Heaven's Ablaze - Chapter 18
Title:: Heaven's Ablaze
Genre:: AU Vam Fanfic
Rating:: R
Summary:: His heaven is ablaze in my eyes
Notes:: This story is based on the album Dark Light. All lyrics are taken from that album, and are copyright of Ville Valo. I do not know or own the characters in this story. The storyline itself is property of me and me alone. This story deals with the themes of religion and a degree of pedophilia. If you have a problem with the themes, dont read it.
Links under the cut
Links
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Accident
Chapter 2 - Pot Luck
Chapter 3 - Warmth
Chapter 4 - Joseph on Wheels
Chapter 5 - My First Christmas
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 6 - Beginnings
Chapter 7 - Music
Chapter 8 - Time
Chapter 9 - Unfortunate Meetings of Unfortunate Friends
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 10 - Journies
Chapter 11 - First Crush
Chapter 12 - Contemptible
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 13 - Bath Tubs
Chapter 14 - Labyrinth
Chapter 15 - Pure Mornings
Chapter 16 - Angels
Chapter 17 Angels
Chapter 18 - Coffee
Time passed. Slipped through our fingers, as it is wont to do.
We hide behind the crimson door
While the summer is killed by the fall
We fell into a kind of routine. Not a boring, monotonous routine. It wasn’t a depressing kind of routine. Rather, it was a routine that was, many times, the only thing that kept me going from day to day. At 7:15 he would bounce on my bed, kiss me until I woke up. He’d shove me in the shower, make me a sandwich while I was in there, which he shoved into my hands as he pulled me through the door, stuffed my books and papers in my bag, forced me into the car. No matter how much I didn’t want to go. No matter how hung over I was, how much I cursed and glared and threatened, he always managed to get me in the car. He walked me to the classroom, kissed me quickly after checking that the hallway was empty. A whispered “I love you,” and he was gone, off to his classes. At break, when I had duty to watch the kids to make sure nothing went wrong - as April had said when I first got the job, the school wasn’t the best, and the kids weren’t the most disciplined - Bam and his friends would cluster around me, telling joke after joke, laughing so hard all our sides’ hurt. At lunch, I could feel his eyes on me to make sure I ate something. After school, he waited in the music room while Cindy and I finished what needed to be finished. It was my turn to drive after school; we went to get coffee every day, and then I would drive to my apartment. If he didn’t have homework, he’d come in and we’d sit around and talk, laugh, kiss, amuse ourselves until he had to go home for supper. If he did have homework, we would spend a while in the car, kissing, putting off my getting out of it. After dinner, no matter what, he’d call me, to make sure I wasn’t getting too drunk. Sometimes he was too late, and then he just laughed at me. Sometimes I just got drunk after he hung up. Sometimes, it actually worked.
And on it went. Every day of every week for months.
Fall turned to winter, slowly but surely. The first snow fell in early December, and my heart thrilled to see the white flakes float gracefully down from the sky. It was as if I had an addiction to snow. All my life, I’ve loved it. It’s the one white powder that I let myself revel in, enjoy, depend on… love.
I was so full of love that I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I hadn’t been so happy for most of my life.
I didn’t know how to handle it. I would get myself drunk, just because I needed to escape from the rush of emotions that was everywhere, every day.
I see the reasons changing
And in the heart of this autumn I fall,
With the leaves from the trees
He was perfect. In every sense, in every way possible; he completed all my loose ends, he solved all my problems, he fixed my imperfections, covered up all my flaws, lightened my darkness - to risk sounding clichéd.
Don’t think that I didn’t know that every second of my time with him was stolen. Don’t think that I wasn’t aware that something somewhere, amidst all his perfections, behind his shining light, something was going wrong. Don’t think that I didn’t know that I was making a huge mistake.
I did. I thought about it every second of every day. I dreamt about it. I was stealing his time, grain by tiny grain of the sand of his time, and it was wrong, and I knew it, but here’s the thing:
I didn’t care.
And that was that. I didn’t care, I liked where I was, I liked what we had. I enjoyed them, all those stolen moments, I delighted in them, reveled in them, rejoiced in them and relished and savored them, every last one of them. And there was no sum of money, no way in heaven nor in hell that I was going to give that up.
