Zebulon had eventually left the living room, tired of watching the other two with some strange mix of envy, jealousy, and desire. He ended up moving himself to his laptop which he had set up in the dining room, stopping by most of his communities to take himself out of his surrounding life. It was easier to chat about thirst traps than it was to consider the fact that he wasn’t sure he wanted to let Diryas boot them back out or the fact that he wasn’t sure if he was really okay with any of the three of them.
There was a silly Spanish-language quiz asking which character from a recent movie was their next boyfriend. Zebulon kept idly taking it until he had gotten the character played by one Sr. Araya.
Nice.
When Diryas gave the signal he was coming back home, it came with the accompanying ask that Zebulon tell the other two he was coming back with Chinese food. Ask them for their preferences, Diryas said. Then make sure the table is set, was the follow-up. He supposed Tobias and Teegan were currently guests. No point in proposing the lazy approach of just eating around the couch.
It would feel too casual, anyway. Right? Wouldn’t that be more normal than any of this was?
Zebulon collected the food preferences, sent them off to Diryas, and headed to the dining room table to set it up. Probably not with fine china. Should he just take the exceptionally lazy approach of pulling yesterday’s dishes out of the unstarted dishwasher? Tempting.
He might have actually done that if Teegan hadn’t intercepted him to head to the cabinets himself.
“You know, I can do that.”
Did he sound defensive? Why was he defensive? Was it because he felt like he was getting called out for lazy behaviour? Teegan hadn’t even opened his mouth. He pinched his nose.
— AMA—
“So can I.” Teegan glanced over his shoulder at Zebulon, midway through opening the cabinet. “If Dise is buying dinner, the least I can do is set the table.” It felt strange and not, somehow, that Diryas was coming home with dinner. It was distantly familiar. That wasn’t the problem. It was more that Diryas was bringing home dinner when just a week ago, he was still refusing to talk to Teegan.
And now he was going to have dinner with him two nights in a row? Sure the dinner last night had been kind of strained, but it’d still been dinner with all four of them for the first time in a good, long while. There had been a little bantering, a little joking back and forth. Not as much as there used to be, but it had still been there.
It’d been… nice. Awkward, but nice.
— SEI —
The response Zebulon gave was a distant, “Right,” as he tried to figure out what had him so offset beside the entire situation as a whole. The last time Teegan had been let into the house, the both of them had just about killed him. The time before that had been even longer ago when the three of them were just relieved to see him for the first time in months.
Zebulon also had asked him where the ******** he had been at that point, he reflected. Just a bit more jocular and a bit less pissed off.
Of course, there was a new last time, this time. Hm.
He also couldn’t quite shake the images of Tobias and Teegan snuggling on the couch out of his head. Zebulon supposed the minute envy wasn’t helping anything.
“Well, what do you expect me to do, then?” Zebulon decided his best shot was to swallow down the awkward feelings and focus on the present, turning away from the dishwasher that he had definitely not just been considering mining for dishes and utensils. “Diryas told me to get this place set up, after all.”
— AMA—
“You could help me?” Teegan chanced a non-serious roll of his eyes. “I’m just grabbing glasses. Silverware still exists, y’know?” With the aforementioned glasses in his hands, he bumped the cabinet door shut with the back of his wrist and turned to move the glasses to the table. “I’m going to assume we don’t need plates if he’s bringing home Chinese food, but maybe I’m wrong.”
”You’re probably wrong,” Tobias supplied helpfully from the couch, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in one hand. “I’d ask if you guys need any help, but I think you’ve got it covered. I’ll just, uh, supervise from here. That’s it.”
”Supervise? Are you still allergic to managing other people?”
“Well, yes, but I think the two of you can handle it with a minimum of input from me, if I’m honest.” Tobias grinned, sitting back in his seat and resting an arm across the back of the couch. “I think I might be able to take a more hands-off managerial approach.”
Teegan faced Tobias with wide eyes that made the latter start laughing quietly. “But I like the hands-on approach.”
”Yeah I bet you do. Put your hands on some plates.”
