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 Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 6:19 pm
Thank you, Sun, for all your help with these things. You're too good to me. ;; Word Count: 6173
Paris kept staring at him with the oddest expression on his face, happiness mixed with hope and fear, all wrapped together in an expectant glance that made Chris feel as if Paris was waiting for the moment when he’d try again, the answer, an emphatic “yes” or a regretful “you know that’s just not my thing,” just there on the tip of his tongue.
Chris did the only thing he could do and tried to act normally.
It was difficult, what with everyone else staring at him, too, and doing what he thought were overly obvious things to encourage him to get on with it.
They woke up on Thanksgiving morning to breakfast in bed, arranged artfully on a tray and carried in by his considerate, and extremely giddy, mother. She fussed over them while they stirred from sleep and pushed themselves up to sit once they were fully conscious, performing her usual signs of affection like kissing their cheeks and foreheads and petting their matted hair, all the while calling them sweet names and chattering on about the rest of the day. She looked at Paris’s hand before she set the tray down for them and seemed disappointed by what she saw (or didn’t see) there.
While Paris was “ooh”ing over their crepes, Chris received a secretive, impatient frown from his mother, as she inclined her head with her eyebrows raised as if to say “get on with it.”
“I thought you might like to have a little time for some romance before the rest of the family swarms,” she said, back to her girlish rambling and sweet smiles, the tone of her voice just a little too conspicuous for Chris’s liking. “Isn’t today just the perfect day to be together and appreciate all the wonderful things we’ve been given? Helps to keep us from taking it for granted, don’t you think?”
She kissed them both one more time, before she backed away slowly and giggled, “Thanksgiving… there’s a nice ring to it.”
If Chris was a more disrespectful son, he would have thrown one of his croissants at her.
He was sorely tempted to either way, and might have inched his hand toward it just as she darted out the door and closed it securely behind her.
He turned back to Paris and found his boyfriend watching him with those big eyes of his, his cheeks still a little rosy from sleep, one side of his face streaked with lines, his hair askew but still curled about his face in a lovely tumble of fair blond. Paris’s mouth twitched into a little smile, his gaze so bright and so open and so full of longing mixed with fright that Chris could only lean forward and kiss him in the hopes that it would melt it all away and leave Paris as Paris, instead of this charmingly shy thing with the dreamy expression on his face that he’d suddenly turned into.
That wasn’t the expression Chris wanted to see when he finally got around to doing it.
He wanted to take Paris completely by surprise.
“Eat,” Chris told him once the kiss had broken. He rubbed their noses together, forced himself to ignore the confusion and the mild distress Paris tried so hard (and still failed) to hold back, and pulled away to sit himself comfortably against the pillows so he could dig into the light breakfast prepared for them.
Paris followed suit, but kept shooting him curious glances at various points throughout the mundane conversation that followed.
They finally rose from bed a few hours later than they would have on a normal day in Destiny City, wandering into the large bathroom Paris had quickly grown fond of so that they may shower together. For a while they kept pace with one another, though Paris’s longer hair took more time to lather and rinse, but Chris didn’t mind. He stepped forward to help, sinking his fingers into the long strands, massaging the tips against Paris’s scalp before using first the shampoo and then the conditioner, filling the shower with the smell of citrus.
After, they quickly fell out of sync. They took their time drying off, then stepped toward the his-and-her sinks with towels wrapped around them. While Chris shaved, Paris worked lotion onto his face, fussed at his eyebrows (which looked fine as far as Chris could tell), brushed his teeth and preened in front of the mirror until he was satisfied. When Chris took his turn brushing his teeth, Paris left the bathroom to ditch his towel for underwear, returning with his blow dryer and plugging it in to begin the unnecessarily long process of styling his hair (when Chris would have been just as pleased to see him with wild, untamed curls).
Chris left him to it, knowing better than to get in the way. He was just as guilty anyway. As soon as Paris was done with the blow dryer, Chris would assume control of it and fuss with his own hair for a while. The only difference (or so he told himself) was that it took him much less time.
