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He hadn't moved all the way out, even though people had come to help,
really he didn't have much, and disassembling the studio...Lawrence was still his friend. They just weren't...

Hadn't been...

And that's all it had taken for Lawrence to move Melvin back in and take Melvin out on leave.

He wanted to forgive him, he did, if...Lawrence was sincere, if he wasn't in the way of the life Lawrence wanted to live but he felt like...maybe Melvin and him were being told different things. It was Lawrence who insisted they all sit down together and talk. Rodney wasn't living here. Melvin was.

If Rodney was honest, it didn't feel like home anymore. It hadn't since...everything. It felt the same as his room at Mik and Malk's, and his hole in the basement, with the stone and the cot. Another place that he was allowed to be a guest at, for a while.

Melvin sat in one of the chairs he actually liked in the living room, the white suede was soft and he had taken off his gloves to gentle touch the armrest as felt the pressure of the room like 3 balloons in a very cramped space pressing about and seeing which one would pop.

He was inside, home again, but he knew how very easily he could loose purchase and be back out again. When Lawr and Rodney were together, he was nothing. Worse than that. He was something to be expelled, jettisoned out of the shuttle so it wouldn't pollute the air with its' spores. Without Rodney, he was missed and had contact once again. Having Lawr and Rodney in the same room had a level of dread and he felt his body tense the moment he was brought back in the same space.

"I'm not leaving this house again." He said in a clear statement. He would not leave his home again.

Rodney clutched his hands at his knees, not sure what to say, or what Lawrence and Melvin wanted from him after...everything.

"Do you want me here?" He asked Lawrence, and the answer he feared most was, it doesn't matter.

Of course Lawr wanted him. That was what he was. Want.

He refrained from rolling his eyes, and instead looked over to Rodney. Asking Lawr what he wanted was not the start he wanted. Lawr got enough.

"What do you want specifically, Rodney?" The man had such strong ideals and morals that he wasn't even sure how he was convinced to be in this house,
let along with the two of them. What was luring him here? What lie masked in a promise?

Lawrence noted the way Rodney seemed to flinch away and deliberately took a deep breath and exhaled. As he breathed out he breathed out some of the tension in his body and the perceived anger along with it. There was no point in getting agitated simply because he was stressed, this was a situation he had created and he was the only one who could even slightly begin to untangle it.

“First of all.” He said “I want to apologise to both of you. For all the being messed around you’ve mutually endured. I have caused no end of distress to everyone and this is the first thing I want to mitigate even if no solution can truly solve it. This always happens to me, places where I end up torn between two individuals I love and care about and my own incredible greed.”

It had been the same with Mikael and Malkam’s mothers, two very different individuals and yet fascinating enough that he’d lived a double life for as long as he possibly could to try and get away with it and to see both of his sons. It hadn’t worked and he had no intention of causing the same sort of heartache to Rodney or Melvin.

“What I want is a solution and I am not trying to optimise what I get out of this, if me not sleeping with anyone ever was the solution I would try and stick to that. However, what is probably best ultimately is a situation which addresses both stated priorities.” He took a deep breath. “I would propose resuming my relationship with Rodney with the full intention of absolute fidelity but without compromising my friendship with you Melvin. That would mean no more severing contact, no more rules against where you can and cannot be, simply an earnest request that there be no more excessively intimate things or boundary pushing – though I acknowledge it was me who pushed them last time. You could remain here, no one would ask you to leave, the boys wouldn’t come back if they couldn’t deal with that situation. Contact and embraces would be fine because I would have no intention of acting further upon them. You would still be my best friend and we could still do things together.” He traced his fingertips across the severed scar of his left wrist, something he only did when he was thinking very hard.

“You would be free to pursue other relationships and to do whatever you wish with my blessing and if you wanted it, support. All I would ask of you for my own sake and peace of mind is that no one is brought into the house without discussion with everyone else. This place is important to me too; I wouldn’t want it to feel violated in any way for any of us.”

He gave them both a calm and hopeful look. “It would essentially be as it was before, just reversed. I love you both and I can’t cut either of you out of my life but I need both of you to be in agreement about what we are going to do before I can move forward. I can’t try again with Rodney with you bitter about it Melvin, because I will fail third and fourth time and if I stay with you exclusively Melvin Rodney will spend the rest of his time on the island truly unhappy. I want a world where I can still explore Atlantis with you and do all manner of things together while also giving Rodney the family and life I promised him when we were married.”

He gave them both a pensive look. “And I want both of you to be honest with me right now, and if possible, with each other.”

Lawrence was expecting to be challenged, because nothing was ever easy, so he took another steadying breath to avoid being patronising or rolling his eyes at the confrontational tone Melvin brought to the table, he had every right to be angry, both of them did and it was his fault.

