Rowan hurt everywhere. He woke up as sunrise, as he always did, but all he managed to do was whine to himself, roll over, and go back to sleep.
When he woke up again, he still hurt. A few more brain cells were working in his brain and he recognized the full body soreness, the weird interplay of chills and strange burning heat, and determined he had a fever.
He hated being sick. He groaned and hid his face further into his pillow. Why Aiolos wasn’t already bothering for food and a walk was a miracle, but he knew it wasn’t going to last for much longer. He’d glory in sleeping in his bed and feeling miserable until responsibilities kicked in.
Like calling in sick to work. Telling Dan he finished the data analysis she wanted him to do, but he hoped leaving it on her desk would be obvious enough. Debating if telling Lucius was worth it, because he’d inevitably be dealing with an extremely extra caregiving.
Not dying.
He was nearly drifting into sleep again when another brain cell clicked in.
Rowan opened his eyes, vision blurry but he wasn’t blind enough to miss that the pillow case was a deep navy blue and smelled like spice and soap he didn’t use.
He didn’t have navy blue anything.
It wasn’t his bed. Or his room.
His vision swam when he tried to sit up and figure out where he was, so he stopped and decided to try to figure out what happened before rushing into wherever he was.
Yesterday, he was at work. He was helping Dan work on analysing the data from the police station on one of their ongoing cases relating to gangs and potential use of magic. He knew he was getting increasingly sick, and decided he’d go home after running a few more searches in the system to follow a weird bit of data.
Then he was here. Wherever here was. Unless the Roman parade to celebrate the end of Milton being Greek and turning into the Roman pantheon, which meant he lost Antheia because she was one of the few that was a Greek exclusive goddess, and the strange cheese cart in the middle that had been the most exciting part of the entire parade for him actually happened.
The door was open, he wasn’t tied to the bed, and the room didn’t look like a weird BDSM sex dungeon. It was, in truth, a comforting room of navy blues and woods and if he’d ended up in here for reasons that wasn’t a potential kidnapping, he’d been all for it.
Shit. Aiolos. That propelled Rowan to stand up, swaying lightly on his feet before he found his bearings and went to the open door. His boy was very well trained, but he wasn’t perfect and he needed a walk and food in the morning and being sick didn’t mean Rowan couldn’t do the bare minimum of taking care of his dog.
He staggered to the door of the bedroom and-
Whatever he was going to do left his head at the sight of the living room. Aiolos was curled up on the couch, not looking starved or in the need to go to the bathroom or lacking attention from the other occupant on the couch.
Rowan wondered if he had wandered into an alternative reality, one where he and Marcos were still dating. That was the only logical explanation for the fact he just wandered out of Marcos’ bed and was staring at him cuddling his dog and no idea how he got here or how this all happened.
“How are you feeling?” Marcos asked. He was nearly as Rowan remembered; a bit older, morning-worn with a soft curl to his hair. Aiolos abandoned him to to greet Rowan, more gentle than he’d usually be. Rowan pet him, using the support of the door to keep him upright in case his command of standing left him completely now that Aiolos wasn’t a concern.
“Not great.” Whatever this sickness was, it was horrible. “How did I- how did we end up here?” He hoped the answer was not ‘we are dating and lived together’, because that’s not something he’d want to miss experiencing.
Instead of answering, Marcos stood up and walked to him. Rowan couldn’t figure out why, because if he wanted to leave the door was the other way, but he picked Rowan up and brought him to the couch. “I went with Dr. Simon to pick up information on the case,” he said, gently putting him on the couch. “You were sleeping on the break room couch with a fever.” He placed his hand on Rowan’s forehead, and then his neck. Rowan shivered. “I said I’d bring you home with me to take care of you, and you agreed as long as I got Aiolos. So we did and then came here.”
That was logical. Rowan accepted the blanket Marcos gave him, and shifted Aiolos until they were both settled in. “Thank you. You didn’t have to. But I’m glad you did.”