For now he satisfied himself with getting dressed, pulling on the nice clothes he knew his parents and grandparents would be expecting him to wear for the holiday. A white collared shirt followed khaki colored slacks, which preceded a navy striped tie under a red cashmere sweater. The navy colored blazer he set aside for the time being as he slipped his feet into a pair of shoes his mother had polished for him the night before. He finished by securing his watch around his left wrist, pausing just a moment to look at the blue rose tattoo it now covered as he latched it into place.
Paris still wasn’t done when Chris returned to the bathroom, so he leaned back against the counter to wait patiently. Paris smiled apologetically but didn’t rush, handing the blow dryer over once he was finally satisfied with the state of his hair. Then it was Chris’s turn, while Paris left the bathroom and pulled on a red dress smattered with tan polka dots and trimmed with ruffles in the same color along the collar and bottom hem.
Chris wouldn’t realize until much later that they matched, when Peter obnoxiously pointed out the obvious over dinner, his mouth full of mashed potatoes and gravy.
He’d just turned off the blow dryer and set it on the counter when Paris walked back in, looking sweet and smelling like the perfume he always wore, which Chris, in his curiosity, had finally discovered was called Amber Romance some weeks after they’d gotten back together. Paris drew close long enough to meet for a kiss, and was then back to messing with his face and hair, brushing gray shadow onto his lids to give him a smoky-eyed look, putting on the mascara he didn’t really need, then the color along his cheekbones before he was staining his pink lips a dusty rose.
He looked older with makeup on, which Chris thought was probably the point since Paris looked pretty enough already when he didn’t bother with any of it. Once Paris was done, he could pass for the twenty-one his fake I.D claimed him to be. He looked mature and sophisticated. Without it, he barely even looked eighteen.
“Are you going to be okay?” Chris asked once they were back in the bedroom and Paris was pulling on a pair of nice boots.
Paris glanced over at him in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t want you to be overwhelmed,” Chris shrugged in response. When he noticed the odd mixed-emotion expression had returned to Paris’s face, he quickly explained, “You haven’t been around my dad’s family before. Not all of them at once.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been around your mom’s family, and they’re the more judgmental ones, right?”
“Well, yeah, but-”
“Besides,” Paris said, “I think your grandmother likes me.”
Chris snorted, grabbing his blazer on the way out of the room and shrugging it on. “You think?”
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Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 6:20 pm
They went downstairs hand-in-hand, traipsing the steps of the mahogany staircase that led into the grand foyer, where Chris could hear the laughing and chattering of his relatives who were just beginning to arrive.
His mother and grandmother waved them over, and Chris spent quite a bit of time introducing Paris to aunts, uncles, and cousins he hadn’t seen in a couple of years. As uncomfortable as Paris sometimes appeared with the grand house, walking slowly and keeping his distance from anything that looked too expensive lest he accidentally break it, he put on a confident face as he shook hands with Chris’s uncles and exchanged kisses with the more welcoming of Chris’s aunts and cousins. Paris smiled brilliantly, gave all the right compliments and made all the right statements, revealing a little about himself and talking openly about his dancing to those who cared to ask.
Chris stayed near him either way, an arm around Paris’s waist the entire time. He pressed his hand against Paris’s side encouragingly, gave him a quick squeeze when he thought Paris might give in to the stress of so many introductions, and slid his hand along his back, up and down in a soothing motion, fingering a few locks of Paris hair and leaning down to place a kiss on his temple during a lull in conversation. A few times the promise ring Paris wore attracted some attention, gasps and gleaming eyes and bright smiles to precede excited questioning.
“Why didn’t you tell me they’d gotten engaged?!” his aunt Elizabeth asked his mother, bringing Chris’s cousin Ruby, only a year younger, back over to “ooh” and “aah” over it.
“Oh, no, we’re not engaged yet!” Paris replied, laughing off the mistake with such ease it took Chris momentarily by surprise.
And the ‘yet.’
Maybe he was reading too much into it, but that ‘yet’ sure made it seem like Paris wouldn’t mind if it happened, and maybe even expected that it would.
For just a moment, Chris considered slipping away and heading back upstairs to retrieve the secret he’d left stashed away in the shaving bag he kept his razor in. The only thing that stopped him was his desire to make it special somehow, to do it when it would take Paris off guard instead of when he and everyone else supposed it was coming.
