Fanfic: Wedding jitters 5/?
Wedding-jitters 5/?
By Marea67
About:Kevin, Scotty, Chad, Jason
Rate: G
Disclaimer: B&S belongs to ABC
Summary: Remember how Chad proposed to Jason at the end of "Underneath the mistletoe"? Well, Chad and Jason have set the date for their wedding, but will things go as smoothly as Chad/Jason had hoped?
Sorry for the delay, it took me a while, because I just could not get it right the way I wanted it to be and than I made some mistakes etc. and had to do quite some editing... and ... well, here's the result. A quick recap of where we were: Jason complained to Scotty. Chad shared his frustrations with Kevin. The result: Chad and Jason have a fight and break up. Scotty goes to see Jason, Kevin goes to see Chad.
*****
“So, what happened?” Scotty asks. “When we last spoke, you said you would talk to Chad and the next moment I hear from Kitty that the two of you broke up.”
“I don’t know.” Jason answers and Scotty frowns. He knows that, on occasion, things can still be difficult between Jason and him.
Jason, like Robert, is a very private person, who doesn’t often confide in others as easily as others confide in him. But after their last talk, where Jason had poured his heart out to Scotty, and where Scotty believes that he offered a good enough shoulder to cry on, Scotty feels a bit annoyed by Jason’s reluctance to speak up now.
“I can understand, if you don’t want to talk about it. When people break up everyone always immediately have a notion of who’s at fault and who isn’t, even if they have no clue what happened exactly, but, please, talk to me. When we discussed the issues between you two, I advised you to go talk to him and now you guys are done. I feel… responsible?”
“You’re not responsible, don’t worry. And the words ‘I don’t know’ just sums up how I truly feel. I’ve been going over it in my head, over and over again, and I still don’t get how our conversation escalated into a fight so fast and so viciously. Chad was completely unreasonable.”
*****
“Why would you say that Jason was unreasonable? What exactly gave you that idea? Because Jason usually has a very good reason for what he does…” Kevin protests gently. He can see that Chad is more hurt by what happened than he lets on and so he tries to be patient with him.
“I don’t like to fight, but, like you said, I needed to get this out of the way. So, I gathered all my courage and I only asked him if he still wanted to marry me and then I explained to him that I felt like he wasn’t as involved with it all as I was…. I was calm, I was prepared to be understanding, regardless of what he would say.”
“What did he say?” Kevin asks.
“He accused about not caring for his opinion.” Chad says, suddenly angry. Kevin opens his mouth to say something, but Chad isn’t done. “After all the near begging I’ve done, asking him to work with me on this, he has the audacity to tell me that I don’t care for his opinion…!?”
*****
“So, after all the pacing up and down like some caged tiger, he suddenly gets all defensive and accuses me of not being interested in our wedding. Of not being involved. And when I tell him, that I feel that he decides things over my head and behind my back, like I don’t matter and as if my opinion is unimportant, he tells me I’m a liar!” Jason fumes.
*****
“Honest, Kevin, I tried to be understanding and I told him that he was wrong and that I gave him every chance to get involved, but that he just doesn’t want to help…. He got mad at me and said that all I was interested in was making this a show-wedding and a media-fest. When all I tried to do was to protect him from it, by giving the media only limited access.” Chad explains.
*****
“In all seriousness, Scotty, he reminded me that he had given me a list of photographers, that could be allowed to take pictures of our wedding. All I had to do was pick one and, he accused me that I never did. Well, of course I never did. I don’t know any of them and I couldn’t tell the difference between them if I tried…
I spend an afternoon on the net trying to figure out, which of them would be the best, but I can’t see that many differences between one picture and the next. They all have good and bad pictures. They are all ‘creative’, even if I don’t always agree with their choices of 'creativity'.
And I wanted to make well-founded decision and not just pick one randomly, so Chad could accuse me afterwards of making the wrong choice.”
“Did you tell him that?” Scotty asks.
“Didn’t get a chance, I have to admit, that the fact that he suddenly started to talk about that list of photographers took me by surprise, and it took me a few seconds to realize what he was talking about…..”
*****
“… and when I mentioned the list he looked at me as if he had NO clue what I was talking about.. Of course this upsetting to me. At every step I tried to get him involved. Take for instance, the place where we would get married…..” Chad says exasperated.
