“When can we meet him?” The following pause was silent and drawn out for such a time that it may have seemed like the conversation ended right there. “Gideon!”

“Huh? Wha-? Me?” The red head’s gaze swiveled up from his phone laying on the dining table, a forkful of chicken and rice hanging a handful of inches from his lips. He’d had dinner with his grandparents at least once a week since he’d moved out on his own however many years ago, but that didn’t really mean he was always there for the conversation. Gideon’s brows furrowed as he tried to collect what he understood of the discussion. “Meet who?”

“That boy!” Gran exclaimed incredulously, flapping a flippant hand to where Gideon was engrossed in his cell phone. “I keep seeing him on the Facebook, and I have been for a while! I can’t believe you haven’t brought him over for dinner.”

Gideon’s smile was easy, relaxed, maybe a bit sheepish as he slowly slid his phone off the table and out of sight into his lap. “I don’t use Facebook, y’know, so I dunno where you’re getting your intel from.”

“But he does.”

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, due to his boyfriend’s sheer neediness and noseyness and desire to be in the middle of what everyone else was doing. But Facebook seemed… too outdated for Ellian’s tastes. Maybe that was just how he kept up with his own family. “Really? Well, that’s embarrassing for him. He’s too young for Facebook.”

Gran’s wrinkled hands folded in front of her as she rested her chin on her hands. Her dinnerplate was already pushed to the side. Having not been distracted by a cellphone, both her and Granda had finished dinner in a more timely manner. “It’s one thing if it’s nothing serious, but it’s been a few months already, Gideon,” she said quietly, watching him through soft, but no less astute amber eyes. “I hope you’re not ashamed of us with your friends…”

He snorted. “Oh, nothing like that…”

But he couldn’t exactly say that it was something closer to the opposite, because he didn’t really want to admit it out loud to anyone. But there was maybe a tiny, quiet part of him that was a little embarrassed of Ellian. With most people, Gideon wouldn’t bother to care how Ellian dressed or how he behaved or what he said, but Gideon’s grandparents were of an older generation, and he’d be lying if he said he thought they’d find Ellian sweet and charming…

So Gideon shrugged his shoulders dismissively. “Just dunno if it’s serious, yet,” he said instead. Which was, admittedly, also not a lie.

That might’ve had a little to do with Ellian, but it more accurately had a lot to do with Gideon. No matter how unfair it was to hold what happened with other people over everyone else, he still couldn’t say if a ‘serious’ relationship was something that would ever be in the cards for him. The people around him had a bad habit of ******** off- in various ways- and Gideon couldn’t imagine ever being in the mood to have that happen with someone he was in an actual, serious relationship with.

It’d probably sting Ellian to hear it.

And it’d probably sting Gideon too if Ellian did bounce now.

But it wouldn’t wound him. His pitiful, fragile body couldn’t handle any more wounds.

Gideon resumed prodding at his dinner, glancing dismissively back to his plate. “Just believe you me, if something reeeally special and reeeally serious ever happens, you’ll be the first to know. I wouldn’t leave you hanging, would I?”

Gran snorted and stood to collect hers and her husband’s dirty plates from the table. “Well, we’re not getting any younger, so stop taking so long about it. I don’t think we can die peacefully until we can be sure you won’t be sitting alone in the dark in an empty apartment for the rest of your life. Do us a kindness, Gideon, honestly.” With a huff, she took the plates from the dining room to the kitchen, leaving Gid to scoff and roll his eyes in her wake.

[WC: 697]