The rest of the morning was spent in mild conversation, snacking on fancy hors devours he was sure Paris had never eaten before but which he soon took a liking to anyway. By noon they’d separated off into groups, the older adults enjoying their champagne while the rest of them, those not yet old enough to drink, went down into the more informally decorated basement to break out a couple of board games. Chris and the cousins closest to his and Paris’s age (Holly, Jaden, Ruby, Kyle, and Nathan) took part in the annual Monopoly competition, which Paris decided to sit out in favor of watching and playing the objective banker, while Peter whined that he wouldn’t cheat if they’d just let him control the money flow, before he finally gave up and went off with their cousin Harrison (a fellow twelve-year-old) to find entertainment of the electronic sort.
His grandparents’ house seemed louder and more crowded this year than years passed (a difficult feat to accomplish considering how expansive the house was). Each year seemed to bring with it a new addition, a boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé, husband, wife, or child to extend the Gallo family even further. This year, there were a total of three new babies (a twelve month old, an eleven month old, and a four month old) to add their cooing and nonsensical babbling to the many voices that filled the house with sound.
Paris watched them with a reserved sort of curiosity, before he was excusing himself to call his mother and wish her a Happy Thanksgiving.
There was a touch of sadness to his eyes when he returned.
“You okay?” Chris asked, taking him by the waist again and pulling him into a private alcove with a cushioned window seat.
“Fine,” Paris said. “Just missing my old man.”
Of course he would be, Chris thought. Just last year he and Peter had had their Thanksgiving at Paris’s house, with Paris’s father as company. Strange as it’d been with Peter as a cat, sullen as Paris’s father had often seemed, the holiday had passed in quiet comfort, so different from this year but special in its own right, peaceful in a way that a large family gathering wasn’t.
Just before dinner, Nana came to find them to request that Paris dance for her again, as he’d done when he and Chris had first arrived. Despite the sudden wash of memories, Paris did so joyfully, dashing upstairs to switch his boots out for pointe shoes and rejoining them in the room where his grandmother kept the grand piano. He brought his iPod with him, handed it off to Chris and mumbled to him what he wanted to dance, doing some of his preliminary stretches while Chris dutifully set up the music.
The variation Paris picked was the obvious choice, typical for the season, but it pleased Chris’s grandmother regardless.
“Lovely,” Nana commented.
“Isn’t he divine?” Aunt Elizabeth whispered to cousin Ruby.
“He was so amazing in it last year,” Chris’s mother said. “You should have seen him!”
“Doesn’t that hurt his feet?” Harrison asked.
Paris danced the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy as sublimely as he had the year before, as if hardly any time had passed between then and now, as if it took no effort at all, though Chris knew Paris was always practicing. Day in and day out Paris put on his ballet shoes, stretched, performed his barre exercises, practiced a variation or two or three or more around the apartment, or in one of the studios on campus, or on the stage in the auditorium when no one else was using the space. Rain or shine, sick or not, with or without music, Paris danced, over and over and over again until he was perfect.
Chris always thought Paris was perfect, not only because he loved even the flawed things about him, but also because he knew how hard Paris worked, saw quite literally his sweat and blood and tears.
When he was younger, he hadn’t really understood ballet. He didn’t think he understood it very well even now, but he wasn’t such a little boy anymore. He didn’t think the way little boys thought.
Chris knew better now. Of course ballet was full of beauty and grace, sparkles and frills, but there was so much strength in it, a quiet strength. How anyone could smile through that much pain or work so tirelessly at something that took and took and took and didn’t always give back astounded him.
But it was what Paris loved, what gave him joy, what kept him going when Chris couldn’t do enough for him.
Not everyone had come to watch, but those who had applauded exuberantly once Paris had come to the end of the variation and taken his bow, all except Chris’s grandmother, who clapped more sedately but looked somehow more pleased than all the others. She held out an arm to draw Paris close, whispered something to him that could have only been encouragement judging by the smile that continued to light up Paris’s face. Only then did she let the others have their turn, as they one-by-one gave their praises and marveled over Paris’s talent, until finally Chris had his boyfriend within arm’s reach and pulled him close for another kiss.