Because there was a tiny part of my heart telling me, “Ville, this is what you deserve. This is what you should have had, years and years ago. Don’t be ashamed to take it now. You deserve this. It’s your right. It’s owed you. Don’t be afraid; take it.”
Rip out the wings of a butterfly
For your soul, my love,
Rip out the wings of a butterfly
I liked that little voice; I liked its mantra. I gave it a microphone, plugged it into an amp, turned it up so loud that it drowned out all the other voices, screaming at me, yelling at me. You’re disgusting, you’re horrible, you’re ruining him, you don’t deserve this, you aren’t good enough for him, go back to your cocaine and your punters, you’re kidding yourself.
But I obliterated those voices. They were probably the voices of truth and sense, but I ignored them completely, and got on with things.
Christmas came, dancing and ringing its bells all over the country.
Soon enough, everything was decked out in red and green, lights were everywhere, and carols blared from every speaker that could be mustered to the cause. It was like an occupying force, an army of peace, cheer, and goodwill towards man. Cindy made almost all of the kids do adaptations on a Christmas song for end of term projects; I was so sick of some of the songs, it made me want to scream to hear them.
I helped Bam decorate his house. We got tangled in strands and strands of lights, fell off of ladders, had tinsel fights, sang along to old Christmas records very badly and very loudly while April ran around, worrying that we would break something. But we didn’t.
She wanted me to put out her nativity scene, the one that had put me into such a trance the very first time I’d visited their house. Bam gave me the box with them in it; I took the figures out of their wrapping paper slowly, and when they were lying in my hands, I had to put them back. They burnt me. I shook my head.
“I can’t, Bam. You have to do it.”
I think he understood. He’d kissed me sweetly and nodded, set it up himself, with me watching from a bit of a distance, staring at his careful movements, loving placement, at the materialization of a whole religion, the basis of the hope of millions and millions of people, right there in front of me. I couldn’t get it through my head. He lead me inside, and I fell asleep on the couch, exhausted, confused, lost, hurting. I wanted it, I really did, but I could never have it. That hope. I wanted that. I couldn’t have it though.
But I had Bam. And I knew, when I woke up with my head in his lap as he watched TV, his hands running through my hair, that that would be enough for me.
Of course, I was invited over for the traditional camp out feast and for Christmas dinner with Bam’s family on Christmas day. And of course I went. I even went to the Christmas service; sat in the family pew this time, next to Jess, feeling slightly better with him there, knowing that I wasn’t the only one who felt like a Martian in the congregation. Bam was Joseph again. My heart warmed to see him play the role. I couldn’t explain why if I tried. It just seemed right for him.
The night was much the same as it had been the first time. But I knew the people now. I wasn’t scared of them, nor was I trying to hold myself back from them. I threw myself into having as much fun as I could, and it paid off.
Nothing notable happened at all, until the next day. I’d spent the night in Bam’s room; we’d bunched up to share the single bed, though his mother thought he was on the floor in the sleeping bag. It didn’t matter. That had nothing to do with it.
I’d woken up early, and managed to extract myself from his tangle of limbs without waking him up. I could smell pancakes and hear April tinkering around in the kitchen, and went down to join her. She gave me a cup of coffee and a pancake that had gone wrong to keep me occupied until the boys woke up, and then sat down, across the table from me.
“Sleep well?”
“Yeah, as well as I ever do. Thanks.”
“Good. I’m glad you could make it last night. And today.” She smiled and nodded, taking a sip of her own coffee.
“Well where else was I going to go?” I asked, smirking a bit. I liked April a lot. And we got along reasonably well. I was glad for that.
“I don’t know, I thought you might have gone to see family or something.” My smile faded; I turned back to my coffee.
“No,” I said simply, shaking my head, drinking more coffee. April frowned. I’d known her for more than a year, and yet we’d never had this conversation before. I don’t think Bam had told her either. I don’t really know what she thought about me, but most of it was assumptions, I’m pretty sure of that.
“You don’t see your family at Christmas? I haven’t ever heard you talk about them.”
