Another solo that should have been done and posted months and months ago. Set in mid-May.
Word Count: 2359
“Homework?” Chris asked.
“No,” Paris said.
His voice sounded weak and tired. Paris knew, rather than encouraging Chris to go about his business, it would likely draw the encounter out longer than Chris had intended when he came into the room, but Paris thought he could use the company.
Paris sat at the counter bar in the recently completed kitchen of their new house, slowly scrolling through a number of websites on his infrequently used Macbook Air. This was, of course, what had sparked Chris's question, as Paris was never really on the computer if he wasn't doing school work or fiddling around on social networking sites. Even a brief glimpse at the screen would have shown Chris that Paris was far from his usual online haunts of Facebook and Instagram.
Indeed, Chris stopped on his way to the refrigerator to give Paris a curious stare.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
Paris frowned and brought his hand up to cradle the side of his face, trying to effect an indifferent shrug as he said, “I don't know.”
“Did something happen?” Chris was much quicker to follow up this time.
“No, not really,” Paris said.
“Not really?”
“Yeah, I don't know.”
Paris knew he was making it obvious that something wasn't quite right, but he didn't see much reason to hide it. He could hide very few things from Chris these days—at least not for very long—particularly since Chris now had a pretty good idea of what signs he should be looking for. Paris, however, was not much in the mood to keep things to himself today. Instead of making things difficult for Chris, Paris looked up at him with an expression full of sadness and confusion mixed with doubt and fear and hope.
Chris dropped all previous intentions of riffling through the refrigerator and circled around the counter bar. He hopped up onto the chair next to Paris and motioned for the computer.
“Can I see?” he asked.
Paris nodded meekly and turned the laptop in Chris's direction. Then he put his head down on his arms and let Chris begin to read.
“...Transitioning is the process of...”
“...Prompted by...”
“... Sometimes confused with...”
“... Refers to a person's internal sense of being... ”
“... Alter or wish to alter their bodies through hormones, surgery, and other means...”
“... Experience their identity in a variety of ways...”
“... Become aware at any age...”
Paris didn't watch or continue to read along with Chris, but he listened for a reaction. For the most part he heard nothing, just the sound of Chris's even breathing and the clicking of the trackpad as Chris scrolled through and switched from one website to the next. The information was more or less the same throughout each—some more detailed, others basic, some personal and others clinical—but Chris, like Paris, did not seem satisfied with stopping halfway. He kept reading until he'd consumed as much of the information as he could.
After fifteen tense, painfully quiet minutes, Chris reached over to thread his fingers into Paris's hair.
“Come here,” he said.
Paris barely lifted his head as he slid off of his chair to join Chris on the other one. He climbed up to sit sideways across Chris's lap, leaned against Chris's chest and closed his eyes. Chris wrapped one arm around Paris and moved his hand in a comforting caress along Paris's side. With his free hand he continued to scroll through the remainder of the pages.
They sat there together for a long time—another fifteen minutes, thirty, almost an hour. Paris kept his eyes closed and focused on the rise and fall of Chris's shoulders, breathing through the tension and fatigue and advancing stress, and swallowing whatever strained comments he might have made if he'd found the strength to do so. Chris kept reading, pausing only to adjust them into a more comfortable position or slide his hand up and down Paris's side.
Finally, when Paris began to worry that Chris was too confused or too disturbed to speak to him, Chris leaned back in the chair and wrapped both of his arms around him.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Chris asked quietly.
“I don't know what to say,” Paris mumbled back.
“How about starting at the beginning?” Chris suggested.
He didn't sound angry; none of the concern had left his voice. In fact, he didn't sound any different than if they'd been discussing a problem Paris was having with one of his teachers or classmates. There was kindness and patience, gentleness, and too much love to so easily ignore.
“I don't even remember where the beginning is,” Paris said.
“Okay,” Chris said, then, “Why are you so upset about it?”
Coming from anyone else that might have been an insensitive question, but there remained no scorn or anger or impatience in Chris's voice—nothing but gentle kindness. Paris could not quite explain why he felt so fearful of this encounter when a part of him knew he had nothing to fear in telling Chris, but it was not the sort of conversation that had ever come easy to him. He was at a loss. He'd met Chris insisting upon one thing, only to reveal what he'd then thought to be the truth, only to later determine, after two years together and a wedding, that the truth wasn't quite what he'd been pretending it to be.
Paris spent a lot of time pretending, ignoring how he felt for the sake of some perceived simplicity. Now he couldn't do it any longer; it was too tiring—exhausting, trying to be happy when there were pieces of his life that still didn't really fit.
But it was a difficult moment nonetheless. He wanted to do it right, to explain himself accurately. After this, there would be no turning back.
“Because I thought I knew,” Paris said, “and then I didn't anymore and everything was so confusing and I just wanted it to be easy, and I thought I could be happy with you and I am, but I still feel so—”
He stopped himself before he could say “miserable.”
No matter how awful he might feel at times, and no matter how dramatic he might often be in his expression of his thoughts, feelings, and frequent desire for attention and affection, there was a part of Paris that felt guilty for describing his discomfort, sadness, and distress as “miserable.”
