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 Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 4:19 pm
Paris slid his phone shut after ending the call.
He sat at one of the tables out on the Gallos’ patio, under the shade of an umbrella with a cup of tea set in front of him. It was relatively warm out, much warmer than it had been a month ago, the sun bright and the breeze soft. It was nice, peaceful, almost comforting, but Paris couldn’t enjoy it. He might have if he’d been in a better mood, if the weekend had been different—happier, as it should have been—but it was only weather and Paris felt nothing for it, just a mild sense of relief that at least it wasn’t raining.
He propped his chin on one of his hands and stared out over the large backyard. He and Chris had come over the previous evening, once they’d slept enough and ate and showered and did what they could to make themselves look presentable when neither of them felt much like company. They would have stayed at Chris’s place, alone but for each other, except Paris knew he’d scared quite a few people, and he couldn’t hide himself away forever.
Part of him wanted to. If he could sink into the ground or fade away until he was invisible… it might be nice.
If he looked at the windows over his shoulder, Paris could see Momma Gallo bustling around in the kitchen, making cookies or cake or some other snack intended to comfort. At least the Gallos had held off on their usual Easter plans. They’d gone to mass that morning—Paris hadn’t joined them this time—but there would be no cookout or large family dinner with aunts, uncles, and cousins. Paris appreciated the attempt at privacy, though he wondered if it might have been better to distract himself with a little socializing, forcing a smile and pretending like everything was still okay.
Or maybe it would only make things worse.
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 4:42 pm
Chris had conveniently forgotten to 'get something' from the house when Paris's mother had called, figuring it would be better to let him talk to her on his own. Paris didn't seem to mind the privacy, so he wasn't too concerned when he got caught up in a small scuffle of being pelted by plastic eggs by Peter. He was sure Michael chipped in a couple well aimed shots from the bannister above the great room, but he denied everything.
It was rare to see the whole family together these days. Michael usually kept to himself at his own place, while Chris didn't have to deal with Peter ever since he'd started college. Even dad was home for a few days, before he had to leave again on business, or whatever the hell he had to do.
Paris was a welcome addition, of course, and Michael and Peter were sure to cut out their rough housing around him. Instead, they went off to talk about monsters in the city and whether or not they really existed or if it was just a publicity stunt pulled by the press. Chris kept out of that discussion, not wanting to get too passionate about something and reveal himself... although, why would his family think he was anything more than just a typical college kid and a goody-goody two-shoes?
Well, almost. He had gotten rather drunk only a couple nights ago. So... his first real experiment with alcohol hadn't gone very well, but he thought he did pretty well for not drinking until he was on the older half of nineteen.
"Here... got you some cake..." he said coming up behind Paris so he could join him at the table, sliding the small piece of carrot cake his mother had been fussing over earlier that morning. "You don't have to eat it, but at least poke at it. She'll think you're at least trying it, then," he suggested, casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure his mother wasn't spying on them.
"What's your mom doing...?" he asked, trying to be more supportive than curious as he took a bite of his own piece. He's already changed out of his church clothes, and was now wearing a short sleeved pastel plaid polo and white cargo shorts, which was about as dressed down as he willingly got, unless requested by Paris to wear jeans. At least he wasn't wearing khakis, right?
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 5:06 pm
“Thanks…” Paris pulled his chin off of his palm to lower his hand and grab the fork, taking a small bite of cake. He chewed it slowly.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to eat; he simply didn’t have much of an appetite. He’d had some soup and crackers yesterday when he’d thought he could stomach it, and this morning he’d let Momma Gallo make him some chocolate chip pancakes, but he couldn’t stomach much of anything no matter how good it tasted. After a few bites he just wouldn’t be able to handle anymore; he’d feel too queasy and sick to force it.
Paris sighed after his second bite, staring down at his plate as he tried to muster up the will to eat and talk, or do anything really. At least he’d gotten dressed that morning, in a floral printed playsuit he thought looked appropriate for the holiday, with sandals on his feet and his hair pulled up and tied off with a blue ribbon. For a little while he’d thought going about the day as usual would help take his mind off things, but it didn’t last. Once the novelty of dressing up had worn off, he was right back where he’d started.
“She’s been calling people, some of my relatives, my grandparents. Taking care of everything, I guess,” he said, nudging at his cake before sliding another small piece onto his fork. “She’s been staying at the house, but she said she’ll be over here in a little while. Looks like I can’t avoid her forever.”