“I don’t have a family anymore,” I said dryly, narrowing my eyes. She frowned again.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they disowned me, I ran away, and I haven’t heard from them for 12 years. For all I know, they’re dead.”
She was shocked at my bluntness. But there wasn’t any other way to deal with it, except to be blunt. I’d learnt that.
“Ville, that’s horrible!”
“No, not really. It would have been worse if I stayed.” Was that true? I didn’t know. It might have been. I couldn’t imagine much worse than what I’d gone through, but I didn’t like to think about alternatives. What had happened had happened. Basta.
“What happened? Why did you never tell me? Oh, and here was me thinking you were simply unable to afford to go see them!”
“Well, there’s that too,” I said, shrugging. “It’s not important what happened, April.”
“Of course it is! Ville really. No-one should have to deal with that. I can’t even imagine it.”
“I’m alive.” I shrugged again, drank more coffee.
“Ville, what happened?” I looked at her carefully. She was so worried. Her countenance was distraught. She kept moving to grip my arm but never quite did, though the gesture did just as much as any grip would have done. What would happen if I told her? Hopefully, not too much. Hopefully, she wasn’t a radical, she wouldn’t hate me for who I was. Would she? Would she hate me so much that she would cut me off from seeing Bam? Would she become suspicious of what we had together? Should I risk it?
I see the reasons changing
And in the warmth of the past I crawl
Scorched by the shame
She was urging me to tell her the truth. She wanted to get to know me, now that she realized she’d made some heavy miscalculations. And, as I took a deep breath, I couldn’t see the harm in telling the basics of the truth. There were things she never needed to know, most of which had happened in Vegas. So I took another deep breath and looked her in the eyes again - they still urged me, and so I talked.
“You have to understand that in Finland, families are very different things than they are here. We were never very close. My parents didn’t have time to care, I didn’t care because they didn’t have the time to care, and it was a bit of a mess. And then…” I bit my lip. “And then I grew up and… started going downhill… and… when I brought home… a boyfriend, to ask for… I don’t know, their blessing or something similarly unimportant… they basically didn’t want to know anymore. So I left when I was 16 and I’ve never gone back, I’ve never called them and I’ve never written them. I have a brother who’s 13 years younger than me, and I hardly remember his name. And I don’t want to go back, and I don’t want to get in touch with them. I’ve done perfectly fine for myself without them, and it’s going to stay that way.”
She was shaking her head, and now she really was gripping my arm.
“Ville…”
I silenced her by bringing my cup up to my face to drink.
“You wanted to know. That’s all there is to know.” She nodded, frowned. I had to remember that we were both adults. This wasn’t a 16-year-old’s reason I was dealing with. It was the reason of a 40-something-year-old, and I hoped that it would be just that little bit more coherent.
“I’m glad you told me, Ville,” she said slowly. My heart sank. I hoped that I was predicting her next words wrongly. “But… there’s one thing… I don’t understand. You said you brought home a …”
I had predicted correctly, and I sighed.
“Boyfriend,” I supplied for her, and she nodded slowly.
“So… this was an experimental thing or…”
“No, it wasn’t experimental. I thought you might have realized by now April.”
“What would I have realized?”
“That…” I couldn’t bring myself to say: “I’m gay.” It sounded too harsh. Too… no, it wouldn’t work. “That I’m not straight.”
It was, in effect, the same thing, but it sounded… better. At least, I hoped it would sound better to her. I didn’t care either way. It was April I was worried about.
She was quiet for a while, looking me up and down, while I returned her eye contact stolidly. I had learned that backing down, looking away, people don’t trust you as much. You look ashamed to be what you are. And I’m not ashamed. I just know too well that a lot of other people are ashamed of what I am.
“I must admit, I had suspected it… but I never knew for sure,” she said, after a while.
“Well, now you know,” I said shortly.
She nodded.
I drank more coffee.
She stood up, still looking at me. I avoided her gaze.
“You know, Ville, you’ll always be welcome in this family.” I bit my lip, looked at her properly, nodded. Wondered if she would be so benevolent if she knew what I was doing with her son. Shook the thought of my head.
Drank more coffee.