“You’re beautiful,” Chris told him, pressing his lips to Paris’s forehead and mumbling into his hair. “So beautiful. I love you. God, I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Paris said and hugged him tightly, so tight it hardly seemed as if he’d ever let go.
Chris couldn’t say he’d mind.
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 7:28 pm
Dinner was served in the formal formal dining room (there were two; one larger, one smaller, with this particular one reserved especially for holidays, when the extra space was surely needed) at three o’clock that afternoon. There was some confusion as to who should sit where as everyone filed in to take their seats. Chris’s grandfather sat quietly at one end of the table, his grandmother on his grandfather’s right. Once she had ushered Paris into a chair beside her, the rest seemed to be able to figure out where to settle in on their own.
Chris sat between Paris and his mother, with his father and Peter across from them on his grandfather’s left.
It was clear that this year the Destiny City Gallos ranked high in his grandparents’ favor. Not that they were ever very far down the table, truth be told, but Nana liked to treat the new additions to her attention, new in-laws or grandchildren she conducted in something of a formal holiday induction. With Paris there to keep her attention, even Michael’s purposeful absence (which had earned him a very snappy phone call that he’d responded to with laughter) was either forgotten or else forgiven. Nana was intrigued, charmed by Paris’s loveliness and energized by his liveliness.
The traditional Gallo Thanksgiving dinner consisted of seven courses (compared to twelve when Chris’s grandparents hosted Christmas). Chris kept a careful eye on Paris throughout the entire meal, watching him study the finely prepared dishes. Paris took careful bites initially, testing the food for taste and texture, before he seemed to decide that each was good or else passable enough for him to politely eat.
And he did eat. Skinny he might be, preoccupied with staying skinny (or “light,” as Paris liked to say) he might always remain, but Paris could certainly put away food when his appetite was with him and something delicious was put in front of him. Chris was pleased to see it. He worried less and could enjoy the meal more than he would have if he’d had to keep nudging Paris to continue.
Conversation around the table was sparse and quiet, made up mostly of mundane things or boring business jargon, as if his relatives feared delving into anything of interest lest they miss something important at the other end of the table. Chris thought some of them might be expecting him to make something of a spectacle over dinner and provide a different answer to the question his aunt had asked earlier regarding Paris’s promise ring. Every once in a while his mother jabbed him in the side with her elbow, and when he turned to frown at her she’d give him a sweet smile of encouragement.
Chris had other ideas. He didn’t want to do it with his family around, definitely not with so many of them there. He wasn’t trying to put Paris on the spot, though he assumed Paris might feel a little cornered and overwhelmed no matter when or where he happened to ask him. He almost wondered if it’d be better to wait until they were back home where Paris would be more comfortable with their surroundings, in their apartment in the middle of some dull domestic activity, like watching the television or washing the dishes or cleaning the bathroom.
He could just imagine himself fumbling through it, bruising his knee on the tile floor in the bathroom while Paris vigorously scrubbed at the toilet.
Better than this, he thought, with everyone waiting for it and most of them wanting it to happen so they’d have something else to celebrate (and then gossip about when they weren’t within earshot of his grandmother). He didn’t want either he or Paris to be under that sort of pressure when it happened, pressure for him to get it right, to make it perfect, and pressure for Paris to give the right answer, whether or not it was the answer he wanted to give.
Chris hoped, when he finally got around to asking, that he wasn’t wrong in thinking the answer would be ‘yes.’
After dessert, everyone scattered again, collecting in groups in the dining room or the formal living room or any other space in the house suitable for holiday entertainment. Peter and their young cousin went back to whatever mischief they’d found before, their aunts, uncles, and older cousins returned to their drinks while the younger ones found several more games to amuse themselves with, and still others mingled about. Some never went far, sparing Chris a few glances whenever he happened to be close by.
Again into the room with the grand piano a few of them went. Chris’s mother was one of them, and she sat down in front of the piano, pulled up on the lid and began to play without bothering with sheet music. Most of these songs she knew already, from years and years and years of practice.
Christmas carols. It was something of an unspoken tradition. With dinner over, the Gallos’ Thanksgiving had officially come to an end, and it was time to ring in the Christmas season.