— SEI —
Zebulon snorted under his breath at probably wrong, but he found himself not terribly inclined to interrupt their banter. He could tell Tobias and Teegan had gone right back to everything. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend it was the same as it was … g-d, how many years ago was it when Elliot had slowly become more distant? ******** hell.
Bury it again, ignore it again, “I mean, didn’t we ask him for a big a** thing of fried rice?” Zebulon glanced at Tobias first, and then at Teegan, with a quirked brow. “You plan on just forking that into whatever other overfilled container we got with our own food?”
Zebulon slipped past Teegan to get to the cabinets.
A moderately intrusive thought snuck into his mind, and then a more mildly intrusive one, and he smacked Teegan’s a** with one hand as he yanked the plates cabinet open with the other. “That work for you?” He snorted, glancing toward Tobias. Maybe he shouldn’t have done that. Tobias had his tail up yesterday and while Teegan had successfully defended him–
Another thing he needed to think about at another time.
— AMA—
”I can probably fork most of that rice right into my face,” Teegan retorted. Tobias laughed again, then. Teegan fixed him with a look. “Yes? What is it? What’d I say?”
”Nothing. I just had the thought that that’s not all you can put in your face.” The laugh turned into a cackle when Teegan returned Tobias’ comment with the middle finger of his left hand. Teegan turned to let Zebulon past, and so he was startled by the smack to his a**. Rather than defend him, Tobias just kept laughing. Brushing himself off with mock indignation, Teegan muttered, “well I never—“
— SEI —
It was, admittedly, a relief to hear the a**-smack followed by laughter from Tobias rather than an unamused silence. The defense still seemed to hold up, then– If it hadn’t, though, he was pretty sure he would have had much bigger problems by now. Why was he so nervous about it?
Keep projecting the confidence, Zeb.
“Never what?” His eyes danced. “Had your a** smacked before? Never had a pat on your tuchus?” Zebulon pulled four plates off the shelf, with a fully internal reflection that four was the most he had pulled down in a while. Three was even exceedingly rare, considering that while Tobias visited, that was all he did. Visit. Not long enough to stay for much. “Sounds like you’re loading up.”
He slid by Teegan, plates in hand, and headed to the table.
“Know I’ve smacked all over that a**.”
— AMA—
Teegan took the risk as Zeb passed him and turned to follow, waiting until Zebulon had just put the plates down on the table to pull his hand back and deliver his own resounding smack in turn. “You know I’m not just going to take that lying down.”
“I feel left out,” Tobias chimed in with an exaggerated pout. He got to his feet, walking over to join them at the table. Phone in hand, he glanced down to it. “Hey, let me text Dise and ask him where the hell he is.” He was due at home any time now, traffic willing, but Tobias didn’t want to get comfortable at the table if it was going to be a little while yet.
— SEI —
… That felt good, actually. Familiar. For a moment, it was easy to let himself forget just how messy this all was. For a moment, he could tap into that old banter, and a small smirk ticked on the edge of his lips as Tobias walked over to join them.
Alright. Two could play that game.
He nodded toward Tobias as an acknowledgement of his words, before leaning his body back toward Teegan’s. He pitched his voice up with an intentionally nasal, “Oh, forgive me, Father, for–” He was, perhaps, too busy cackling and heading back to the kitchen with a victorious swagger to acknowledge Teegan's exasperated disruption beyond a wink over his shoulder. He knew Teegan hated that.
That was why he did it.
… Should he be doing that? They were trying to find normal again. Grating Teegan was not how to get there. But perhaps it was, really? Teegan and Zebulon loved each other, but also razzing each other was part of their rhythm. It always had been, hadn't it?
Why did stepping back into that feel so weird now?
— AMA—
“Zebulon Raymond Castaneda, you a*****e—“ Teegan did indeed hate that, replying with a sigh that was, indeed, exasperated. He waved off the wink with a waggle of his hand. Of all the boxes he’d binned his life into, he’d always been very careful to keep his religious self separate from his secular self. At first, it had been out of necessity, lest he face unwanted consequences from the parish.
