Chris is always referenced and used with Guine's input and permission. <3
Word Count: 1532
“… kid’s got a nasty curveball,” his father muttered. He sounded like he was trying not to seem too impressed, but for once he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
Paris glanced over at him. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” he asked.
“Good for him, bad for the other team.”
The bleachers surrounding the baseball diamond at Destiny City University weren’t too heavily populated. There was a decent crowd in attendance, but Paris still had enough room to stretch out and lounge if he chose to. It was a grey afternoon, a bit of a winter chill still lingering in the air, but he could sense spring coming in the occasional ray of sunlight that broke through the cloud cover to warm the back of his neck.
He and his father sat three rows back on the first base side of the diamond, near the DCU dugout. They both wore purple ball caps Paris had bought at the university store, though his father looked far more natural in his than Paris felt in his own. It was the first of Chris’s games he’d managed to attend after being sick for weeks, and his ignorance of the sport was becoming more apparent to him with each passing inning. He recognized his boyfriend’s talent for it, but understood too few of the rules to make an able commentator.
“He looking to get drafted?” his father asked, still with that tone of voice that struggled to seem disinterested.
Paris suspected his father was more interested in his boyfriend’s game than Paris was himself.
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“Be a waste if he didn’t.”
Paris didn’t know how to respond. He was pretty sure Chris would like to go pro, and he was also pretty sure Chris was good enough to make it in the majors—though he was also rather biased—but things were quite a bit more complicated than his father realized. Going pro meant potentially relocating, and traveling, and generally not being in Destiny City. What Paris wasn’t sure about was whether or not Chris felt comfortable committing himself to that sort of life with the state of things being as they were.
His boyfriend was good-natured and responsible and not the sort of person to neglect his obligations when he had the opportunity to make a difference. Paris knew that Chris would readily sacrifice a career in the major leagues if it meant protecting the city that had become his home.
Paris didn’t like that. He didn’t think it was fair that Chris—or anyone, really, but especially Chris—should have to give up on his dreams and settle for something else all because of some dumb war they hadn’t even been responsible for starting.
But he couldn’t talk to his father about that because Henri LeFay didn’t have a clue, and Paris wasn’t of a mind to fill him in. It was safer to keep his secrets, let Henri think what he wanted. His father already looked too haggard, older than he should at forty-six—pale, unhealthy, and tired. Paris was sure he’d contributed to that enough already. He didn’t have any intention of making it worse.
“Wait, how did that guy get out?” he wondered, trying to focus back on the game.
“Fouled out to left.”
“Yeah, but it was in foul territory.”
“Left-fielder still caught it before it landed.”
Paris’s face screwed up in an effort to understand concepts he was sure were really quite simple, but for some reason his brain failed to process the information in any way that made proper sense. It was actually really frustrating. It was true that he hadn’t had much of a care for baseball before, but he wanted to now. He wanted to get it. He wanted to see what it was that Chris and his dad both found so appealing about it. He thought it was important for him to know, to share it, because Chris was important to him.
His father was important to him, too, and the more haggard he looked, the more Paris felt like he was failing him.
Henri snorted in either amusement or derision—it was so hard to tell which.
“Stick to ballet, Paris,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m sure you’d enjoy that,” Paris muttered, letting the sarcasm fall freely from his tongue.
“Do you get what’s going on here?” his father asked.
“No,” Paris admitted, though he wanted to pretend otherwise.
“But you still think your boyfriend’s good?”
Paris watched the young man in question step off the mound to head back to the dugout after successfully striking out his eighth batter of the day. He happened to look through the fence to see both of them sitting there, and waved and smiled the way that always made Paris feel fluttery and light inside.
“I know he is,” Paris said, smiling and waving back.
“Then don’t you think I know you’re good, even if I don’t get it?”
Henri wasn’t looking at him. In fact, he was looking at anything but. He watched the players, inspected the stands, glanced up at the gloomy looking sky, but never once turned his head to peer at his son. All the same, Paris heard more honesty in his father’s voice than he was used to receiving—and something that was not quite pride, but the closest thing to it he thought Henri would ever show.
“You mean that?” Paris asked quietly. He almost expected his father to act as if he hadn’t said anything at all.
“I’ve watched you, haven’t I?” Henri replied.
“Yes…”
“And have I ever lied to you before?”
Paris considered this for a moment before deciding that, while his father might not always be entirely honest about how he felt, he also never outright lied.
“No…”
“Then there you go.”
Embarrassed by the sudden wet warmth Paris felt collecting in his eyes, he turned back to the ball field to watch one of Chris’s teammates settle in at the plate.
For most of his life Paris had assumed that his father would have preferred a son more like Chris—perhaps not one so intellectually successful, since Henri had never really put pressure on him to study and make good grades, but definitely one whose passions laid more in baseball and football than dance. He could always depend on his father to grumble about his choice of hobby and show as little interest as possible, and utter the obvious insults that Paris now realized often sounded weak and half-hearted. They were simply what was expected, a habit they’d fallen into, but that didn’t make the contempt real.
Henri had come to watch him dance that winter, knowing how important it was to him, how hard he’d been working, how much he’d always wanted to succeed. He didn’t have to understand it—just as Paris didn’t need to understand what Chris was doing now—to show a modicum of support.
And it was the support that Paris wanted most. They didn’t need to share the same passion or live the same dreams in order to support one another through them.
As he forced himself to keep watching the activity on the ball field, Paris felt a sudden weight against his head and realized moments later that it was his father’s hand. It didn’t move, but remained stationary atop his hat, and Paris was so surprised he could only sit there, frozen in place.
“If you want to dance, then dance,” Henri said. His voice was low and quiet, almost harsh, but it was the loudest thing in Paris’s head. He heard each word unmistakably, over the loudspeaker and the chattering and cheering crowd. “You keep dancing, and don’t you ever give up on it. I don’t care what happens. It doesn’t matter who stands in your way or what sort of crap people throw at you. Even if it’s mean or unfair or you don’t think you can make it. You fight and you keep dancing, and don’t you ever end up like me.”
The hand lifted once and came back down in a quasi-affectionate motion that resembled a pat, before it slipped away completely.
“Do you understand?”
Slowly, Paris turned his head to look back over at Henri. His father was staring straight at him this time, dark brows lowered over light eyes, and mouth pressed into a firm frown that deepened the lines on his too-old face. He looked as pale and tired as always—perhaps paler and more tired than usual—but there was a fire and a determination in his gaze, and Paris didn’t think he’d ever seen his father so clearly before.
Paris didn’t have the appropriate words to respond. He nodded in answer, and kept watching his father even as Henri’s eyes went back to the game.
“Good,” his father said.
The clouds parted for a time. Afternoon sunlight warmed the bleachers. In the distance, beneath the sounds of clapping and cheering and the ‘ping’ of the ball connecting with a bat, a few birds chirped a merry song.
And for just a moment, Paris thought that everything would be okay.
