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 Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 8:12 pm
Of all the things that could be going wrong with his life, his current relationship was not one of them. He liked that he and Paris kept their civilian lives as separate from their powered lives as possible. It was bad enough that they had to live with knowing that there was a war going on around them, mostly hidden from the unknowing city dwellers around them. It was bad enough that there was always the threat of drawing in their families and friends. Hell, both of Chris's best friends were already involved... He was just glad Paris's best friend was a little more busy with his own problems than that of the powered life.
Chris didn't consider it 'caving in' then, when he finally agreed to look at apartments with Paris. He had his apartment, sure... Well, his grandparent's apartment... but he knew that Paris was right when he suggested them trying this together. Being spoiled all his life made him complacent about certain comforts, but on the other hand, he knew he had to let go of things that were holding him back if he was really serious about this relationship.
And he was. He might take a while to make up his mind about something, but when he did, it was very difficult to change it. He supposed that was why he was so steadfast in what he believed... or maybe he was just stubborn.
Either way. He knew there was no turning back when the land lady pushed the door open to the third apartment they'd looked at, and stepped inside.
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 8:32 pm
Paris couldn’t say he wasn’t pleased to have gotten his way. He had been fighting for this as delicately but as insistently (and consistently) as he possibly could without annoying his boyfriend to the point of anger, giving him a little verbal nudge every few days or so since he’d brought up the idea on the afternoon of Chris’s birthday two weeks ago. For the first week it hadn’t seemed as if Chris were going to budge on the issue, but over the second week things had finally begun to sway in Paris’s favor and his boyfriend’s resolve had cracked.
He would insist, however, that his pleasure stemmed more from the fact that they were taking another important step in their relationship than it did from the novelty of actually getting his way over his spoiled significant other (although when he took the time to look back over the last year and a half he realized he’d actually gotten his way quite a bit). Once Paris had gotten the idea in his head he’d been sure that it was the right one, a suitable direction for the further progression of their relationship. It had only been a matter of convincing Chris of the same.
Stepping into the apartment with Chris, the first thing Paris noticed beyond the gray-haired but lightly wrinkled land lady was the fact that the walls were painted a burnt orange.
Some people might have considered this an unattractive trait, but Paris—occasionally odd as he was—immediately decided that he liked it.
A lot.
“You must be Paris,” the land-lady said with a warm and welcoming smile, taking his hand to shake before turning to Chris to repeat the motion. “And you’re the boyfriend? Chris, is it? Come in, come in and have a look around.”
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 8:42 pm
Chris smiled back, almost forcing himself not to comment on 'the boyfriend' remark. What the hell did that mean? 'The boyfriend'?? Granted, he knew he was probably just being too sensitive on the subject, but he wasn't exactly a fan of the word 'the' in front of something to describe him... Unless it was baseball related, because then he was 'the pitcher', but that wasn't the point. The point was... he was allowed to feel awkward and uncomfortable and self-conscious when he wanted, especially when Paris was getting whatever he wanted.
"Nice to meet you," he said with a nod and stepped in through the door. His first question for her would have been to ask about the policy on animals in the apartment, but he already knew that Paris wouldn't dream of finding a place that they couldn't bring Anna and Sassy. That was very much a deal breaker.
Instead, he hung back, glancing around the decently sized living space and over to the adjoined kitchen with its long bar and counter top. The burnt orange, though... he wasn't sure he liked.
"I feel like I'm inside a pumpkin," he muttered under his breath to his boyfriend, wondering if he would have something to say on the subject as well, as the lady showed them around. It was relatively small... maybe a quarter of the size of his old apartment... Hell, his kitchen was probably the size of the living room and kitchen combined... But he was trying to be nice on Paris's behalf and actually look for a place of their own.
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 9:40 pm
Paris’s response to Chris’s comment was to smile brightly.
Something so simple as that was enough to have him instantly falling in love with the place. It was an interesting color to say the least, and not one he expected too many people to enjoy to the level that he did. Hell, he couldn’t even decide what he liked about it. Orange was far from his favorite color. Most days it didn’t even make the list at all, what with all the traumatic memories that came with wearing such a hideous shade as Meadowview orange for the first two years of high school. It certainly was not a color he would have picked out on his own.