A small smile tugged at the edge of his mouth. He nodded and then disappeared into another room, and returned with a glass of water and pills. “Take these. You need to rest.”
Rowan did as he was told. It was true, and the edges of the fever was starting to overtake his mind again. What Marcos said was logical and made sense, but Rowan was too tired to fight the parts that didn’t make sense. Why would Marcos- why would anyone- care that much about Rowan’s health? Why was this the first opportunity Rowan had to talk to Marcos, face to face and for real after being real adults and not a couple of college students, and not something normal like seeing each other at a store or restaurant?
It would be hard enough to keep whatever was left of his feelings at bay in a casual public area where there was nothing suggestive. Now, Rowan felt the vines of his feelings creeping up and wrapping around his heart and he didn’t have the willpower to fight them off.
Marcos settled on the other side of the couch, moving Rowan’s feet into his lap with a gentle pat. Aiolos followed until he was sprawled across both of him, looking like the happy, attention-whore dog he is.
He’d deal with his feelings later. Right now, Rowan needed to sleep.
~ ~
He was laying on the couch alone when he realized there was a spider plant on the table next to his head.
Rowan squinted at it. It hummed at him happily and clearly in his head, which was the best proof that Rowan must have been really sick to not be aware there was a plant in his vicinity. He didn’t think it was possible to miss that, no matter how sick he was.
He rolled over onto his stomach and reached out to run his finger over one of the leaves. It was glossy and healthy and, with a healthy application of his power, blossomed the small baby spider plant flowers attached further.
It was also familiar. Rowan knew this plant, and from the small humming from the leaves and through his fingers, the plant knew him.
“You’re my lost plant?” he asked, quietly. Not that he had to be quiet. Marcos took Aiolos for a walk and he was left alone in the apartment. “He took you home?”
Plants didn’t talk, not even to him, but he thought the plant hummed at him in response anyways.
“He did a good job. You look amazing.” The plant had been a recent-at-the-end-of-his-junior-year baby plant from a spider plant he currently had on the top of his plant tower next to the biggest window. He remembered cutting it from the mother plant, putting it into a decorate cup of water on Marcos’ window sill because he ran out of room on his and was going to get it after the rush of graduation was over.
Then it wasn’t there. It wasn’t that big of a deal to anyone else, because spider plants had baby spiders like they were the plant version of rabbits, but Rowan did wonder where it ended up on and off over the years. He took care of his plants.
That Marcos took it with him when he moved hadn’t occurred to him. And yet, here they were.
When Marcos and Aiolos returned from the walk, they found Rowan cooing at the plant. “I didn’t realize it ended up with you,” he said, turning to smile at Marcos. “Thank you. You did great.”
Aiolos had jumped onto the couch to woof into Rowan’s hair, but he knew better than to touch a plant. Marcos briefly touched his hair, causing Rowan to look up at him.
“You’re welcome.”
~ ~
Rowan felt like he got hit by a truck. A metaphorical truck right to his immune system. Any instinct to try to be a good guest was ruined by feeling like shit and all of his willpower was being used not to crawl into Marcos’ lap.
He wasn’t dating anyone. Rowan didn’t think so, because even Marcos was prone to announcing it, but he asked about it in an extremely subtle way and got a negative response.
No, no one was going to walk into Marcos’ apartment and be offended his boyfriend had a strange man sleeping on his couch with a dog, and it wasn’t because he was dating someone who wouldn’t be offended.
Rowan wasn’t great at being subtle.
So he slept, and he mentally whined, and drank water when Marcos demanded it, and refused to eat anything because his stomach was cranky, was bored by the television, and had Aiolos sleeping on him in the times he wasn’t sprawled on or going on a walk with Marcos.
Focus on the doubt, he told himself when the need for comfort was starting to override logic and rational thought. It’s been eight years. That’s long enough to forget all of the bad things and remember it as perfect, and it’s long enough they could have grown into being different people that no longer match the way they did before.