“Angels we have heard on high… Singing sweetly o’er the plains… And the mountains in reply… Echoing their joyous strains…”
This was another area in which Paris was at least proficient, if not excelled in, which Chris thought was probably more accurate, though he would admit to being heavily biased. Chris had always been rather self-conscious about singing on his own (he might play his guitar at church and accompany it with vocals on occasion, but more often than not he left the singing to other people). Paris, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have any such reservations. He sang loudly, proudly, and with confidence, not obnoxiously so (not this time), but enough to show that he sang well and wasn’t afraid to prove it. He looked happy to be doing it, standing near Chris’s mother or drifting back over to Chris to take his hand or nestle into his side.
Then Paris decided it was time to start showing off.
“Les anges dans nos campagnes… Ont entonné l’hymne des cieux… Et l’écho de nos montagnes… Redit ce chant mélodieux…”
He would have probably been successful if Nana hadn’t been able to respond in kind following the second “in excelsis Deo” (and confidently, too).
“Bergers, pour qui cette fête?... Quel est l'objet de tous ces chants?... Quel vainqueur, quelle conquête… Mérite ces cris triomphants…”
“You speak French?” Paris asked once the song was over, wide eyed with delight.
Chris’s grandmother scoffed amusedly. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I speak French,” she said in her odd mix of friendliness and sanctimoniousness, as if that should have been obvious from the start.
For the rest of the evening they would natter on to one another in French intermittently, without any regard for those around them who didn’t quite understand what had them so intrigued or what they found so funny when they would randomly burst into laughter.
It was well after sunset by the time his relatives began trickling out of the house, leaving in groups of twos, threes, fours, some as many as six or eight, or more. They bid one another farewell, exchanged hugs and kisses and well wishes, and promises to see each other again soon, and went off into the night to return to their homes or hotel rooms. Only the Destiny City Gallos and his Uncle William and Aunt Elizabeth’s family remained behind in the end, making good on Chris’s grandparents’ hospitality until his aunt, uncle, and cousins left the following morning, and he and his family made their way back home on Sunday.
He and Paris trudged up the stairs on tired foot, Paris with his boots in hand and Chris with his tie loose and his blazer draped over his elbow.
“How do you feel?” Chris asked once they’d made it to their room and shut the door. He didn’t bother to lock it. Everyone in the house knew better than to bother them once they went up to bed.
Paris began to change immediately, dropping his boots on the floor and grabbing onto the bottom of his dress to lift it over his head.
“Tired,” he said, and he looked it, “but fine.”
Chris waited until he could see Paris’s face. The sadness Paris had shown before in thinking of his father seemed to have been offset by the rest of the day. He’d been sufficiently distracted, not enough to forget (Chris was sure Paris would never forget), but enough to remain happy in spite of the weight he carried around.
Satisfied, Chris kicked off his shoes, pulled off his sweater and tie, and started on the buttons of his shirt while Paris dug out his flannel night shirt (bright blue printed with snowmen) and slipped it on. Not exactly sexy, but adorable nonetheless, and since Chris thought Paris would look sexy dressed in little more than a paper bag, it didn’t really matter.
“You going to be able to get up early enough tomorrow?” Chris wondered.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Paris asked.
“Are you taking one of your pills?”
“No,” Paris said, wandering into the bathroom. “I’ve been sleeping fine here without it.”
Chris said nothing to argue.
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 7:30 pm
He finished getting changed while Paris brushed his teeth and washed his face. He followed not long after, once he’d pulled on his pajama pants, grabbing his toothbrush to follow suit. Just like that morning, Chris finished quickly. Paris had only just started removing his make-up when Chris ambled in. Since he honestly had nothing better to do just before bed, Chris leaned back against the counter to watch as Paris splashed water onto his face, lathered on soap, rinsed it off, and straightened back up to start applying the various lotions and creams he used to keep his skin healthy and appropriately moisturized.
For the most part, Chris thought this sort of stuff was tedious and unnecessary. He was pretty sure most of the ads for this stuff were nothing more than a scam to freak people out over pimples and wrinkles and rashes and whatever else they could think of to try and sell their product, but it was sort of cute to watch Paris make disgruntled and then pleased faces at himself in the mirror. He knew better than to comment on any of it, just stood there quietly and let Paris get on with it. Paris thought it helped with whatever all that stuff was supposed to help with, and Chris figured that was all that mattered.