Pancakes sizzled happily on the skillet. April started humming a Christmas carol. I stared into the bottom of my cup. I’d like to say I was thinking things over, repenting, coming to conclusions and making decisions. But I wasn’t. I was trying to work out whether the stain on the bottom of my cup looked more like a dog or a hedgehog. I was singing along with April before I realized I was doing it.
“So bring him incense, gold and myrrh; Come, peasant king, to own him. The king of kings salvation brings; Let loving hearts enthrone him.”
I don’t know where I knew the words from; maybe they’d been sung at the service the day before. I don’t know. It was the haunting melody of Greensleeves, sad and yet rejoicing.
April’s face broke into a huge smile to hear me sing it, though my voice was hardly fit for the task. It was much too low, much too dark and too rough and coarse for the words. But apparently, she liked the way it sounded.
I stopped singing, blushed a bit, and got up to get myself more coffee.
Before anything else could happen, Bam came groggily down the stairs, moaning about being woken up.
“Merry Christmas,” April sang, and I smiled at him, as if to echo her greeting.
“Yeah, yeah, Merry Christmas. Are the pancakes ready yet?”
I rolled my eyes, shot a joking insult at him and his stomach, but told him to sit down while I served him the pancakes April was flipping off of the skillet. When she left the room to wake the rest of the house up, I swooped down on his lips and kissed them confidently.
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” I said, smiling as he pulled me into a hug.
We deceive ourselves to start a war
Within the realm of senses
And descend to circle number four
Where we are nothing
“Here, Ville, have some pancakes. They’re amazing,” he said, after a while. I took one from his plate, refilled my coffee cup, let his hand rest surreptitiously on my knee while everyone else came in for breakfast, laughing, talking, singing happily, grinning at each other, hugging. April smiled at me from across the table; I smiled back as I squeezed Bam’s hand, under the table, out of sight. Always out of sight. As I reached for the coffee pot again, I saw a message that Bam had written me in the syrup left over on his plate with his knife. I love you. I smiled, picked up a pancake from the stack in the middle of the table, wiped the plate clean of syrup before anyone could see it, and grinned at him while I ate it.
Genre:: AU Vam Fanfic
Rating:: R
Summary:: His heaven is ablaze in my eyes
Notes:: This story is based on the album Dark Light. All lyrics are taken from that album, and are copyright of Ville Valo. I do not know or own the characters in this story. The storyline itself is property of me and me alone. This story deals with the themes of religion and a degree of pedophilia. If you have a problem with the themes, dont read it.
Links under the cut
Links
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Accident
Chapter 2 - Pot Luck
Chapter 3 - Warmth
Chapter 4 - Joseph on Wheels
Chapter 5 - My First Christmas
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 6 - Beginnings
Chapter 7 - Music
Chapter 8 - Time
Chapter 9 - Unfortunate Meetings of Unfortunate Friends
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 10 - Journies
Chapter 11 - First Crush
Chapter 12 - Contemptible
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 13 - Bath Tubs
Chapter 14 - Labyrinth
Chapter 15 - Pure Mornings
Chapter 16 - Angels
Chapter 17 Angels
Chapter 18 - Coffee
Time passed. Slipped through our fingers, as it is wont to do.
We hide behind the crimson door
While the summer is killed by the fall
We fell into a kind of routine. Not a boring, monotonous routine. It wasn’t a depressing kind of routine. Rather, it was a routine that was, many times, the only thing that kept me going from day to day. At 7:15 he would bounce on my bed, kiss me until I woke up. He’d shove me in the shower, make me a sandwich while I was in there, which he shoved into my hands as he pulled me through the door, stuffed my books and papers in my bag, forced me into the car. No matter how much I didn’t want to go. No matter how hung over I was, how much I cursed and glared and threatened, he always managed to get me in the car. He walked me to the classroom, kissed me quickly after checking that the hallway was empty. A whispered “I love you,” and he was gone, off to his classes. At break, when I had duty to watch the kids to make sure nothing went wrong - as April had said when I first got the job, the school wasn’t the best, and the kids weren’t the most disciplined - Bam and his friends would cluster around me, telling joke after joke, laughing so hard all our sides’ hurt. At lunch, I could feel his eyes on me to make sure I ate something. After school, he waited in the music room while Cindy and I finished what needed to be finished. It was my turn to drive after school; we went to get coffee every day, and then I would drive to my apartment. If he didn’t have homework, he’d come in and we’d sit around and talk, laugh, kiss, amuse ourselves until he had to go home for supper. If he did have homework, we would spend a while in the car, kissing, putting off my getting out of it. After dinner, no matter what, he’d call me, to make sure I wasn’t getting too drunk. Sometimes he was too late, and then he just laughed at me. Sometimes I just got drunk after he hung up. Sometimes, it actually worked.