Now? Well, now it was less out of necessity. He was allowed to have… entanglements now. But he still had a distaste for uniform-based, well, anything that wasn’t the purpose of that uniform.
And Zebulon knew that.
And so Zebulon teased him.
That was how it went, right?
”Oh hey, Diryas is home,” observed he, looking out the front window. Tobias swept by him on the way to get some napkins, patting the seat of Teegan’s pants and laying a kiss on his cheek.
“You’re allowed to call him Dise, still, you know.” Tobias’ voice was almost sing-song, almost determinedly so. As if he dared anyone to disagree with him on the matter. Teegan wasn’t going to disagree with him and replied with a murmur of acknowledgment, going to take his spot at the table.
— SEI —
Was he, though? Would Diryas permit that? Would it irritate him to have Teegan have that familiarity after everything? Would anything else feel wrong? Did it even matter, because he was fairly sure Tobias was doing the figurative equivalent of shoving them all into a get-along shirt?
Zebulon sighed quietly to himself as he collected an assortment of mismatched utensils.
He’d let Diryas field that one. If he even wanted to. Perhaps even if it wasn’t okay, it would have to be.
They were there now.
He slid by everyone’s seats, dropping off the requisite utensils at each stop, before swinging by to meet Diryas at the door.
— AMA—
Diryas paused at the front door, listening to the voices beyond. He could pick out each one. Zebulon’s twangy, brassy baritone filled the space with his laughter. Tobias’ clear tenor, gentle and melodic, responded in kind. And then there was the last one, one that Diryas had not heard in the house in this capacity for a very long time. It had been long enough that he felt that warm baritone crackling like hearthfire, a hearthfire that invited him closer and could--he knew--turn into a raging bonfire in an instant.
Zebulon had not been the only one to attend one of Father Isaac’s services, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Diryas had heard that fire roaring from the pulpit, had thought about going to a confession to hear it spark in the privacy of the booth. He never did, in the end. Hadn’t thought there was a point. Had thought that flame extinguished between them.
He’d warmed himself by that fire in the past. And now?
Well now, he didn’t know. His mind went back to his and Livie’s conversation. The Negaverse had used that fire for their own ends. Fire could warm, and fire could burn, and Elliot had burned with his in service of chaos. Repeatedly. He had taken energy. He might have taken starseeds, lives. He had stepped outside of their little quartet without talking with them about it first, and--worse--used the people he slept with for energy without their knowledge, much less their consent.
But Livie had a point.
’You wouldn't say, oh, it's not the carbon's fault, just 'cause it was in a molecule. Like, the carbon was there the whole time.’
’But also, the carbon never would have done that on its own, right?’
Right.
And now Teegan was back, with no way of knowing if he’d caused permanent damage and no way to atone with any of the people he’d directly harmed. Save, of course, one. And that one was extending the olive branch and welcoming him back through the ash and soot. Welcoming him home. And, from what he’d learned in that conversation, that was difficult to obtain for people who had escaped the Negaverse. They were lucky he remembered who they were at all, even as scrambled as Tobias had said Teegan’s memory was sometimes.
Had that fire finally consumed Elliot? What was left, then? This man, “Teegan”? Diryas whispered the name to himself. It still felt foreign on his tongue. It was an unfamiliar name for an achingly familiar face.
Speaking of home… Was this Teegan’s home? Teegan lived across town, at the moment, in temporary housing in a basement. Was that Teegan’s home?
He’d told Livie she won. What did her winning mean, then, if nothing changed on Diryas’ end? And what was the ******** point of it all, then? Of any of it? How long did Diryas think he could stay angry when there was nothing more that could be done? What did he want? Teegan to debase himself? Lie prostrate and beg for forgiveness? What the hell would that even accomplish except humiliating someone Diryas was supposed to care about? Did care about?
…Had never stopped intensely, deeply caring about?
Diryas took a deep breath, steadied himself, and opened the front door. “I can hear you all from the driveway.” He put his coat on the hooks by the door, setting his shoulder bag on the console table under it, kicking his shoes off on the bottom shelf of that console table.