Rowan had changed. For the better, and with great effort. Marcos was …
Marcos had brought his sick ex boyfriend and his dog into his apartment to nurse him back to health.
Marcos had taken one of the plants Rowan left in his dorm and spent the last eight years taking care of it.
This was not helping the doubt and logic part of his brain.
The door opened while he was staring at the ceiling in deep contemplation of how much it sucked to be sick. It changed to a much quicker contemplation of ow, it hurts when my dog jumps onto my chest in happy celebration of being back with his main daddy. “Be gentle,” Marcos said, somewhere on the other side of fur and pain. He moved Aiolos to the other side of the couch and looked over Rowan, concern written across his face. Rowan was pleased to learn that his time spent learning how Marcos’ face showed expression had not gone to waste over the years. “Are you okay?”
“No worse,” he replied, leaning over to rub Aiolos’ ears. “He means well. He’s just a clod.”
“He is.” Marcos ran a hand through Rowan’s hair, which made him shiver of both cold and the intimacy of the action. “Are you hungry yet?”
Rowan shook his head. Marcos frowned - a general furrow of his eyebrows and a slight downward turn to his mouth - and said, “I’ll make you soup. You need to eat something today.”
Soup. It was close enough to water that he might be fine with it. Rowan nodded, then struggled a bit to get up, “I can help-”
Marcos pushed him, lightly, back onto the couch. “No. I’ll bring it to you.”
Rowan pouted at him, which was completely ineffective. He settled for sitting up and cuddling Aiolos until Marcos returned with a bowl of chicken soup.
~ ~
“Is the police force as inept as we thought they were during Hunter’s investigation?” Rowan wasn’t much of a fan of the television on the best of days, and being sick did nothing to give him a tolerance. He was close to just putting on something of Lucius’, because it was familiar.
But that would be awkward and weird and arrogant with Marcos sitting here. Rowan didn’t know how many videos he was or wasn’t in, which made it difficult to avoid the ones he was in unless he wanted to watch Lucius knit for six hours.
Even then he wasn’t sure if he ended up edited into some of those videos.
“Yes. More than we thought.”
“It’s a good thing you’re there. You can clean it up.”
Marcos glanced at him, a hint of amusement around his eyes. “I try. It’s not easy.”
“Nothing worth it is easy.” Rowan stretched his foot as much as he could without disturbing Aiolos. “Do they try to burn you out to make you worth it? That was the method of graduate school.”
“Not on purpose. I think. They might try to do with with the paperwork.”
Rowan scrunched his nose up at the thought. “Paperwork isn’t the first thing I think of with police work. I like that better than being shot at.”
“Sometimes I wonder which is better. It’s a lot of paperwork.” Marcos started petting Aiolos, almost thoughtfully. Rowan had long decided if dogs could purr, Aiolos would purr constantly but loudest when he was being pet. “What is it like being in Lucius’ videos?”
Rowan stared at him, then hid his face. “There’s no way you still watch those.”
“I do. You’re cute.”
It was a good thing he was already hiding his face, because it flushed in a way he couldn’t blame entirely on the fever. “Am not,” he mumbled into the pillow, then lifted his face from the pillow. “It’s weird. I don’t watch most of them. I’m there when he films them, that’s enough. It keeps him busy and you know, knew, how Lucius is.”
“I didn’t think you did. He does a good job keeping you the way you are.”
My protector, Rowan thought, even if it was only over making sure Lucius didn’t ruin his public persona he didn’t have. “I’ve seen some. My grandmother is a fan and Christmas has one day dedicated to watching videos with me so she can go on about how proud she is. Yes, she’s the one that gets the Christmas videos dedicated to her because of some Twitter magic.” Lucius had been delighted to find there was a way to make Rowan watch videos and that his grandmother Sachiko was a fan and sent Rowan to Christmas with scarves and food and gifts for her. “It’s weird.”
“Is it bad weird?”