And on it went. Every day of every week for months.
Fall turned to winter, slowly but surely. The first snow fell in early December, and my heart thrilled to see the white flakes float gracefully down from the sky. It was as if I had an addiction to snow. All my life, I’ve loved it. It’s the one white powder that I let myself revel in, enjoy, depend on… love.
I was so full of love that I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I hadn’t been so happy for most of my life.
I didn’t know how to handle it. I would get myself drunk, just because I needed to escape from the rush of emotions that was everywhere, every day.
I see the reasons changing
And in the heart of this autumn I fall,
With the leaves from the trees
He was perfect. In every sense, in every way possible; he completed all my loose ends, he solved all my problems, he fixed my imperfections, covered up all my flaws, lightened my darkness - to risk sounding clichéd.
Don’t think that I didn’t know that every second of my time with him was stolen. Don’t think that I wasn’t aware that something somewhere, amidst all his perfections, behind his shining light, something was going wrong. Don’t think that I didn’t know that I was making a huge mistake.
I did. I thought about it every second of every day. I dreamt about it. I was stealing his time, grain by tiny grain of the sand of his time, and it was wrong, and I knew it, but here’s the thing:
I didn’t care.
And that was that. I didn’t care, I liked where I was, I liked what we had. I enjoyed them, all those stolen moments, I delighted in them, reveled in them, rejoiced in them and relished and savored them, every last one of them. And there was no sum of money, no way in heaven nor in hell that I was going to give that up.
Because there was a tiny part of my heart telling me, “Ville, this is what you deserve. This is what you should have had, years and years ago. Don’t be ashamed to take it now. You deserve this. It’s your right. It’s owed you. Don’t be afraid; take it.”
Rip out the wings of a butterfly
For your soul, my love,
Rip out the wings of a butterfly
I liked that little voice; I liked its mantra. I gave it a microphone, plugged it into an amp, turned it up so loud that it drowned out all the other voices, screaming at me, yelling at me. You’re disgusting, you’re horrible, you’re ruining him, you don’t deserve this, you aren’t good enough for him, go back to your cocaine and your punters, you’re kidding yourself.
But I obliterated those voices. They were probably the voices of truth and sense, but I ignored them completely, and got on with things.
Christmas came, dancing and ringing its bells all over the country.
Soon enough, everything was decked out in red and green, lights were everywhere, and carols blared from every speaker that could be mustered to the cause. It was like an occupying force, an army of peace, cheer, and goodwill towards man. Cindy made almost all of the kids do adaptations on a Christmas song for end of term projects; I was so sick of some of the songs, it made me want to scream to hear them.
I helped Bam decorate his house. We got tangled in strands and strands of lights, fell off of ladders, had tinsel fights, sang along to old Christmas records very badly and very loudly while April ran around, worrying that we would break something. But we didn’t.
She wanted me to put out her nativity scene, the one that had put me into such a trance the very first time I’d visited their house. Bam gave me the box with them in it; I took the figures out of their wrapping paper slowly, and when they were lying in my hands, I had to put them back. They burnt me. I shook my head.
“I can’t, Bam. You have to do it.”
I think he understood. He’d kissed me sweetly and nodded, set it up himself, with me watching from a bit of a distance, staring at his careful movements, loving placement, at the materialization of a whole religion, the basis of the hope of millions and millions of people, right there in front of me. I couldn’t get it through my head. He lead me inside, and I fell asleep on the couch, exhausted, confused, lost, hurting. I wanted it, I really did, but I could never have it. That hope. I wanted that. I couldn’t have it though.