“Dise!” Ah, Tobias’ sunny excitement. Diryas picked the bags of food from the floor near the door and turned to the others, sliding past Zebulon. “Did you get extra lo mein?”
“Of course.” Diryas saw Teegan shift, seemingly uneasily, in the periphery of his vision and turn to find something to occupy himself with. …He had to do something about that. But what?
“And you got the pepper steak for Zeb, right?” Tobias stepped in to take the bags from Diryas, taking them to the table and immediately setting about doling the contents out to their respective owners.
“Of course.” Diryas, himself, turned toward the kitchen to get everyone something to drink. Water with lemon for himself. Iced raspberry tea for Tobias. A light beer for Zebulon--local craft brew, the only type Zebulon would drink. And for Teegan… He looked at him directly. “Do you still like the iced tea Toby drinks?”
It was a trap. Tobias drank raspberry tea made from a carton of faintly rosy brown powder. Elli--Teegan had never liked it. He didn’t drink anything that “started life as dust”. Diryas watched as Tobias furrowed his brow in confusion as he recalled the same information Diryas had. Teegan paused, opened his mouth and shut it again. It was a trap, and Diryas wanted to see if Teegan remembered enough to know that.
“Uh.” Teegan rubbed the back of his neck. What was the right answer? Diryas was staring at him, clearly expecting one. No, Teegan didn’t like Tobias’ iced tea. It was too… sweet. Too sour. Teegan liked real tea, not that powdered bullshit. “No.”
“No?” Diryas turned back to the carton of powder, the serving spoon hovering in his hand above it. He dipped the spoon in and came away with a heap, which then went back to hovering above the glass intended for Teegan. He looked back to Teegan then, face unreadable as always.
“No.” Was this a punishment? Was Diryas intending to give Teegan something he knew he hated as a way of getting revenge, or something? A way of saying--without saying--that Teegan wasn’t actually welcome there?
“Fine.” The spoon--and its burden of powder--went back in the container and Diryas closed the lid. Teegan glanced to Tobias, who was frowning in Diryas’ direction. Well… at least it wasn’t just Teegan. “Come here.” Tobias opened his mouth to say something, but Teegan shook his head. Tobias frowned at him, this time, but didn’t say anything.
It wasn’t like Diryas was holding a knife. Teegan was probably safe. Probably! So he went closer, as requested, until he was standing just outside of arm’s reach. To give Diryas space, he told himself. Not because he was wondering now what damage could be done with an empty glass. Then, he realised Diryas had said--murmured, really--something he hadn’t caught.
“Sorry, uh, come again?”
Diryas repeated himself, but it wasn’t any louder. Worse, Diryas was staring at him again, clearly expecting him to have heard him. Hesitantly, Teegan leaned over. Diryas stared up at him. Teegan recognized that stare. He leaned closer still. Diryas repeated himself again. This time, Teegan heard him. “We don’t have any of the fruit juice you like.”
Well, considering how long he’d been gone and the fact that he was the only one who drank it, that made sense. “Oh, that-” Teegan was cut off by Diryas reaching up and grabbing a fistful of his shirt and yanking him down. Diryas was not a large or powerful man by any means. Five-three and one-twenty soaking wet, there was little Diryas could have done if Teegan had objected. Teegan, however, froze instead, which offered nothing in the way of resistance.
This time Diryas’ voice was loud and clear, maybe to stop Tobias. He had immediately taken a step toward the two of them in alarm.
“And if you ever pull what you did again,” Diryas tugged until their faces were inches apart. Teegan was too surprised, too taken-aback to respond, much less stop him. Instead, he stared, wide-eyed, tense, wondering if this was the day he died. But as Diryas’ words started to register in Teegan’s mind, “I will take all of this tea powder and shove it down your throat until you choke on it.” A sharp, insistent yank on Teegan’s shirt. “Understand me?”
“Uh, yeah, l-loud and, uh, loud and clear.” Teegan swallowed hard.
“Good.” Diryas took the partial step needed to close the scant few inches of distance remaining and pressed his lips firmly to Teegan’s. Teegan froze at first, then frantically waved his hand around to try and find the counter, to use it for balance when it didn’t seem like Diryas was inclined to let go. In fact, Diryas’ free hand went to the back of Teegan’s head as he deepened the kiss.