“No. It’s weird. Good weird. It makes her happy and that’s good enough for me.”
Marcos smiled at him, an actual smile that filled Rowan’s stomach with butterflies despite all his attempts to not be affected. “Like I said. Cute.”
~ ~
Rowan felt more human on the third morning of being at Marcos’ apartment. He slept on the bed, with Aiolos and with a significant lack of Marcos, despite his general argument it was unfair for him to take the bed when he was taking over the rest of Marcos’ day and apartment by being a useless weight of sick human being.
He lost that argument.
Maybe Rowan would’ve won if he explained he was falling face first into feelings again and laying in Marcos bed and smelling him on the pillows and blankets was the least helpful thing possible.
But since he lost and wasn’t willing to bring that up to risk all of this, even if he didn’t deserve it, he’d enjoy it. He knew he was the first awake in the apartment, thanks to Antheia and the soft song of Milton, so he laid in the bed and let himself enjoy the comfort of the bed. It was like wearing Marcos’ hoodie, but better. The cologne was different, but it was still a heady spice that Rowan thought of as Marcos right away. It combined with the spell of the soap and shampoo and detergents until it was a soft cocoon of protection and happiness.
It also gave him time to think on the conversation with Lucius before he fell asleep last night. Lucius would be asleep now, he didn’t wake up until eleven at the earliest, but there wasn’t much else to be said that wasn’t running in circles.
(718) You aren’t much of a scientist if you decide something without proof
(718) Kiss him and you’ll see I’m right.
It was rude, but it was true. Rowan was feeling better, which meant he could spare thoughts to put into what he spent the last eight years learning to cope with his negative mental thoughts and issues.
Step outside of assuming he knew everything. Stop justifying everything to fit the narrative in his mind.
He wanted Marcos. That was without question. He wasn’t sure if it was healthy or not, but he couldn’t deny it. There was the potential Marcos was interested. But, being that it was Marcos, he wasn’t going to use words to make it obvious.
Rowan could just ask him. It was straight forward and he doubted Marcos would be offended, even if he wasn’t interested. If that was the case, Rowan would learn to have Marcos as a friend only and go from there.
He could do it. Hopefully. He didn’t want to lose Marcos as a friend and that was more important than anything else.
But he couldn’t ask him. He was already recoiling at the idea of trying to find the right words, picking the timing, and the moments of waiting for a response, and having to lick the emotional wounds if Marcos rejected him while Marcos was staring at him.
He had to be subtle. More subtle than when he asked if Marcos was dating someone. Rowan was absolutely terrible at being subtle. Or being seductive. Or flirting.
Rowan spent a few moments reflecting it was a minor miracle he ever had anyone interested in him in the first place.
With both of those options out of the way, Rowan had to rely on the fact he knew Marcos. It’s been eight years, but nothing indicated that he’d changed enough that Rowan was dealing with an entirely new person with a new list of things he was into.
He’d plan out a variety of things and see how Marcos reacted. If it was positive and not merely polite or apathetic, he’d be closer to being willing to talk about things outright and seeing how it went from there.
When Rowan woke up again, unaware that he’d fallen asleep to wake up and vague dreams of fleeting memories in his mind, he was alone in the apartment. A note was left on the coffee table that Marcos had been called into work, call him at this number if he needed anything, and he left a spare key in the bowl by the door in case Rowan had to leave. Aiolos had already been outside for the morning. His responsibility was to get better.
This would be enough to put Phase One into his experiment into place.
It was the first day Rowan felt human enough to pay attention to his surroundings. He suspected he still wouldn’t bother if Marcos was there, but there was no one else to distract him from the apartment itself.
It was a simple apartment, but comforting. Marcos had a thing for blue, wood, and white accents, it didn’t look like he bought it out of a magazine and that already had Rowan’s approval. It was straight-forward and no frills, but not in a bad way.