But I had Bam. And I knew, when I woke up with my head in his lap as he watched TV, his hands running through my hair, that that would be enough for me.
Of course, I was invited over for the traditional camp out feast and for Christmas dinner with Bam’s family on Christmas day. And of course I went. I even went to the Christmas service; sat in the family pew this time, next to Jess, feeling slightly better with him there, knowing that I wasn’t the only one who felt like a Martian in the congregation. Bam was Joseph again. My heart warmed to see him play the role. I couldn’t explain why if I tried. It just seemed right for him.
The night was much the same as it had been the first time. But I knew the people now. I wasn’t scared of them, nor was I trying to hold myself back from them. I threw myself into having as much fun as I could, and it paid off.
Nothing notable happened at all, until the next day. I’d spent the night in Bam’s room; we’d bunched up to share the single bed, though his mother thought he was on the floor in the sleeping bag. It didn’t matter. That had nothing to do with it.
I’d woken up early, and managed to extract myself from his tangle of limbs without waking him up. I could smell pancakes and hear April tinkering around in the kitchen, and went down to join her. She gave me a cup of coffee and a pancake that had gone wrong to keep me occupied until the boys woke up, and then sat down, across the table from me.
“Sleep well?”
“Yeah, as well as I ever do. Thanks.”
“Good. I’m glad you could make it last night. And today.” She smiled and nodded, taking a sip of her own coffee.
“Well where else was I going to go?” I asked, smirking a bit. I liked April a lot. And we got along reasonably well. I was glad for that.
“I don’t know, I thought you might have gone to see family or something.” My smile faded; I turned back to my coffee.
“No,” I said simply, shaking my head, drinking more coffee. April frowned. I’d known her for more than a year, and yet we’d never had this conversation before. I don’t think Bam had told her either. I don’t really know what she thought about me, but most of it was assumptions, I’m pretty sure of that.
“You don’t see your family at Christmas? I haven’t ever heard you talk about them.”
“I don’t have a family anymore,” I said dryly, narrowing my eyes. She frowned again.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they disowned me, I ran away, and I haven’t heard from them for 12 years. For all I know, they’re dead.”
She was shocked at my bluntness. But there wasn’t any other way to deal with it, except to be blunt. I’d learnt that.
“Ville, that’s horrible!”
“No, not really. It would have been worse if I stayed.” Was that true? I didn’t know. It might have been. I couldn’t imagine much worse than what I’d gone through, but I didn’t like to think about alternatives. What had happened had happened. Basta.
“What happened? Why did you never tell me? Oh, and here was me thinking you were simply unable to afford to go see them!”
“Well, there’s that too,” I said, shrugging. “It’s not important what happened, April.”
“Of course it is! Ville really. No-one should have to deal with that. I can’t even imagine it.”
“I’m alive.” I shrugged again, drank more coffee.
“Ville, what happened?” I looked at her carefully. She was so worried. Her countenance was distraught. She kept moving to grip my arm but never quite did, though the gesture did just as much as any grip would have done. What would happen if I told her? Hopefully, not too much. Hopefully, she wasn’t a radical, she wouldn’t hate me for who I was. Would she? Would she hate me so much that she would cut me off from seeing Bam? Would she become suspicious of what we had together? Should I risk it?
I see the reasons changing
And in the warmth of the past I crawl
Scorched by the shame
She was urging me to tell her the truth. She wanted to get to know me, now that she realized she’d made some heavy miscalculations. And, as I took a deep breath, I couldn’t see the harm in telling the basics of the truth. There were things she never needed to know, most of which had happened in Vegas. So I took another deep breath and looked her in the eyes again - they still urged me, and so I talked.
“You have to understand that in Finland, families are very different things than they are here. We were never very close. My parents didn’t have time to care, I didn’t care because they didn’t have the time to care, and it was a bit of a mess. And then…” I bit my lip. “And then I grew up and… started going downhill… and… when I brought home… a boyfriend, to ask for… I don’t know, their blessing or something similarly unimportant… they basically didn’t want to know anymore. So I left when I was 16 and I’ve never gone back, I’ve never called them and I’ve never written them. I have a brother who’s 13 years younger than me, and I hardly remember his name. And I don’t want to go back, and I don’t want to get in touch with them. I’ve done perfectly fine for myself without them, and it’s going to stay that way.”