But somehow it just seemed… perfect. It felt warm and inviting and he could see himself living there—and that, he thought, was far more important than any potential amenities (aside from it being pet friendly, which had cut out quite a few places before he’d even bothered to give the management companies a call).
“The kitchen was updated just last year,” the land-lady explained as she watched them explore.
Paris had gravitated toward the kitchen as soon as he’d let the wall color seep in, as that was typically one of the rooms he felt the most at home in. Granted, the kitchen in this apartment could hardly be called a room—it was long and narrow, with a bar separating it from the small but cozy living area. Perhaps the countertops themselves weren’t granite, and the appliances weren’t stainless steel like they were in Chris’s current apartment, but they were obviously new despite that.
“See, I told you there was a dishwasher,” Paris said to Chris. “And we don’t need a dining table. We can just eat at the bar. The living-room’s big enough to fit a couch and an armchair and a TV. Is the bedroom down this way?” he asked the land-lady, motioning down the short hall beyond the kitchen.
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 4:16 am
Chris frowned nervously at Paris's smile, not sure what it meant or if he liked it. Well, it wasn't Paris's smile that he didn't like. He loved Paris's smile... it was the meaning behind it that had him worried about his own fate...
As Paris started heading towards the bedroom, Chris reached out to grab hold of his hand, linking their fingers together. It was both a comfort thing for him, as well as making sure Paris knew he was still there and they were in this thing together.
Although, he did appreciate the fact that there was a dishwasher.
"It's so small..." he mumbled under his breath, not wanting to offend the land lady, but also wanting Paris to know his 'concerns'... which wasn't really his concerns... just him whining about things... The apartment was definitely a fraction of the size of the one he was using from his grandparents. He felt kind of guilty for just... snubbing their generosity, but if he wanted to live with Paris once more, he knew there had to be some kind of compromise... and getting their own place seemed like it would work best in the end.
Or maybe he was just a total push over and Paris knew that...?
"Is there a washer and dryer...?" he wondered out loud. Not that he was going to be doing laundry, but Paris might want to use them.
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 11:24 am
“It is not small,” Paris replied under his breath, before raising his voice a bit again once they’d come to the bedroom, motioning around as he said, “Look, we can put a bed over there in the corner, and there’s enough room for a bedside table, and we could have a dresser or a chest of drawers along this wall, and there’d still be plenty of room to put a drafting table over here so you can do your homework.”
For someone who was in to architectural design and should have had an eye for detail, Chris seemed to be doing a pretty poor job envisioning them living anywhere but in the apartment he was already making use of. Paris didn’t understand why Chris would even bother to agree to looking around if he wasn’t even going to try, though he supposed he should have expected for his boyfriend to start digging his heels in at some point. Chris liked his comforts, whether they were necessary or not.
Paris, on the other hand, was having a marvelous time imagining what the place would look like once they had some actual furniture in there, and considering he hadn’t really done that in the last two places they’d look at, that should serve as enough evidence to the fact that he rather liked this one.
It wasn’t overlarge, no, and he did wish there were more windows to let in some more natural light, but it was a homey place despite that.
“The washer and dryer are right in here,” the land-lady said, meeting them down the hall to open a door which opened to the laundry closet across from the bathroom. “There’s also a walk-in closet in the bedroom, and the bathroom was redone along with the kitchen last year.”
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 5:18 pm
Hey... he liked designing the buildings, not decorate the interior. That was a completely different field. He didn't care much for detail about where a dresser could go. He cared about the pitch or a roof or what kind of stairway would make the home unique but still functional.
So when Paris claimed that the place wasn't small, he did his best not to roll his eyes and glanced around in as interested in a manner as he could. At least he was there, right? At least he did agree to look at places instead of just saying 'no' and fussing about how he didn't want to move out of his apartment.
"I hope it's a big walk-in closet," he mumbled to himself, glancing around the room, and then looking up at the ceiling to wrinkle his nose at the popcorn texture. "How old is the building?" he asked, reaching out to tap a finger against what he was pretty sure was a particle board door that had just been painted.
For the price they would be paying for it, he could definitely tell he was on the other side of the city from his fancy a** apartment complex.
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 5:40 pm
Paris grabbed at Chris hand before he could tap at the door, giving him an “are you serious?” look before turning an apologetic smile onto the land-lady.
