Welcome to Gaia! ::

They’d left after the Doctor came in, heavily hinting that it was time for it to be closer family and doctors and giving promises that they’d return. Jarvis was a curious sort of person, to say the least. Yu wasn’t wholly sure what to make of him, so he held that judgement in reserve for now.

It didn’t leave him with any fewer questions though, some he could talk to Sterling about, that kiss for example. Other, well… he’d be knocking on his ‘Other Boss’s’ door the second he had half a chance.

Still, given how the day had gone, one of his first stops was in their fridge to pull out chocolate stout and offer it to Sterling to try and take some of the more brittle edges off the day.

“Thank you for uh… keeping everything together when we were there.” He murmured apologetically. He knew he’d taken very little of it in anything like ‘stride’. There were still nail marks in his arm and fresh scratches he’d have to polish out of the leather bracers he wore. Thank god he’d managed to trade shifts at work, he wasn’t sure he could have focused after everything he’d learned, and seen today.

Yu grabbed a drink for himself and slowly settled into the other chair, rolling the cool bottle against his arm, processing the words while uncapping the bottle, and then pouring half of it into Sterling’s cup.
“I… don’t think you’re helpless, there are just things that …” He trailed off, the topic somehow less important than knowing they both cared about the other man.

“… He won’t think it’s… strange?” He asked carefully. Relationships were hardly his strong point. Priam was his first of anything that could be close to being called such a thing.
Had you asked him a year ago perhaps, he’d have sworn that no, there was no chance he’d let anyone close enough to hurt him the way that Sterling could, the way… he was realizing, Priam could - if they wanted.

And yet, even knowing that he did, as Sterling suggested, want to open the door to letting Priam in.

He rested his other hand over Sterling’s and squeezed gently.

“ B…believe me when I assure you, I’m not perfect.” He said with a solemnity that he hoped conveyed just how true the statement was.
“But I know how, good you two are, there aren’t a lot of people where I’d look after their …horses, never mind hospital visits.” He squeezed gently.

“But I don’t… think you’re wrong. I think we should talk to him, he could take the bedroom down here, it’s not fancy but… We could get a -good- mattress, I’m pretty sure we can build a frame that’s the perfect height for how he must be feeling.

“I want… I want to find out who did this, I want to know why. I want to know why they said what they did…were they - were they there to hurt him or was it, random.”

The word random felt like ash in his mouth because he didn’t believe it. He wished he did…

But … Love, he thought that might be a good word for what he felt. No wonder it felt so dangerous, like letting them near soft spots.

“We could fix the bathroom up, add rails just in case. Do one of these fancy showers that are kinda set into the floor, with the tile and the stone. Would be easier to step in and out of.”

They could probably afford the tile, and with some long nights and how-to videos, they could probably do most of this without trouble.

“...plus it might be good for washing dogs.” He added with an afterthought. So he wouldn’t feel like we did it just for him, since that can be odd.”

“We can get that right started, if you can pull up videos I can rip stuff out and…we can go from there, it’s already got a spot for a drain so…” He waved his hands vaguely unable to find words for a moment to describe why he thought they really could make this work.

“I think we can rent any tools we need, and if we want to set him up a better bed with a frame we can get wood while we’re there, won’t be fancy but, some nails and some paint … should be pretty good?”

At least having something to concentrate on, something to do with his hands would give him time to think, or time not to think. It sounded wonderful at the moment.

He realized as Sterling kissed his knuckles that there was still a fine tremor in his hands and he concentrated to try and still it.

“I… mean, you’re telling someone who didn’t even think to consider asking you if you wanted to be in a relationship till I thought you were confessing your love TO Priam so, I think I’m not surprised about your feelings?” He teased.

He worried at his lip and took a breath. “If we don’t finish it in the next few days I can work between classes and my job too, we can do this.” He nodded finding some ‘traction’ in thought.

“We can load my junk mobile with most of what we need, might need some rope to keep it in place but we can, we can make sure that it’s a safe place to recover even if he does think we’re odd for the rest.”

Nap? Not the worst idea, getting sleep when and where you could, sometimes life worked better that way.

He nodded after a moment, agreeing.
“That, sounds good. I’d… like to just curl up with you.” he admitted.

“I’m…sorry too, I think maybe if I hadn’t been here you might have known sooner. I mean, I had reasons to think you had said ‘you’ not…’Yu’ when I overheard that phone call.” he teased gently.
“But, I know we can convince him it’s not petty. I mean, probably you can better than me, I’m a freaking mess we both know that.” He laughed softly.

“Ill follow you.” he promised, standing at the tug.

“We can even do something goofy like, make a stripe of color tile that’s his like…favorite color.” He quirked a smile, the corner of his mouth turning up to flash a hint of sharp smile.

“We can stop at the farmer market, get some of those candles, the golden ones that smell so nice.”

He meant the real beeswax ones, somehow the smell of them felt the most grounding, and he assumed other people might feel the same.

“Be like, the most awkward romantic homecoming, but we can try right?” He added hopefully.

He made a soft sound, curling against Sterling and wrapping him in his arms.
“You’re a treasure…. you are, like, finding a star in the night sky you can be led by, like the north star but one only a few people know.” He murmured.

He wanted, wanted badly to lock down the whispering doubts.

But he could at least try and express how important it was to be part of Sterling’s life.

He did laugh softly though, learning that the Creme Brûlée had ultimately brought them all together.
“And now you’re carrying a torch for him.” He teased softly.

“… I love you too.” He said after a long moment. The words were strange and heavy but so very true. It squeezed something in his chest to say them. He knew, he KNEW that he’d die to protect him, and it was strange to find that he was absolutely, okay with that.