He’d been doing so not because he didn’t want to see her, but because the longer he kept her away, the longer he could go without making all the difficult decisions.
“We’ll probably end up closing the shop.”
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 5:37 pm
"Mm..." Chris nodded in understanding, or at least as much as he could. Someone had to be the one to break the news to the rest of the family, and it was also inevitable that Paris's mother would catch up with him. She'd come all the way from New York, after all... Of course, if she hadn't... Well, it as bad enough that Paris didn't have her in his life all that much to begin with. She wasn't the one who stayed by Paris's father to take care of him when he found out he was ill. It was all Paris. It was his energy and patience and love that had pushed him to try and help Henri LeFay as much as he possibly could. He dropped out of school, he worked at the shop, he gave up a lot of his pervious carefree life in order to make sure his father wasn't wasting away even faster than he had been before...
"There's no one to run it...?" he wondered, although he knew Paris had too much to deal with than to be taking care of an art supply store. He had dance... He loved dance. He couldn't just give that up now. It made Chris sad to think that all those years of having the shop was just... going to end, but he knew there was no way either of them could keep up with it. His mom might suggest a few things, or even take it on as her new hobby, but it wouldn't last... It would probably be for the best, anyway...
He took a small sip of the tea that had been left outside for him, although he would have much preferred more coffee. He'd almost made it through Lent without the things he'd given up, but under the circumstances that arose... there were more important things to worry about than going to hell for drinking coffee.
"Is she going to try and make you go back to New York with her...?" he asked, feeling himself tense up at his own question. He hoped there wasn't too much bitterness in his voice, but while he knew Paris had forgiven his mom for leaving, Chris was still trying to accept the fact that she never came back.
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 5:56 pm
“She probably wants me to,” Paris replied. He didn’t comment on Chris’s tone of voice, or even do anything to let his boyfriend know he’d heard anything different in it. He wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk about where those feelings came from.
Chris might not understand—hell, Paris barely did, but he’d forgiven his mother and he was determined to let go of his own bitterness. It seemed even more important now, when she was all he had left. He knew why she’d gone and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t get the desperation that had driven her to it. He could imagine how she’d felt. He even thought he knew something of what she’d been thinking. He’d felt similarly from time to time. The important thing, he figured, was not that she hadn’t come back, but that she still loved him.
Part of him wondered if she might have still loved his father, too.
“It’s not like she can force me, since I’m eighteen,” he continued, setting his fork down to sip at his tea. “But I know she’ll suggest it, especially since we’re probably going to sell off the house, too. I don’t want to go, but… I couldn’t live in that house anymore either. She told me she’ll take dad’s savings and the money we make off of the house and the shop and put it in a college fund for me, so I can pay for tuition if I don’t get a scholarship, or save it for later if I do and use it for a studio if I decide I want to open one. She said it’s what… it’s what he would have wanted...”
Paris didn’t know if that was true or not. He and his dad had never discussed things like that, but he wondered, maybe, after some of the things Henri had said to him in the end, maybe his mom was right.
“I don’t want to go to New York,” he said. He grabbed his fork again to poke at his cake. “Everything I’ve ever known is here. You’re here, and Ladon, and all my other friends, and the sen-” He cut himself off before he could finish, wary of someone else listening in. That, and he didn’t really want to admit that that part of his life had somehow become important to him. “The others, too. I can’t just drop everything and go somewhere else.”
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 6:12 pm
Chris rested his elbow on the table, poking some more at his cake as well, but his stomach was now feeling too twisted up to really eat more. He didn't like the idea of Paris leaving. Of him having to start over in a new place, making new friends, not knowing anyone... He was sure he'd be able to keep up with a long distance relationship, but would Paris want to...? Some of the things he'd said when he was drunk made him wonder just how much Paris was putting into their relationship...
But that could also just have been him being drunk...
"I'm sure that's what he would have wanted, too," he agreed, not wanting Paris to start questioning it. This wasn't the time to start wondering about things like that. But it was good to know that things were being taken care of. Paris already knew he didn't want to go back to his house, but what did that mean for where he'd live...?