“Could you give us a minute, please?” he asked.
The land-lady looked between the two of them, confused, as she’d been about to answer Chris’s question when Paris interrupted her. Eventually she just shrugged her shoulders and turned back down the short hall to loiter around in the living-room while he and Chris remained in the back of the apartment. It wasn’t exactly private, but it was the best he could do at the moment.
Satisfied, Paris returned his attention to his boyfriend. “Come on, I thought you actually wanted to give this a shot,” he said.
He knew what the problem was, of course. It had been the same problem with the two places they’d seen before this one. They were small, they weren’t familiar, and they didn’t have all the special little things included that Chris was used to. They weren’t large, fancy houses in a gated community, or a huge building of steel and glass with a doorman and a parking deck and special cards and codes to get up to the penthouse. Chris had probably rarely ever set foot in a place like this—which, to be fair, wasn’t a bad place at all.
To Paris, this was normal. This was what he was used to. This was what he was comfortable with. Sure, there were plenty of things about Chris’s life that he liked and appreciated. He wasn’t trying to pull Chris away from that completely; that would be unfair. What he was trying to do was come up with a decent compromise that they could both enjoy, a place where they could both feel at home once they’d made it their own.
“Look, I know this place isn’t as big as yours,” he allowed, “and maybe there are parts of it you don’t exactly like, but can’t you imagine living here at all? Every place we’ve walked into has been an automatic “no” for you, and not for the reasons it should be. This is in a decent part of town, Chris. We can still walk to campus if we need to. The kitchen’s new, the bathroom’s new, it has hardwood floors, we’d have a washer and dryer. Why should size even be an issue? It’ll just be you and me here. We’re only two people. We don’t need a lot of space.”
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 6:12 pm
Chris sputtered in surprise when Paris stopped him and then basically pulled him off to the side to scold him like a child. What the hell did he do?? He was just trying to see what he was going to be spending his money on if they ended up deciding on a place! He wanted to know if it was going to be cheap doors and if he should expect things to fall apart. That wasn't a bad thing! That was just him trying to be prepared for it all. It wasn't what he was used to, but at least he was there!
"You know what they say about big moons..." he mumbled, not really sure what he meant by that, but when it came to issues of size...
He glanced off to the side as Paris spoke to him, trying not to feel like a child through all this. He was doing his best. He knew he was spoiled. He knew he wanted more than what these places could give him. But he also knew he wanted Paris to be happy, for him to still be able to thrive... he wanted their relationship to thrive.
It was bad enough that he was going to be parking outside with a car that was shiny and expensive and everyone would know it and wonder why someone like him was living in a place like that... Or maybe they wouldn't care and he was clearly thinking too highly of himself, which he wouldn't be surprised about at all. He knew he had a bit of a problem when it came to thinking about how others viewed him. He just wanted to be able to be happy and not judged and s**t...
He'd fallen in love with a boy. He didn't think there was anything wrong with that... just unexpected. He'd lived his life thinking it would result in a certain way... but then he met Paris... and became a knight... and got swept up in a war way before he thought he was ready... It was why he hadn't gone into the Navy. Not because he was afraid to go to war, but because he hated fighting...
And yet... even with all the changes in his initial plans... he was happy. He was healthy and cared for and at a place in his life where he was comfortable with who he was and what he was doing. Even as a knight, he was comfortable... So... was change really all that horrible...?
"Okay..." he added a few moments later, glancing back to Paris to make sure he knew he'd been paying attention.
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 6:27 pm
Paris frowned slightly, not sure how he should take Chris’s answer. Was he just saying that because he only wanted Paris to be happy, or was he saying it because he actually agreed with him?
“I want you to be comfortable with this, Chris,” he explained. “I don’t want you to feel cornered or out of place. If you want to go look at more apartments, fine. We could probably increase our budget a little more if we needed to, I just… now I feel like I’m pressuring you and that’s not what I wanted to do at all. I don’t want you to cater to what I want because you think it’ll make me happy. I’m not going to be happy if all this does is make you feel miserable.”
If he had to, he’d suck it up and move back into Chris’s place—probably after another disagreement about bills, but if that was the way things had to be then that was the way things had to be. He’d dealt with it before and it hadn’t been so bad. There had been parts of it he’d been uncomfortable with, but it hadn’t been the worst arrangement in the world.