He was well versed with the bedroom, albeit not in the way Rowan would prefer to know the bedroom, but there was a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. The kitchen was where he wasn’t allowed to go, because Marcos refused to let him take care of himself, and that’s where he went to explore first.
It was okay. It wasn’t Lucius’, but no one without a ton of disposable income didn’t have Lucius kitchen. A quick look at the fridge and pantry was depressingly bare. The oven was serviceable, the stove would work, and a plan was slowly developing in his mind. If he could figure out what to make with a limited amount of food. The idea of grocery shopping or seeing anyone who wasn’t Marcos when Rowan was grossed and unshowered and in gross sweaty clothes was a simple no. It was bad enough Marcos saw it.
Rowan knew how to cook. He learned from Lucius. He didn’t get to practice his skills, because the side effect of being friends with Lucius and half adopted by Toni meant he was handed delicious food on a regular basis, but he could cook.
He had no idea if he could seduce Marcos through cooking. But he could begin to thank him for everything with a good dinner. Or ten.
But. Rowan glanced back to Marcos’ room. He had an idea of what he could do to … well, probably not seduce, but he could get a reaction to gauge interest as the step one of his plan to determine Marcos’ interest. Depending on how that went, he’d plan experiment two for tomorrow.
~ ~
Rowan went into dating Marcos with no real idea of what was going to happen. He had some ideas, because he had three older brothers and he wasn’t that sheltered, but he had issues trying to relate it to himself.
His main examples were Chris and Spencer or Noah and Lucius. He dismissed Chris and Spencer because he didn’t get what happened going into it, but they walked around with metaphorical hearts around them and neither he and Marcos were especially mushy or dramatically romantic.
Lucius and Noah might have been a better example. Not that he and Marcos was like either of them, but they were the same before and after they were dating. He didn’t know what happened there either, and considering what he did know made it pretty clear he didn’t want to know much more.
Either way, it gave him a frame of reference of what to expect. What they were, but with kissing. And other things, but starting with kissing.
Marcos effectively broke that assumption within a few days. Instead of the aloof, intense, still a bit intimidating but interesting enough Rowan fought against all self preservations instincts to try to get to know him better (and muscles), Rowan got a territorial guard dog who had a thing for biting and being a blanket at the same time.
There was no frame of reference for this. And when Rowan thought he knew what was going on, Marcos promptly threw him for another loop.
The hoodie was the biggest of the examples. Rowan didn’t mean to grab Marcos’ hoodie when he left his dorm Wednesday night- it had been late, they were distracted, it was dark, and he assumed there would only be one hoodie hanging out loose in Marcos’ room.
But he did. He contemplated bringing it back before class, but he knew Marcos would be gone by the time he went to class, and he wanted to wear it. Thursday was his long day, between four classes and Environmental Club, and it was the day he wouldn’t be able to see Marcos until after he was done with Dance Club at the earliest.
It smelled like Marcos. Rowan wasn’t mushy, but he was mushy enough to like that. So he sent him a text as a head’s up, put the hoodie on, and went to class.
His day was normal until he went to Dance Club. If he got there on time to see the end of it depended on how much Hamish and Rosalind argued over what plans they had going on, and this time it was just enough for him to catch the end of it.
Marcos and Amata were dancing when he snuck in on the sides. They were both very good and he wondered briefly if he should be jealous about it. Mostly he was impressed and enjoyed watching them.
It helped he was pretty sure Marcos would drop anyone to teach him if he wanted to. Not literally. Well, maybe literally, but Rowan didn’t want to test it. (Maybe he wanted to test it a bit).
There wasn’t much left after that, the usual clean up and discussion on what they’d do the next club meeting and no hour long debate on what they were going to do or should do. Marcos had figured out he was there at some point between ending the dance with Amata and when he wrapped his arms around Rowan and settled his head on Rowan’s shoulder.
“Hey. You looked good out there.”
“Thanks.” Marcos kissed him on his neck, very briefly. “Did you wear this all day?”