“You don’t have to wait for me,” Paris told him.
Chris shrugged.
“It’s weird that you like watching me mess with my face,” Paris said.
“It’s weird that you like watching me take a shower,” Chris countered.
“That’s not weird,” Paris denied. “If you saw what I see, you’d like watching, too.”
“I didn’t think you were the type for clichés,” Chris said. Paris stuck his tongue out at him in response. “I see that stuff all the time anyway. In the showers, the locker-room.”
“Seen anything that interests you?”
“Nope.”
Not in the least.
“Good,” Paris said. He hadn’t sounded especially worried in the first place.
Finally, Paris closed the last bottle of cream with a snap, turned to Chris with a smile, stretched onto his tip-toes and encouraged Chris down for a kiss, and then grabbed Chris’s hand to tug him out of the bathroom and toward the bed. They tumbled on together and without a care for which side was whose. Chris didn’t really know why they’d ever bothered with sides since they always ended up close together toward the center of the bed anyway.
Years ago he would have thought that would be uncomfortable. He’d been used to his space before, being able to stretch out or roll around whichever way he wanted without having to worry about another person getting in the way (except maybe his dog). But he liked going to sleep with Paris so close. He liked being able to touch him when he wanted and wrap an arm around him when he felt like holding him. He liked the heat of Paris’s body and the smell of his hair and the feel of his legs and feet bumping up against his own.
They should have gone to bed right away. Paris needed his sleep and Chris was feeling particularly drained after a long day of eating and celebrating. Instead, Chris turned on the fireplace and Paris turned on a movie, and they snuggled for a while watching Moulin Rouge! (Paris’s favorite), spending the last few hours of Thanksgiving without anyone else’s company but each other.
Paris did what he always did during movies that featured music (Disney movies or other musicals, sometimes even the background music to a regular movie), and sang along without a care for how obnoxious it might have been to someone less patient than Chris. Back home at their apartment he wouldn’t have been able to do it so late at night without one of their neighbors pounding on the wall to shut him up, but here the sound proofing was quite a bit better, and their room wasn’t directly across or beside anyone else’s.
With the door closed, it was like being in their own little world, where nothing else existed but the two of them.
“I hope you don’t mind… I hope you don’t mind… That I put down in wo~rds…”
“All you need is love!... A girl has got to eat… All you need is love!... She’ll end up on the street!”
“Seasons may change, winter to spring… But I love you, until the end… of…”
Here Paris stopped and didn’t finish, and gave Chris another one of his odd looks. When Chris turned his head to look at him, Paris seemed to be pondering something. He stared into Chris’s eyes with the most curious expression on his face, a mixture of wonder, discomfort, and something like hopefulness. After another moment or two, Paris lowered his eyes and grabbed onto Chris’s left hand. Gently he stroked the lines of his palm with the tips of his fingers.
“What?” Chris asked.
“I just… remembered something,” Paris said.
“What’s that?”
“Just something from when I… when I was on Ganymede… a while ago.”
“You haven’t been in a while,” Chris pointed out.
Paris shrugged. “I haven’t really felt the need.”
Chris didn’t push him about it. Paris going to Ganymede usually meant he was feeling lost and looking for answers he never seemed to be able to find there, and he’d come back looking both intrigued by what he’d seen, and later dejected because it hadn’t been what he’d wanted to see. If he had no need to go, then his feelings were on a more positive track, and Chris didn’t want to do anything to disrupt that. He was so careful about those things these days. They both were.
Neither of them wanted to set Paris back.
“What did you see?” Chris prodded him.
“Just… us… or them… Liesel and Serge…” Paris began. His voice suddenly grew much quieter. Chris didn’t know if it was because he felt the need to speak of their former selves with reverences, or if he might suddenly be uncomfortable about what he was revealing.
Embarrassed maybe? Chris couldn’t tell if the color in Paris’s cheeks was natural or if he was getting overheated beneath the blankets with the fire going. It wasn’t usually like Paris to get embarrassed by anything. Chris couldn’t even really think of a time when he’d seen Paris blush.