“I had given up on marriage, long before I met Rodney” he said, nodding to the other man. “That’s no secret, I told him that. It was another try at what I had long considered a lost cause. If I lost that final attempt entirely then yes I would be disillusioned with marriage for ever”

“And l also I did feel caged by the rules and restrictions – something I explained – and in doing so I realised perhaps some part of me must ultimately be caged in order for me to continue to exist on this island and survive, it is a goal not dissimilar to your goals with the collar. If you found someone else you wouldn’t need my permission obviously, I might not think anyone else deserves you but I’d tolerate it for your happiness and be supportive.”

“And of course I still want you Melvin” He said, not afraid to admit this in front of Rodney, committed to as much transparent honesty as he was capable of in this discussion. “But there are a lot of things that I want to do all of the time which I need to learn not to do. That can be one of those things if that’s the arrangement we agree upon, with Rodney I made a lifelong promise and it’s one that I want to uphold, even if I’ve failed already in some ways. It’s up to you though Rodney if you want to let me have another shot.”

He looked from one to the other and sighed. “I love both of you and I want to construct a life where we can be together, even if both of you don’t get along as well as you used to.”

Melvin watched them both. "I don't. Marriage isn't what it is to me in what is for Lawr. He has no faith in it. It's a pretty idea for stability and a way to sink into a structured lifestyle. It's a setup, but it's not what full marriage is, and I've lost faith in it in all the times I've been chipped away by Lawr. I think what he wants isn't the traditional sense. I worries about your life. Another structure to hold him up that without it would send him at an axis and send him tumbling. He wants solid footing and he thinks you will give him that. Is that right, Lawr?"

"I had my chance to ask for his hand before this meeting, but I'm not a husband. I don't want to ask for him to do that because I don't think it will change, and saying it will leave me to hope for something I feel won't happen." He looked to Lawr. "I think you can understand my skepticism after all this time. After all the changes. Even after the last time you came to me wanting to be with me."

"I don't want to ask him to be tied to me because it won't fit him. Us. It would just be the same with sex, but you would still be on his mind like you are now, and he's tenacious. If he wants, he won't stop, then whatever we have will get bad for someone. Not when YOU want him too. At some point...." He went quiet and shrugged to omit that thought.

"What I wanted and want is for him to be there. To return to me. I like the sex. I like being close. I like that need. But I've tried time and time again warping the situation in some form of relationship. I do not have faith this will work for you. I honestly worry about you, Rodney. As someone who had ideals. As someone who had love. As someone who tried to fit a mold. As someone who saw the messes after. Who had to recover."

"After everything. After the years of the lies of love, of having something akin to a love that would be like a marriage only to be told that could never be true, hoping now would destroy me."

"I want his company. I wanted him near. I didn't care if he ******** every hunter in this island as long as they were not harmed and as long as he came back. Sex just became....a way for us to be close. To keep connected. An action of that. But it was a way to be near. That became what was important. I ....guess that's what is important to me now. If he just ******** me and leaves, then I'm nothing more than those other people I let him go off to mess around with. An extra. A nothing. Just something to get his d**k wet. I want something more than that. Because if it's a lie, if it's not a want, if it's an obstacle....a cage to be broken ......."


"Then why be loyal where it's not appreciated as anything more than a cute novelty."

"I don't want to be seen as lowly. As a corruption or a parasite. Lawr....knows my feelings on that the most. I'm tired. I want to move in a direction. I need stabliity just as much as you do so you need to declare in writing a firm statement. If you want a cage - If you want something solid, then write it down. What we are and will be. What all of this is. What each line is drawn because loopholes and vague words have left us all ******** over."

He looked down. "You took him when I was still with him. Made it seem like I stole him on a technically that you wanted to be married without any official end to what we had. Taken when no one told me there were feelings there. Assumed I didn't care and assumed I wasn't anything to talk to in the end. Then you forced me out of the home when I was still trying to deal with everything that happened. A home I helped make and welcomed you in. Then Lawr continued to tell me he wanted to figure out a way to bring me back and that he loved me. Then told me to get away. You both hurt me. I want an apology from both of you."

Lawr felt lost. Somewhere along the way he'd lost track of what everyone was feeling. He'd been sure that Rodney had been willing to get back with him and willing to do whatever it took in the same way he was willing to do whatever it took for the same end. He'd also been sure that Melvin cared about him wholeheartedly. Hearing himself discussed in the way he was, as someone incapable of stopping, of someone Melvin was sure would hurt Rodney time and time again, he slipped into something akin to a panic. When other people said it it didn't matter, they hated him, they wanted traction on him no matter what, but he'd let Melvin close, close enough that he hoped he'd see some sincerity, some redeemable qualities in him. But by the sound of it, he'd only become more certain that he wasn't capable of actual love, that he just wanted a structure and shape and it fitted somehow.

The whole situation had slipped out of his grasp.

His mind was also on a door, but it was the one that led out of this living room.

"You know I'm sorry, I started out with an apology but you can have another, if you want." He thought apologies were stupid.