Rowan nodded. “Was that okay? You had my hoodie.” He neglected to mention he had at least four in his closet he could’ve worn instead, because he didn’t want to wear them.
“Yes.”
Rowan expected him to let go at this point and finish the end of the club activities, as he normally did. He knew a few people - Addie, who he was terrified of after Marcos let him know they were exes and that’s why Addie went extra weird on him after they started dating, Amata, who might’ve been half the size of Lucius but was easily twice as scary - but not enough he was willing to trail Marcos like a puppy when he did his part to help everyone.
Marcos didn’t seem inclined to help them tonight. They watched in silence for about a minute before Marcos was tugging at Rowan to go to the door. “They’re fine. Let’s go back to my dorm.”
“Okay.” It took all his willpower to not turn it into a question. Marcos didn’t skip on doing work ever, in Rowan’s experience, and it was weird he was doing it now. He caught Amata smirking at them, which he also didn’t get but assumed it was like all of Lucius’ “helpful” questions and comments.
It quickly left his mind when he realized Marcos was not letting him go, somewhat less awkward because it was night and not a lot of people were out to see them but still weird, had a fixation with a certain spot on his neck, and had Plans with a capital P that Rowan didn’t pick up until they got back to the dorms.
That was about the point Rowan made the connection Marcos really liked him wearing his clothes. And that he’d have the mark on his neck from the night before all day wearing his hoodie.
Amata complimented him later on finally figuring out how to seduce his boyfriend and then thought it was fitting and hilarious Rowan had no idea what he was doing and fell into that on accident.
~ ~
Marcos’ pantry, fridge, and freezer were very sad. Rowan’s thoughts on making dinner nearly fled when he did an initial check and found barely anything to make a snack out of. The only good surprise was a small thing of yeast hiding in a forgotten corner but, by some miracle, not expired.
There was flour and sugar and baking soda, so he could make bread. It was a start. He thought about it, checked the freezer and the pantry again with an actual idea and came out with enough to make a very basic chili. It would be from cans or frozen and the spices from a plastic jar, but he’d be fine as long as he never told Lucius about it. It wouldn’t be the best chili he could make, but it wouldn’t be bad.
If it was, he’d have to reconsider the reaction of Experiment #1 to account for subpar food.
Cooking made him feel better. Rowan was not a person who handled being still for long periods of time well, even if being sick mitigated part of it. This gave him focus and something to think about, and allowed him to give something back to Marcos.
Hopefully it wasn’t being sick. Rowan paused briefly and contemplated the beef he’d been browning in the pan he was going to simmer everything in. If Marcos wasn’t sick yet, chances are he wouldn’t be sick from this, he decided. And the heat would kill all bad germs.
He moved onto the actual topic of Experiment #1, which was looking at Marcos closet for an appropriate piece of clothing he could wear to gauge interest. It had to be a top of some sort. There wasn’t much appeal to pants constantly falling to around his ankles, implications of it aside. Marcos clearly still worked out. Rowan clearly still did not eat enough.
A plain shirt or a hoodie. He was sick enough to need the extra heat from a hoodie and there wasn’t much comfort in a simple shirt. Or he could do both. That was the better idea.
Rowan settled on an orange hoodie, because it was bright and obvious and there was no way Marcos could miss it, and a dark blue shirt, because then it looked like Rowan fit in with the rest of the apartment, but not disappear into it because of the hoodie.
Now he had to wait. Both for his food to finish cooking, since he picked two things that took a long time to complete, and for Marcos to get home. There was no timeline in the note he left and Rowan wasn’t sure how work hours worked if an officer was called in. There was nothing on the news about some tragedy going on that’d require all hands.
Something else he’d have to think about. Most of him already decided that Marcos was worth any and all inconveniences, but being a law enforcement officer wasn’t the same thing as had to be dragged out to travel or had a habit of letting his stares talk for him.