Now what the ******** was Teegan supposed to do? Not that he was complaining! Not at all! But it took a moment for him to gather his wits enough to tentatively return the kiss being given him. There was an approving hum from Diryas, and Diryas’ hand moved from the back of Teegan’s head to cup his jawline instead. It was a moment more, and then a maddeningly unperturbed Diryas separated from a breathless Teegan. He tilted his head, looked Teegan over, grunted once in satisfaction, and then moved past him with some of the drinks.
“Welcome home.”
— SEI —
“Does that really surprise you?”
The three–four–of them had always been loud when grouped together and excited about something. But was Zebulon excited so much as trying to lean into a reality he desperately wanted to be his again? He didn’t quite know the answer to that, and he was fairly sure Diryas didn’t have it either. Tobias continued his get-along shirt mission with how eagerly he greeted Diryas, and Zebulon was only left to watch as Diryas simply moved by him.
He was going to offer Diryas a kiss at the door and maybe help defuse any tension he had felt, but evidently, that wasn’t going to be what happened that unexpected work evening. He shrugged his shoulders and just leaned against the archway leaning toward the kitchen, watching where Diryas went. Tobias took the food, so it left Diryas open to go to the drinks. Fine. Normal. Teegan looked like he was going to shrink into a violet.
Also fine. Normal. Completely. This was fine. Everything was fine.
… Teegan hated that tea and Diryas would know that. Getting a read on how much Teegan actually remembered, maybe? A good test, he supposed, to see if Teegan would fake liking it for the sake of things. And he didn’t fake it. And Diryas called Teegan over.
Okay. Fine. Normal. Right?
Tobias clearly didn’t think so, and Zebulon moved to get in the way of Tobias if he needed to.
But he didn’t.
Zebulon stopped moving, standing right next to Tobias and blinking. Hot. Were they good now? Had Diryas forgiven Teegan? Diryas was kissing Teegan hard enough that he was flailing a bit. Also hot. Was Diryas still going to send them home? Apparently not. He blinked once, and then again, and glanced up at Tobias. “Uh,” he cleared his throat. “Wasn’t expecting that one,” he murmured.
Usually, Zebulon was pretty good at reading Diryas. He did not quite expect Diryas to change tack from warning Teegan to stay in line to kissing him to telling him welcome home.
… Though perhaps he should have expected that, in the end.
That could not have been any more like Diryas.
— AMA—
’Welcome home.’
Welcome home.
Home. Still breathless, Teegan straightened his posture and looked after where Diryas had gone, his gaze following him as Diryas came back into the kitchen, grabbed the other two drinks, and headed back out toward the table again. He realized then, distantly, that the whole tea thing had been a prank, a joke on Diryas’ part and at Teegan’s expense. A setup for what Diryas had actually wanted, which was for Teegan to get closer. Of course Diryas knew Teegan didn’t like powdered drinks.
Of course.
“Are you going to join us or stand there?” Tobias’ voice next to him made Teegan jump, which made Tobias snort with amusement and lean in closer. “Yes hello, Teegan, come in? Teegan, are you there?” Teegan, in turn, grumbled wordlessly under his breath and pushed Tobias away a step, which just made Tobias snort again.
“I’m here, I’m here.” He shook himself lightly, discreetly. He smoothed out the wrinkles in his shirt, wrinkles from where Diryas had grabbed him and pulled him closer. And kept him there. It wasn’t behavior Teegan was used to from Diryas, even if he hadn’t been gone for a while, and it left Teegan quite flummoxed.
“Well, come on. Dinner’s getting cold.”
“Uh. Right.” He followed Tobias’ beckoning and made his way out to the dining room, realizing that his food had been put in front of the chair he’d always used before. And there he took a seat, finally looking around at the others. “...So am I going ho-- leaving after dinner then?”