With this, finding their own place, he was trying to find the comfort they’d both felt in living together before, but also the sureness and the solidity of having a place that was entirely their own. And maybe he was trying too hard; he could admit he had a problem with that sometimes. Maybe this was him finding something to obsess about again. He could come up with all these reasons why they should be doing this, say whatever he wanted to try and keep Chris convinced of the same, but the fact of the matter was it just felt right.
Paris was an emotional being. He went with his feelings and followed his heart more than he bothered getting some use out of his brain.
“Can’t you see us living here?” he asked again. “Just… just look around and try to imagine where our furniture would go, or try and see Anna and Sassy rolling around on the floor, or… or I don’t know, waking up for breakfast or squeezing into the bathroom together trying to get ready for bed…”
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 7:02 pm
If he were honest with himself, he would probably be happy with Paris anywhere... Even if they didn't have a dishwasher and cable and whatever else they were planning on getting. He liked his apartment now... a lot... and while his grandparents had been generous in letting him live there, he was sure they would understand his desire to live elsewhere and pay his own way... Well... his own way being making use of his scholarship money, but that was beside the point.
He wanted to be with Paris... it was just a big step for him and it would take a bit of getting used to...
Chris glanced up and around the room, frowning and shaking his head. "We're going to have to put the drafting table in the living room... I'm sure you'll be able to sleep through me working at night, I don't want you to deal with the light and whatever noise I make," he pointed out. "And we'll be bringing my bed here..." He at least wanted something he was used to. His bed was comfortable and he slept rather well on it, so of course they would bring it with them.
"I hope the closet can fit all your clothes... and mine... Unless we want to share a dresser... We'll actually have to get furniture... Just please nothing old and moldy. That's my only request."
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 7:20 pm
Paris tried hard to restrain the grin that wanted to make its way across his face, still rather worried about Chris agreeing for all the wrong reasons, but hearing him begin to come around settled him somewhat. He grabbed one of Chris’s hands to give it a squeeze and moved the other to fiddle with the collar of Chris’s polo.
“I don’t know, if we have a couch and an armchair and a big TV in the living-room, there might not be enough room for your drafting table in there,” he said, half-teasing. “Sassy’s litter-box would probably have to go in there, too, maybe at the far end of the bar, underneath. There’s no room for it in the kitchen or the bathroom. And anyway, I can handle a little light and noise.”
He could handle anything, really, as long as they were together—and maybe that was a really sappy thing for him to think, but it was the truth.
He’d handled this much, after all.
Leaning closer, Paris moved his hand from Chris’s collar to loop it around the back of his neck and pull him down for a kiss. He wondered, still, if he might be pushing for too much. This wasn’t exactly a small step they were taking, but he thought that they were ready for it, he thought that it was the right one. He thought it could definitely work this time, now that there weren’t any more secrets and their feelings for one another had been sorted through. They could move forward together and put all the rest of it behind them.
Pulling away, Paris finally let himself grin. “Admit it. You sort of like the orange,” he said.
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 7:53 pm
Chris sighed lightly and contently as he was pulled down, not resisting in the least. Their height difference made kissing awkward, but as long as Paris was okay with it, then he was as well.
If he was going to be agreeing to something like this, it was important that they'd both be happy, naturally... He knew he would be happy with basic things... like a dishwasher and washer and dryer... No, they probably weren't 'basic' to everyone and more like luxuries to those who really couldn't afford it, but to him... it was just normal...
And maybe Paris was right in that they just needed to do this... that it would give them one more thing to bond over. Hell, if they didn't like it, they could always move out once their lease was up. He wasn't about to break off the relationship with Paris again... and definitely not for a dumb reason like not being able to agree on where to live. He knew he was being a bit accommodating, but he was willing to overcome that.
"I'm not much a fan of the orange, no," he snorted. "I've been called 'Pumpkin' all my life, Paris... living in one isn't exactly a Disney movie to me." He was teasing, of course. Even though it made him grimace, it wasn't something he couldn't just ignore. Or they could paint over it if they really wanted...
"If this is the place you like most... let's go talk about a lease, okay...?" he asked, stealing one more kiss before leading the way out of the bedroom. It was going to take some getting used to... but it wasn't anything they couldn't work on, together.
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