Odd hours. A much higher potential for danger. Dealing with gangs. Dealing with what they played at during the investigation about Hunter’s murder, but with a higher level of risk than looking at articles and talking in a group forum.
All of it was contingent on Marcos being interested in the first place, of course.
It was worth it. It was worth it enough to try. Even if the worst happened, and Rowan wasn’t religious but he’d happily pray if it kept Marcos safe and healthy and hale, he wouldn’t be any less devastated because he didn’t take the chance when it was handed to him.
~ ~
Marcos came back to his apartment at stereotypical dinner time. It had given Rowan enough time to finish the bread and chili, to brave going outside for the first time in days to let Aiolos walk around and go to the bathroom, and take a nap because he wasn’t nearly as recovered as he was pretending.
Aiolos figured it out Marcos was coming home first, and was at the door with his tail wagging when the key locked. Rowan had a split second to decide if he was willing to face down Marcos’ initial reaction for real or he was still weak and running away.
He’d brave it. He had to. He’d put all the effort and planning into place already.
Aiolos took all the initial attention, as he was prone to do. By the time he pulled his attention away and looked at where Rowan was standing over the pot of chili, Rowan had steeled himself for a negative or lack of reaction. Eyebrow raise of derision, deliberate blank face, a look of pity…
He didn’t get any of those. Marcos blinked once, slowly, and his expression settled into predatory.
Rowan forgot about predatory when he was mentally cataloging all the possibilities earlier. His face settled into a friendly grin as he desperately tried to remember if this was a good thing as Marcos approached him, but it was effectively derailing all thoughts in his brain. So probably yes. “Hey. I made chili.”
There was a brief pause once Marcos was in touching distance, enough to be noticeable even in Rowan’s emotion-addled brain, and then Rowan was wrapped in Marcos’ arms like the giant blanket guard dog he was. “I see that,” he said, resting his head on Rowan’s shoulder to look at the food. “It looks good.”
This was a definitive result. No need, Rowan decided, to continue the experiment beyond today. He’d have to formulate a new one for tomorrow.
He wrapped his arms over Marcos’ and laced their fingers together. If Marcos could be physically obvious, so could Rowan. There was less of a risk of being rejected now, of course, but he threw the initial gauntlet. “Thank you. I made the bread too.”
“I see.” Marcos made no attempt to move from where he was acting like an overgrown blanket. “It looks good too.”
“Hard to eat it from here.” Rowan wasn’t in much mood to move either, but he figured it was a point he needed to make. “I might get chili all over your hoodie.”
“We couldn’t have that.” He still didn’t move.
Rowan looked at his chili and wondered if it was worth risking ruining it by putting off dinner for however long but Rowan suspected it would be until the next morning. Then it’d be especially gross.
He had to be adult about it. It sucked. He unlaced his fingers from Marcos and turned around, not leaving the embrace but looking up at his face.
Memories entertwined with reality. It was a strange feeling. And, maybe, he didn’t have to be an adult. There was an alternative idea. He leaned up, just enough to kiss Marcos lightly. “Your choice,” he said, keeping eye contact. The years of character building and working on his issues was the only thing holding him up against the weight of Marcos’ gaze instead of trying to hide again. “We can eat now. Or I can put it away in the fridge and we can eat it later.”
“Eat it later.” The response was immediate and punctuated by a kiss.
“Okay. Give me five minutes.”
~ ~
Rowan felt human for the first time on Saturday, which worked well for him. He could enjoy this without worrying about work.
This being him and Marcos dating again. Maybe dating again. It was possible this wasn't dating and Saturday morning cuddling was what Marcos did after one night stands, and brought sick people into his home to nurse them into health only to ravish them.
Not that it was likely, but it was possible. There was a quick way to check, now that Rowan was inclined to think his heart wasn't about to be stomped into a million tiny pieces.
He asked. It was a simple, “Are we dating?” as he craned his head to see Marcos expression from where he was laying, curled into the couch and Marcos’ side in equal measures.
“Do you want to?”