“Of course not.” Diryas’ reply was measured, even conversational, as he unfolded his rice container into a plate and mixed the vegetables with it. “You’ll stay the night in the guest room.” He stirred the food, then, mixing it together with his chopsticks and letting the sauce coat the rice grains. “And in the morning,” a test bite. He stirred it some more. “In the morning, we’ll go get your things from the Bell house.”
“O-oh yeah?” Teegan’s head was spinning. Maybe he could find solace in his orange chicken.
Tobias, for his part, seemed to be adapting quickly to the turn of events. His chopsticks stabbed into his lo mein, and around a mouthful of noodles, “yeah, we’ll get everything and get it moved over here.” He swallowed and continued, “and we’ll let them know that you’re moving out, so that they aren’t left wondering, you know?” Tobias took another bite, but finished chewing and swallowing this time before carrying on. “Is there anyone there you want to say goodbye to?”
“Uh, well, Livie’s there, so her.”
Tobias brightened even more--if that were possible--at the mention of Livie’s name. “Well, then definitely Livie!” Leaning his elbows on the table as he continued eating, Tobias hummed along. Between bites, “Dise?”
“Mm?” Diryas looked up from his food, reaching to take a swig of his ice water. He had known Tobias would be excited at the prospect of their ‘happy family’ getting back together. A guilty part of Diryas had the thought that this happiness could have happened a lot sooner if everyone hadn’t been waiting on him. Even Zebulon had started talking to Teegan again. It was literally and only Diryas the whole time, holding everything up, having a complex about events that everyone else seemed more than eager to move past.
Unbeholden to Diryas’ rumination, Tobias clacked his chopsticks at him to regain his attention. Diryas raised an eyebrow and gestured for Tobias to get on with it. “Are you sure Teegan can’t sleep in the main bedroom? There’s obviously space, you know? Does it have to be the side room?”
Ah. Diryas took another swig of his water.
“Well?” It was Tobias’ turn to raise an eyebrow when he didn’t get an immediate response. He wasn’t letting Diryas off the hook that easily. Diryas could drink water until his eyeballs started floating, for all Tobias cared.
Diryas put his glass down and moved some of his food around with his chopsticks. “I’d rather he slept in the side room for now.”
“Why?” Tobias’ brow furrowed, his mouth set in a thin, stubborn line.
“It’s fine.” It was Teegan who spoke up, this time, waving his hand at Tobias. “It’s fine, really. I don’t mind. I,” Teegan turned to Diryas and Zebulon, “I wasn’t planning on moving back in any time soon, so really it’s okay.”
Diryas looked up sharply, then silently regarded Teegan as he slowly took a bite and chewed.
“What do you mean? You’re not saying ‘no’, are you?” Caution suddenly laced Tobias’ voice, the previous enthusiasm replaced with guardedness. It was Teegan’s turn to push his food around in front of him. “Teegan, come on.”
Teegan winced. “Look, this is very sudden.” He sighed and looked over to Diryas. “Especially on your part.”
Diryas chewed slowly, then replied evenly, “what do you mean?” It had been months and months. Sudden? Where? How? Teegan hadn’t been there for the arguments between Diryas and Tobias about how long it was taking him, but doubtless he’d heard about them. Diryas was adult enough to admit when he’d gone overboard.
As if realising how silly he sounded, Teegan paused. Then, “I just don’t want you to do this because you feel you have to in order to make other people happy.”
“What makes you think he’s doing this to make other people happy?” It was less an accusation and more of an honest inquiry, but there was little that could be done to avoid the interrogation in the nature of Tobias’ question. Teegan looked helplessly between Diryas and Tobias, but all Diryas did was incline his head and gesture for Teegan to continue, to answer that question.
“I,” Teegan looked to Zebulon, silently pleading with his eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to move in! But he hadn’t been prepared for this, and it felt like a trap somehow.
— SEI —
Zebulon joined Tobias on the other side of Teegan when he moved to make sure Teegan was still alive in there, unable to help ringing in with, “Cat got your tongue?” at his long silence. He couldn’t quite blame him, though! While he couldn’t say any part of it was usual Diryas behaviour, Diryas had tugged him down for a kiss before.