He was sure that there were plenty of people who would offer a place for him until he got back on his feet. His mother would surely offer a room there, but who wanted to be housemates with Peter? Hell, if he got into DCU he could get a dorm on campus. But that didn't seem like the best option available. Not when there were so many other things to deal with in the other halves of their lives. Patrolling and keeping in touch with the Jovians... Keeping their identities protected, too. It would be easier if Paris would stay somewhere secure and safe and where he wouldn't have to worry about running into a Negaverse officer on accident.
"Live with me," he said suddenly, looking up at Paris with determination in his eyes. "Unless you were planning on living somewhere else... I'd like you to move in with me." It wasn't as though they didn't stay at his place most of their time, anyway.
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 6:31 pm
Paris finally looked up from his cake. It had been easier to stare at it instead of looking at Chris while they’d been talking about things more directly related to his father and mother, but his cake and his tea weren’t nearly as interesting as the arrangement Chris had just offered.
He didn’t know what he’d planned on doing himself, if he’d had to make a choice. He didn’t want to go to New York, but he didn’t want to stay in the house either, not now that he’d be there alone with nothing but memories of his father everywhere he turned.
He would have suffered through a dorm if he’d had to, but he didn’t even know if he’d get it seeing as he was applying so late, and he wouldn’t have been able to move in until late August anyway, so what would he have done for the months before? He could have looked for a roommate, too, moved into an apartment, maybe seen if he could stay with a friend for a while, but then he’d be imposing and have to get used to a new set of circumstances.
He’d already lost his dad. He’d much rather stay somewhere he was already familiar with, at least until he was on his feet and had learned to live without him.
“It’s not like I don’t spend most of my time at your place anyway, I guess,” he observed. He would have smiled if he felt he could manage it. His lips twitched a little at the corners, but they didn’t rise very much. “I’d like to, I think… if you want me… I mean, if it’s okay. I’m sure Mom wouldn’t mind once she got over me not going to New York with her, but… would your parents be okay with it?”
Paris glanced over his shoulder, through the windows where Momma Gallo was still moving around in the kitchen. “Your mom knows that we… uhh… well, your mom and I talk a lot so she knows… some things…” he said, turning back and staring at his cake again. He wasn’t sure how Chris felt about him talking to his mother about certain aspects of their relationship.
“But moving in together’s kind of a big deal, isn’t it?”
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 6:49 pm
Chris felt his eye twitch, and he stared at Paris for a few moments, before lowering his head with a noise that sounded half like a whimper and half a groan. "You talk to mom about... stuff...?" he asked through his teeth, suddenly not feeling like he could stomach the rest of his cake.
Not that he thought his mother would care all that much. She fussed over him when she brought up that one time at camp. How the hell she ever found out about that, he didn't know. She must have had spies all over the place or something. And then she never seemed to mind when he was dating Skye, although she did talk to him about women and being safe and all that. For all her fussing and fluttering about awkward conversations, he was glad that his mother was rather open minded about a lot of things.
Of course, that made him wonder what she was like when she was younger... Or maybe he didn't want to know.
"I don't think it'll be that big a deal," he said after a few moments of collecting himself, although he had the feeling that he'd be paying much closer attention to the way his mother spoke to him. She liked to skirt around topics and only drop hints from time to time... so he wouldn't be surprised if she'd been hinting at his relationship with Paris for months now and he just... was too oblivious to realize it.
"But I do want you to move in with me..." He shrugged lightly and leaned back agains this chair. "If you want to, I mean..." Because Paris wanting to and Chris wanting Paris to were two completely different things.
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:21 pm
“I do want to.”
He was a little worried that moving in together might be a little too much too fast. They were still young; they’d known one another for almost a year, but they’d only dated for half that time when it came down to it, and even though Paris had spent a lot of time at Chris’s apartment since they’d gotten back together in December… actually living together was different than staying over for half the week. They had experience with being so close relatively often—he’d been there for weeks while he’d been sick—but how could they say it’d really work out?
Paris stopped himself before he could start worrying about it when it hadn’t even happened yet, though it was a legitimate concern. The fact of the matter was, living with Chris would be easier and more convenient than living with anyone else. They were together so often that they knew each other’s habits pretty well by now; they worked well together and they knew one another’s powered identities. It would be a much safer arrangement than trying to cohabitate with someone who didn’t have a clue.
“I just… you know how we bicker and fight,” he said. “I don’t want you to offer because of… because of what’s happened. I want you to offer because you really want me with you.”