The reflexive instinct that said he wasn't worth it, that Marcos couldn't really like him after all these years, that he didn't have enough say to make a decision like this for someone else … it invaded his mind, but he banished them with years of practice. He didn't need the shields to keep him distant and safe from the potential of being hurt anymore.
“Yes.”
Marcos kissed the top of his head. “Then we are.”
It was so simple and straightforward. It was amazing how effective basic communication was, really, and how bad Rowan was at it.
“Good.” He paused a bit, then added, “I had a three day plan to try to figure out if you were interested or not. But I didn't need more than day one.”
The judgement look he got was unfair, and Rowan pouted at Marcos in response. “I didn't want my heart stomped into a bunch of tiny pieces where you could see it, okay. It was a real fear.”
The judgement look did not abate, but Marcos did kiss his head again. It mollified Rowan, just a bit.
~ ~
Rowan didn’t want to go back to his apartment.
He liked his apartment, normally. It was the first space he had ever lived in that was exclusively his space and he was free to do with what he wanted. Mostly – Lucius stayed in the second bedroom on a regular basis and used it for filming if he felt like it, but he didn’t do much but move ring lights in and out of the closet.
There were, inevitably, plants everywhere. Diego’s updates on the hydroponics systems he worked on in college got mailed to Rowan on a bi-yearly basis, which kept the upkeep manageable for the amount he had at this point. It was after sundown, so Rowan couldn’t hear them, but he imagined they were humming in happiness he was back after nearly a week away.
Aiolos was happy to be back home. He did the usual return to the apartment circuit to make sure his beds, his toys, and his food bowl were where they were supposed to be before jumping onto the armchair and curling up to nap.
Rowan kept Marcos’ hoodie on and lowered the temperature in the apartment to compensate for it. The bright orange color stood out in the apartment, mostly monotones accented by green, which he appreciated. It’d remind him that he didn’t dream any of that up.
They were meeting for lunch on Tuesday. They were dating. It wasn’t a fever dream or he wandered right back into that awkward Disney princess world that started nearly a decade ago at a zoo. He’d get used to it, again.
It’d be harder now than it was in college. They had to manage adult lives now, with jobs and social obligations. It was kind of like having class and homework, but not really. Marcos would have to deal with his weird friends, with the caveat he knew Lucius and Diego already and he wasn’t sure if he could find someone weirder than Lucius.
Who had been here over the week and left Rowan enough food to feed a small army. The meal prep series must still be going strong still.
All of the effort would be worth it. Rowan held onto that thought as hard as he could in his mind. It wasn’t going to be easy, there were going to be bumps in the road, but he thought (knew) they could put in that effort.
His favorite place in the entire apartment to sit was on the lovesac. It was the only piece of furniture he bought instead of having it handed to him because ‘they were going to donate it anyways’, he had placed it in a location that was surrounded by plants and he could look out of the floor length window and view the sights.
It was retail and residential and hardly anything to look at, but the sky was pretty.
Rowan curled up himself. He pulled the hood over his head enough to half obscure his vision out the window and rubbed the tattoo on his hand idly as he thought about things.
Marcos noticed it, and made it obvious he was aware of it without having to say a word.
Which meant he’d had to explain it. Awkward. There was so much wrapped into it that it had almost ceased to be because Rowan was moping about his breakup and more about so much more.
He was worth more than what he assumed.
He wasn’t being selfish to want attention from who he loved, as long as he was being reasonable about it.
He deserved better.
It was his daily reminder when he forgot or found it difficult to escape the mire of his lack of value in his mind. If he waited a few years, he figured it’d be a stylized willow branch to work as the same reminder.
But Rowan was glad it was the bird of paradise instead. A daily reminder of something that was positive, something to reach for, was better than a reminder of the negative and something to avoid. He had what he wanted, once, and he could have it again.
It was meant to be a metaphorical thing, but in the space of a week it turned out to be literal.
Life was weird. But it was good. |
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