Not under the same circumstances, but he digressed.
He moved back to the table and took a swig of his beer the moment he sat down. Something about it warmed his fingers and toes and it was a temporary distraction from the fact that they were already arranging getting Teegan moved back in. Tobias would be thrilled, for sure. Zeb wanted to pull Diryas aside and ask what motivated the switch from that morning and afternoon to evening, but he’d probably have to wait for that conversation.
Diryas clearly wasn’t quite there yet with Teegan, considering he asked him to stay in the guest room even still. Or the side room. He noticed the change in titling.
But maybe Teegan wasn’t quite there yet, either.
Diryas and Teegan seemed to have a start of an understanding of that, but Tobias was dismayed, and Diryas was wondering what wasn’t quite working. Zebulon keyed into what Teegan had said about this all having been very sudden, and, well, the look Teegan was giving him. He needed a bailout. He had this. Probably.
“Pretty sure less than forty-eight hours ago, Teeg was debating if confronting me in my office was worth his damn time.” He took a bite of pepper steak before continuing. “After hereabout ten months, this is a whole lot to happen in less than two days. Think he needs some time to process that. Which is fine, not a rejection. Might give Dise some time to process too.”
Zebulon glanced toward Teegan, hoping he had gotten that one right.
“‘Sides, he’s probably got a lotta stuff over there to move back. Why not let him stage it out while he processes?”
— AMA—
Thank God, Mary, and all of the saints for Zebulon Raymond Castaneda. Teegan let out some of the breath he’d been holding as Tobias and Diryas exchanged a glance and seemed to relax. At the very least, Diryas went back to quietly eating his food.
That didn’t stop the visible disappointment in Tobias’ voice and on his face, however, as he replied, “it’s been a very long time, though, and… I thought you’d be excited to move back in.” His voice got quiet toward the end, and Teegan winced. He didn’t like making Tobias upset. It was like pulling rainclouds over the sun. He could also see the flush of embarrassment on Tobias’ cheeks.
“I am excited to move back in, and I mean that.”
“Then why--”
“It’s… My life has been a lot, lately. A lot of upheavals. A lot of moving around. And this would be a good move!” He hastened to add the last part as he saw Tobias’ mouth open again. “But it’s still a move.” Teegan shook his head. “My life has moved very quickly, too, lately, and I want it to move a bit slower.”
“Slower than months?”
“The months have been part of it.” Teegan’s tongue wetted his lips, which suddenly felt very dry. “Toby, that’s why I didn’t move out with you, remember? I want to move back, but… maybe slowly?” He didn’t really have that many belongings. His life as a transient resident of the Bell household had been about as austere as his life before as a priest. He owned very few things. Mainly his macrame, some books, and a laptop. His clothes, obviously.
Tobias sat back in his chair, regarding Teegan from across the table, then sighed. “Alright. Define ‘slowly’.” Surely anything could be faster than the time this process had taken. Hell, at this rate, Tobias was also going to have to move back from the month-to-month apartment he’d been renting since Teegan’s purification.
“Weeks, probably. Not months. But… not overnight.”
“Will you be spending nights here?” Diryas reached for a napkin to wipe his hands with as he finished the last of his food.
“I-- probably. If that’s okay. A couple a week, maybe more?”
“That’s fine. You’ll want to make sure you have toiletries here, then.”
“What, like a toothbrush?”
“Yes, like a toothbrush. Some spare clothes.” Diryas raised an eyebrow, which stopped Teegan’s objections. “You don’t have to move everything right away, but surely you don’t want to be carrying everything back and forth every time.”
“...I suppose not.” Teegan looked back down to his food. That was a good point, but there was still something about keeping a toothbrush there that felt very… intimate.
“Teegan?” The name still felt unfamiliar on Diryas’ tongue, but it was his name. He’d learn it. When Teegan looked up at him, he continued, “would you stay the night tonight, at least?”
Teegan looked between the three others, back down to his food, then back up to them. “...Yeah, okay.”