To a lot of people, Paris knew his life would not seem “miserable.” Those who knew nothing of his part as a Senshi wold likely think he'd been fairly fortunate in life, and they wouldn't be entirely wrong. He had kind friends and a supportive new family; he was moderately successful in his field and had absolutely no financial difficulties now that he'd married Chris. He faced very little ostracism in his day-to-day interactions with people. Most of the difficulties he'd known in life had come in childhood, but that was in the past. His circumstances had gone through a remarkable change since then; he'd made friends, settled down, his mother had returned, he had people who loved him, and even his father, perhaps one of the largest influences in his life, had begun to understand a bit better before he'd passed away.
But despite all of that, Paris was unable to be truly happy. No matter how supportive and understanding the people in his life might be, it didn't change the fact that for so long he failed to understand himself. He'd spent so long pretending, so long ignoring what a much younger Pairs had already known, so long lying to himself and covering his confusion with “maybe”s and “I don't know”s that wading through it all now had become something of a painful process—if not because of fear, then because of the years he'd lost while playing games and ignoring the truth.
“I knew when I was little,” Paris tried to explain again, when the silence had come between them for much too long.
“Then what happened?” Chris asked, keeping a comforting hand along Paris's side.
“Mom left,” Paris said, “and no matter what she says I know it was partly because of me. I knew it then, too, so I stopped going to the therapist she'd started taking me to when I was ten, and I told myself I was happy the way I was. The way I am.”
“But you're not,” Chris said.
“Not really. Only sometimes. Maybe I—”
There he went with the “not really”s and the “maybe”s. Paris paused before he could continue on that vein, held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut until he could dredge up some of the buried honesty.
“Breathe, Paris,” Chris said.
Paris released the air he'd been holding and inhaled again soon after.
“I'm sorry,” he said. He could feel the buildup of warm moisture collecting behind his closed lids.
“For what?” Chris asked.
“For not being honest with you.”
“When were you not honest?”
There were plenty of answers Paris could have given that would have served as irrefutable proof of any previous dishonesty on his part, but none of those answers truly fit the current conversation. They could probably even be twisted to seem less dishonest given the circumstances, and Paris wasn't quite in the mood to debate that. Instead, he kept his mouth shut until he could think of something more appropriate.
He'd thought that when he finally came to terms with it he'd be able to explain himself better than he had when he was still living in a cloud of confusion and forced ignorance, but he found now that the explanations were still difficult to devise. He'd never really had a way with words, could hardly ever make a convincing argument and never quite knew what the right thing to say was. So he relied on his indecision and half-truths because it was easier than committing to one thing or the other; he tried to find a peaceful in-between that worked for him.
For a while it had, but he slowly realized that it still wasn't quite right.
“I don't know,” he answered, and hated himself for it.
“Okay,” Chris allowed, bringing a hand to Paris's hair again. “Then... how long has this been going on now?”
“I've been talking about it with my therapist for a while.”
“Since when?”
“Pretty much since I started seeing her,” Paris admitted.
“And you didn't say anything this whole time?” Chris said.
“I didn't know how.”
For a moment Chris was quiet, but Paris couldn't bring himself to lift his head and look Chris in the eye.
“What am I supposed to say?” Paris asked.
This time it was Chris's turn to say, “I don't know.”
Paris laughed, small and quiet but mildly amused—ironic, he thought. He kept his head on Chris's shoulder but managed to open his eyes.
“Are you angry?” he chanced.
“No,” Chris said. His arms tightened and Paris could feel movement through his body as Chris shook his head. “Just... guilty, I guess.”
“Why?”
“I feel like I should have... done something... said something... tried to help. Like... I should have known... or I did know, but... I didn't want to push you or... or do something wrong... hurt you... make you uncomfortable... act like an idiot or... I don't know.”
“You asked me before, you know,” Paris said.
“I know.”
“I said I didn't know.”
“But now you do?” Chris prompted.
“Yeah, I think so,” Paris said.
“Then do what you feel you need to do.”
The wetness in Paris's eyes increased until his vision blurred and the tears spilled over, trailing down his cheeks in warm tracks that streaked his pale face red. His hands rose to brush them away and scrub at his eyes, but it was little help. Then his breath hitched and he choked on a sob.
“I don't want to ruin everything,” he said.
Chris put his face to Paris's hair and nuzzled softly. “You're not going to ruin anything. I'm still going to be here,” he intuitively reassured him. “You don't have to do this alone.”
“What if I make a mistake?” Paris said.
“How would you make a mistake?”
“I knew when I was little, but then I thought I knew something different when I got older, and now I'm back to what I knew before, but what if something happens and I don't really know anymore?”
“Then we'll fix it,” Chris said.
It was such a simple answer to a problem that was far from simple, but somehow when Chris said it Paris found that he was able to believe it.
A hand on Paris's face guided his head up. Through his tears Paris was finally able to look at Chris, and he found Chris staring down at him with no less love than before. His eyes were bight and warm, his smile tender, his expression soft and open.
“No one knows what'll happen in the future, Paris,” Chris said. “Maybe you'll regret it years from now, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll regret that it took you as long as it did, or maybe you'll be grateful that you have the chance to do it now. But if you take the time to think about it, and if you focus on what you know will make you happy now, not what you think would have made you happy before or what might make you happy later on, I think you'll come to regret it more if you don't try at all.”
And there it was, laid out for him so plainly that Paris had no choice but to consider it.
Happiness and regret were so often tied together it was difficult to see one without the other.
But Paris knew that Chris was right.