“They were together… I mean, obviously they were together since I probably wouldn’t have seen you without me… I mean Serge without Liesel there… or whatever, you get the point.”
“Right,” Chris agreed.
“Anyway, they… they did this… thing… with their hands…”
“That’s not very descriptive,” Chris said.
“I know! It’s just that… I… I mean…”
Paris was clearly having trouble explaining. He stumbled over his words and rambled about things that had nothing to do with what he was talking about, all the while tracing the tip of his finger over and over again across the same path on Chris’s palm.
“Nevermind,” he finally concluded, turning his head to press his face into the side of Chris’s neck. “It’s stupid anyway. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“No, you can’t just do that,” Chris replied. “Tell me.”
“I don’t want to,” Paris whined.
“But you’re the one who brought it up.”
“And now I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Hey, that’s not fair,” Chris whined back, but his disappointment was faked and his voice was laced with amusement. He rolled and pushed Paris down onto the mattress, hovering over him with a teasing grin. “Tell me.”
“No,” Paris said, looking up at him petulantly.
“Come on,” Chris coaxed him.
“Nuh uh.”
“Tell me,” he tried again, his voice playfully warning.
Paris shook his head, but when he vocalized his response it came out much less calmly. He shrieked a loud and startled “no!” when Chris’s hands slipped under his shirt so his fingers could dig into Paris’s sides.
He liked the sound of Paris’s laughter. He liked the color that rushed to Paris’s face, how his hair became mused, how he wiggled around trying to free himself and pull away from Chris’s tickling hands. Chris didn’t make it easy. He kept it up until Paris needed to breathe, and then started in again as soon as Paris had gotten in a few good gasps of air.
They fought for a while, neither vicious nor violent, and when they tired of it their mouths met and they found amusement of a different sort.
Chris forgot all about what Paris hadn’t told him, the strange way he’d been looking at him and the odd way he’d stroked his hand. He even forgot about the secret he kept in his shaving bag for a time, and the way his family had been staring at him so expectantly over the course of the day. He forgot about the day before, his failed attempt at the museum, and he forgot about the short time ahead of them them and the end of the holiday that was fast approaching, when they would have to return to Destiny City and pick up their lives there again.
It was easier away from it all.
There were perks to being free.
He would remember it all in the morning, of course, or he’d remember most of it. Then it would be back to that tireless back-and-forth struggle he kept going through now that he was only one step away from finishing things. Should he do it now? Was this the right moment? What about tomorrow? What if a better opportunity presented itself then? Did Paris know? Had he guessed? What would he say? Would he be calm about it? Would he cry? Would he look scared? Would he even be able to speak at all?
Chris didn’t think he mind if Paris was speechless, or if he were to cry, as long as it was for the right reasons. But he didn’t want Paris to be afraid. He didn’t want Paris to experience any of the same doubts he’d battled himself over the summer. He wanted Paris to understand why, to feel confident about it the way he felt confident about it, to know that this was what he wanted and that they couldn’t base their entire relationship around things that had happened to other people years ago.
They had no control over the lives and the feelings of other people.
A lot of the times they didn’t even have much control over their own feelings, but they weren’t living in anyone else’s shadow.
Paris was half-asleep by the time the movie ended. His eyes were softly closed, his hair a tangle of curls spread out along the pillow, his cheeks rosy and his lips parted just so. He mumbled along to the credits and turned to press his face against Chris’s chest.
“But I love you… until the end… of… time…”
“That’s what he said,” Paris murmured quietly, without any explanation as to who ‘he’ was supposed to be. “… the end of time…”
Seconds later he was breathing deeply, carried away by dreams.
Chris considered him for a minute and then shook his head, figuring he’d never know what all that was about now that Paris was unconscious. It probably wasn’t even worth questioning later. He reached for the remote control instead, careful not to jostle Paris as he turned off the television and the Blue Ray player, flipped off the fireplace with another controller, and then settled close to kiss Paris’s forehead.
Today was over, but there was always tomorrow.
For as long as they were here, they had all the time in the world.Ugh, finally done. DX
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