He supposed he hadn't given his brother enough warning before inviting himself over with a text, but it was part of the fun: Jason wasn't supposed to know what to expect. Birthdays were meant to come with surprises, and if your little brother was a renowned little shit, all the better for stirring up that wariness.

He rapped Baby Shark on Jason's door.

If he was supposed to know the tune, he adamantly did not. (He did.) Jason looked out the peephole to see the top of a head and a blanket. The head probably belonged to Riley - Clark was supposed to be coming by with ice cream cake, but that wasn't until a little later - so he opened the door.

"It's still over 70 degrees, Ri, why do you need a blanket?"

"I'm thinking of becoming a bullfighter," the younger Cooper told him with ease, and bent down to procure something from behind the cage: an extra large double-cupped yellow slurpee that was offered to Jason. "Hold this, will you? And drink it, eventually."

Jason, predictably, lit up and grabbed the drink, popping the end of the straw in his mouth. "How did you know this was what I wanted for my birthday?" he asked happily after taking his first mouthful of slurpee. It didn't matter that he'd gotten home from Disneyland an hour ago and had had more dole whip than was strictly wise.

Not only for his stomach, but for his wallet - with every dole whip, he'd felt compelled to buy a churro to dip into it, despite the fact that he could only take two, three bites at most of the too cinnamony treat. Whatever was left was thrown into the trash.

If only not thinking about Josh and his churro preference could so easily be gotten rid of.

"I'm incredibly insightful, and the machine next to work isn't fixed yet," Riley told him while hefting the hidden cage up into his arms. "Now move, fragile things in here."

Jason eyed the blanket-covered thing warily. "What is that?"

"You'll see when you move," his brother said without waiting for the invitation to scoot past. "Don't freak out, okay? It's alive." He might've toed out of his shoes, except the cage was proving to be unexpectedly awkward to continue holding. "He'll be more afraid of you than the other way around."

Suddenly, the blanket was a lot more alarming than it had been. "What? What do you mean, alive?" Oh no. It was a snake, wasn't it? That seemed the sort of joke Riley would play on him.

Riley's smile was either the picture of innocence, or of mischief.

"Okay, you should know more about him before you get to really know him. It started in Syria," he started, dead serious now. "His parents, rest their souls, were facing a tiger problem there — fuck, or was it Siberia? Anyway, they escaped to New York to have a chance at a real life. They perished when he was a little thing, but a local punk gang took him in as one of their own."

Riley took the time to step from his shoes now. "He was living the dream as the lead singer of a band, but they broke up due to musical differences, and rather than letting his tiny heart break, he hitched rides cross-country all the way to LA to reinvent himself. While busking on the streets, he found love in a struggling artist mouse. They barely made ends meet, and one day when he was out stealing food for her from the local bakery they loved, he was captured and separated from the love of his life, sentenced to a life in a pet store."

He didn't let his brother say anything, if he even could, and pulled off the blanket.

"Say hi to Todd."

Jason looked from Riley to Todd, who was huddled in the back of the cage, nose twitching, and then back to Riley. He took a step closer, crouching down to see better. The hamster was black and white, and ridiculously tiny. Jace didn't even think it was as big as his palm. Todd stared back warily at him while Jace started making a list of all of the things that Todd would need: a hamster wheel, a ball, food, cage lining, a proper bed, those little tunnels so he could explore the apartment…

He beamed up at his brother who was, for once, taller than him. "Thank you, Riley. I love him. But why does he already have a name?" He didn't believe the backstory for a second.

"Bo named him. He's from both of us," Riley clarified, before knocking his brother's bent knee with a shin. "Happy birthday, Jace."

"From Bo, as well?" Jason blinked, surprised. He hadn't known Bo knew when his birthday was, or, frankly, cared. (He wasn't going to think about the implications of Riley buying a joint present with a single other person not Clark - his brother was as allergic to commitment as Jace was to casual dating.) "I'll have to tell her thank you."

The other blonde made a little face. "It was kind of a 'we're making this from both of us because we bought him together and I said so' kind of thing when I told her it was your birthday, but it was my idea. You told me you were thinking about getting one." His gaze, shyer now, redirected elsewhere. "So now you don't have to anymore."

The sudden shyness was very sweet, and Jason straightened himself up, gently taking Todd's cage out for Riley's hands to set on the little coffee table - he'd have to find a better place for it, but it would do for now.

Then he pulled his younger brother into a hug. "Thanks, Ri."

"You're welcome," Riley mumbled into collarbone, then shoulder as he shifted a little onto his toes to sink better into the embrace. "I hate that you're so tall, God. I'm chopping you down half a foot for my birthday present."

Jace pressed a kiss to his brother's forehead. If Riley was going to let him get away with being affectionate, he was going to milk it. "But you're so cutely pocket-sized."

"I'm going to chew your ankles like a beaver and laugh when you fall," pocket-sized brother grumpily promised him with no real hint of violence.

"If I fall, I fall knowing how thoughtful you are and then I will gaze up adoringly at you," tree brother teased. "Come on. Let's get Todd properly set up before Clark gets here with the cake."