She was shaking her head, and now she really was gripping my arm.
“Ville…”
I silenced her by bringing my cup up to my face to drink.
“You wanted to know. That’s all there is to know.” She nodded, frowned. I had to remember that we were both adults. This wasn’t a 16-year-old’s reason I was dealing with. It was the reason of a 40-something-year-old, and I hoped that it would be just that little bit more coherent.
“I’m glad you told me, Ville,” she said slowly. My heart sank. I hoped that I was predicting her next words wrongly. “But… there’s one thing… I don’t understand. You said you brought home a …”
I had predicted correctly, and I sighed.
“Boyfriend,” I supplied for her, and she nodded slowly.
“So… this was an experimental thing or…”
“No, it wasn’t experimental. I thought you might have realized by now April.”
“What would I have realized?”
“That…” I couldn’t bring myself to say: “I’m gay.” It sounded too harsh. Too… no, it wouldn’t work. “That I’m not straight.”
It was, in effect, the same thing, but it sounded… better. At least, I hoped it would sound better to her. I didn’t care either way. It was April I was worried about.
She was quiet for a while, looking me up and down, while I returned her eye contact stolidly. I had learned that backing down, looking away, people don’t trust you as much. You look ashamed to be what you are. And I’m not ashamed. I just know too well that a lot of other people are ashamed of what I am.
“I must admit, I had suspected it… but I never knew for sure,” she said, after a while.
“Well, now you know,” I said shortly.
She nodded.
I drank more coffee.
She stood up, still looking at me. I avoided her gaze.
“You know, Ville, you’ll always be welcome in this family.” I bit my lip, looked at her properly, nodded. Wondered if she would be so benevolent if she knew what I was doing with her son. Shook the thought of my head.
Drank more coffee.
Pancakes sizzled happily on the skillet. April started humming a Christmas carol. I stared into the bottom of my cup. I’d like to say I was thinking things over, repenting, coming to conclusions and making decisions. But I wasn’t. I was trying to work out whether the stain on the bottom of my cup looked more like a dog or a hedgehog. I was singing along with April before I realized I was doing it.
“So bring him incense, gold and myrrh; Come, peasant king, to own him. The king of kings salvation brings; Let loving hearts enthrone him.”
I don’t know where I knew the words from; maybe they’d been sung at the service the day before. I don’t know. It was the haunting melody of Greensleeves, sad and yet rejoicing.
April’s face broke into a huge smile to hear me sing it, though my voice was hardly fit for the task. It was much too low, much too dark and too rough and coarse for the words. But apparently, she liked the way it sounded.
I stopped singing, blushed a bit, and got up to get myself more coffee.
Before anything else could happen, Bam came groggily down the stairs, moaning about being woken up.
“Merry Christmas,” April sang, and I smiled at him, as if to echo her greeting.
“Yeah, yeah, Merry Christmas. Are the pancakes ready yet?”
I rolled my eyes, shot a joking insult at him and his stomach, but told him to sit down while I served him the pancakes April was flipping off of the skillet. When she left the room to wake the rest of the house up, I swooped down on his lips and kissed them confidently.
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” I said, smiling as he pulled me into a hug.
We deceive ourselves to start a war
Within the realm of senses
And descend to circle number four
Where we are nothing
“Here, Ville, have some pancakes. They’re amazing,” he said, after a while. I took one from his plate, refilled my coffee cup, let his hand rest surreptitiously on my knee while everyone else came in for breakfast, laughing, talking, singing happily, grinning at each other, hugging. April smiled at me from across the table; I smiled back as I squeezed Bam’s hand, under the table, out of sight. Always out of sight. As I reached for the coffee pot again, I saw a message that Bam had written me in the syrup left over on his plate with his knife. I love you. I smiled, picked up a pancake from the stack in the middle of the table, wiped the plate clean of syrup before anyone could see it, and grinned at him while I ate it.