— SEI —
Zebulon’s lips ticked upward behind his glass of beer as he saw Teegan’s body noticeably relax. Mission accomplished. Let the three of them settle it out, then, he had some pepper steak to enjoy with all of them at the table around him.
This felt a bit less tense than yesterday, at least. Even with Tobias being dismayed, Diryas seemed to be understanding where Teegan was coming from quickly. The angle Zebulon had chosen had been purposeful, too. Diryas was not one to come to quick changes, either.
Give him a few weeks to try out samples of the new normal. Give Zeb a few weeks, too. Even if he tended to take things as they happened, he needed to analyze why he had gotten so defensive–
Zebulon met eyes with Teegan when his eyes went over him, and he clicked his tongue with a wink. “Look, it’ll be like when I moved on up here, right? Not like I ever left when I did,” not like he had a damn choice, considering he moved there from San Antonio, and Diryas had agreed to host him as a roommate, “but y’all both were frequent visitors. Oft stayed the night until it felt silly to ever go back home.” Especially after Jason on Tobias’ part, but that was beside the point.
He pointed his chopsticks to Tobias, then to Teegan, shot them both a grin, and returned to his pepper steak.
“Anyway,” he said with his mouth partially full of pepper steak, “it’ll be good to have a breakfast with alla’ y’all in the morning before Teegan has to duck out to go be all religious or whatever. You still gotta write a sermon?”
He paused. No, that was too Protestant. Teegan was Catholic.
“Homily. Right. That’s the word.”
— AMA—
“Yes. Homily.” Teegan chuckled, going back to his food. Tobias did the same. “Yes, I still have to write homilies. I’m still Catholic, just not attached to the Vatican.”
“Don’t people get excommunicated for things like that?” Diryas idly wondered. Teegan couldn’t help the snort, there.
“I mean, yeah, but it’s not the 16th century anymore.” Teegan shook his chopsticks at Diryas. “People don’t get excommunicated for little things like forming offshoot branches. The Vatican just ignores them instead.” It was probably preferable, though it wasn’t like excommunication came with all of the social disaster it used to, either. If someone was excommunicated, the impact largely rested on how much they cared, because--unless they lived in an insular community--the people around them weren’t necessarily likely to. Usually someone who was excommunicated nowadays had already been socially ostracized anyway. The neighbours cared about your sins long before the Pope did.
“So the Vatican just ignores your little group of churches? Are you not a real priest, then?”
“I’m a real priest. I’m ordained. I could move over the ‘real churches’ if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.” Teegan took a mouthful of his food, chewed, swallowed, and continued, “I like being somewhere that doesn’t care that I’m not straight, doesn’t necessarily require that I be celibate, all of that.” A small shrug. “I guess I didn’t realize how much hiding it sucked until I didn’t have to, anymore.”
Diryas folded his arms on the table and leaned forward onto them. “What about the whole polyamory thing?” Did the church know Teegan was polyamorous? Was that going to be a problem? He reflected that he didn’t want Teegan to have to stop hiding most everything, only to find the group of them still being a risk to his livelihood.
“Oh, well… Alright, you’ve got me there.” He cleared his throat. Most people were very much monogamous with limited understanding of polyamory. There were a couple polyamorous people in the community he ministered to, but the church itself largely didn’t know what to do with them. “That’s more of a live-and-let-live situation. As long as no one’s getting hurt.”
“As long as no one gets hurt? Alright, fair enough.” Diryas took a final swig of his water. “I’m going to go take a shower.” He scooted his chair out and got to his feet, gathering his dinner garbage and dishes. “Teegan?”
“Ah, yeah?”
“You’re welcome to join me.”
“Oh. Oh!” Teegan laughed, and it was a real, warm laugh. It relaxed something in Diryas to hear. “Uh, sure. Okay. I’ll finish eating and join you, then.” Diryas inclined his head in agreement and left the room, pausing only briefly once he was around the corner to listen to the others before continuing on. Tobias was bemoaning his lack of inclusion, but the shower was only so big, as Teegan was reminding him, at the same time suggesting Tobias and Zeb take over the shower once they were done.
…It was getting back to normal, Diryas decided.
Amasxs