Things like that had always been a big thing for him, ever since they’d started dating again. He knew how he felt, he knew what he wanted, and he needed to make sure these sort of serious changes didn’t come about as a result of sympathy or charity, but because Chris truly wanted it, too.
“Would you have wanted me to move in with you if nothing had changed?” he asked.
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:43 pm
"Yeah, I know..." he mostly grumbled, shifting in his chair as he tried to get comfortable. He didn't like thinking about how they bickered... It wasn't as though it was ever anything horrible. They just disagreed over little things and then it ended up getting out of hand. He was rarely actually mad at Paris, and in the end he was usually more angry with himself... Still, he knew that if Paris moved in with him, his boyfriend would have no where to really escape from Chris's temper when it blew up.
"Paris, you practically live with me, already..." he pointed out, although he didn't mention the drawer of clothes Paris had there, or all his bathroom supplies, or his shoes. "If you'd feel better if we were just... living together as roommates... I can clear out my stuff from the office for you to use as a bedroom," he offered, although he didn't think it would be all that big a deal. Paris was with him most of the time, anyway.
He let out a small sigh before he reached over to take hold of Paris's hand. "I hadn't asked you before because you has so much to take care of... But... yes, I would have wanted you to move in, even if nothing had changed.
Part of him was telling him this was too much, that maybe he was leading Paris on. He cared for his boyfriend, sure... but the words Paris had repeated over and over a couple nights ago... words that he didn't even remember saying... Chris couldn't help but think that Paris was going to be the one to get hurt if anything happened now.
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 8:05 pm
“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “There’d be no point in me having my own room when I’d just end up sleeping in your bed anyway.”
He supposed it wouldn’t be much different than the way things were now, except that his one drawer of clothes and few pairs of shoes would turn into half a closet and a dresser full of clothes and shelves upon shelves of shoes. Chris’s apartment was big, sure, but it would still be a bit of an adjustment if and when Paris moved the rest of his things in. The living space would seem much smaller with two people around twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
He tore his eyes away from his cake again at the feel of Chris’s hand on his. Eventually Paris flipped his hand over so they could rest palm-to-palm and twine their fingers together.
“I want to move in with you,” he decided, though he’d known that was going to be his decision as soon as Chris brought it up. It was a little scary to think about, and there were plenty of issues that could always arise later, but he thought they could make it work. They were fighting in a war together. How much harder could living together really be?
Paris tried to smile but didn’t think it looked the way he’d intended it to. He wanted to seem confident and contented by the idea of moving in with Chris, yet knowing that he would have a new home didn’t take away his sadness. He would miss his old one all the same. He would miss the way things used to be.
As a result, his smile trembled and wobbled until he couldn’t hold it anymore. He still felt numb—it was probably the only reason he was actually able to talk without his throat closing off or his eyes filling up with tears—but every once in a while little things would manage to make their way through, and he’d feel his chest constrict or his eyes sting and he’d have to turn away.
This time he shifted closer instead of turning, rising from his chair to settle himself in Chris’s lap. He threw his arms around him and clung to Chris with a desperation reminiscent of the first night, lowering his head to press his face into the curve of Chris’s shoulder and neck.
“I need you,” he whispered in place of all the other things he wasn’t ready to say.
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 8:24 pm
There were definitely a lot of things that could go wrong, but without risk there would be no reward, or something like that. He and Paris got along well, and he was already sure that they could live together just fine. And if it came down to it, they could always turn the second bedroom back into a bedroom.
But that wasn't something they needed to worry about for a while. He knew he could be a lot more patient when it came to their stupid bickering, and he was willing to make changes, himself... Maybe he would even pick up his own clothes from the floor from time to time.
He didn't move as Paris made his way into his lap, but wrapped his arms around him to hold him close. The last couple days had been really shitty, and they weren't in the clear just yet. There would still be a lot of getting used to things, mourning, and trying to move on. Chris was willing to be there for his boyfriend if his presence was needed, of course. It was the least he could do.
A small sigh escaped his lips at Paris's whispered words, and Chris pressed a kiss to his temple. "I'm not going anywhere..." he whispered back with an attempt at reassuring him. It worried him a little, not knowing just how much he was needed, but he could learn to adjust and offer as much support as he could until Paris's life settled down a bit. He had no problem offering himself as someone to hold on to.
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