*****
“… I just wouldn’t feel comfortable to do it in chapel, because it means too much to me. And it’s not a real wedding, it’s a commitment ceremony, it just doesn’t hold the same significance to any church. I just feel it would be inappropriate. And I could not exactly see myself going for other options either..
I mean getting married on the top of some cliff, maybe, but some of the suggestions in the folder were completely ridiculous. Did he really expect me to go sky-diving and get married at I don’t know how many feet of altitude? Talk about harebrained ideas! I’d be dead before I hit the ground.”
*****
“Okay, I agree some things were rather harebrained. Like the one about sky-diving. Seriously, I have a fear of heights, but there were plenty of other ideas in the folder. There’s a little chapel, close to the sea, where you can watch the ocean and it looks very pretty.
I would like it to get married there, but … I could understand that it may feel inappropriate to Jason, now that he’s no longer a minister. He still misses the church. He doesn’t like that he’s no longer allowed to preach the word of God, because it’s important to him…
But at the same time he felt could no longer preach in a place that made him feel unloved and unwanted, because he was gay. And, of course, Robert’s death has left a big scar on Jason’s soul. So, I could respect the fact that he may not have liked my initial idea, but …. He didn’t come up with an alternative either….”
****
“You must have had some alternative idea?” Scotty now asks. “I know, Kevin and I decided on our place very quickly. I wouldn’t want to change a single thing about my wedding-day. We planned to get married within a week, so when Kevin suggested Nora’s living-room, it seemed so logical to me that I never even considered any other option.
The Walkers, and Nora in particular, have been absolutely amazing, and I have absolutely no regrets about how that day turned out to be … but to be honest, you seem rather clueless on what you would have wanted your wedding-day to look like. Unlike me, you’ve had several months to think it over, to make plans, to daydream about it.
If I had a husband-to-be who wanted to give me the perfect wedding and who had the money to back it up and I would have had all this time to think it all over, I might have come to a different decision.” Jason can recognize that Scotty is not criticizing him, so he gently says:
“Yes, but you could keep your wedding small and with just those who really matter around you, but getting married to Chad means that it all has to be grand, perfect and lavish and I’m just not good at that. Our backgrounds, our believes, our lives in general, clash with each other on this.
I’m not interested in the splendor, in the glitter and glamour. I just want a small wedding, with just a bit of family and friends. But I’m not stupid. I knew when I went for a relationship with Chad, I wouldn’t get just Chad, but also his life, his show, his fans, his manager, his paparazzi, …
It comes with the territory, but I don’t have to like it. And right now, I feel like I know that I can’t have it my way and I don’t like it his way either and I can’t seem to come up with some middle-ground where we can meet each other…. Or maybe I could have said something about that, if I hadn't been so angry."
"Angry? Over what?"
"Oh, right. I haven't had a chance to tell anyone about this yet. On my way back from your restaurant to our house, so prior to talking to Chad, I got a call from his manager. Donald.
He and I are not really friends to begin with, but he made matters even worse and he got me so angry and I think… I may have taken my anger and frustrations out on Chad….”
*****
“I think, Kev, that maybe I shouldn’t have started this, while I could see that Jason was pissed off over something.”
“Was he? Why?”
“I don’t know, he just came in here, face like a thunderstorm…”
“Didn’t you ask him…?”
“No. I was too focused on getting rid of something that had frustrated me for too long. Maybe I was just too hard on him.”
“I wonder what could have upset Jason so much.” Kevin frowns.
*****
“What did that guy say to you, that you got so mad?” Scotty asks.
“He told me that I had to make sure that the wedding would not turn out to be ‘too gay’ and rob Chad of his masculinity…”
“What?”
“Yeah. He wanted to make sure that Chad would be ‘the man’ on that day. He was so condescending. As if he expected me to insist that Chad would show up in a pink suit with matching feathered boa! And if Chad was supposed to be the ‘man’, what would that make me? The woman?...”
*****
“Wait! Wait!... You’ve lost me… What is this about ‘man’ and ‘woman’…? That has nothing to do with it. Yes, I know that sometimes heterosexual people think in boxes, and that somehow in a gay couple one has to be ‘the male’, therefore the other one has to be ‘the female’, but, sincerely, aren’t we slightly passed that?
I doubt that this has anything to do with you two. I don’t think that either Scotty or I felt less of a man for getting married to another man. It’s a ridiculous notion. ”
“I didn’t get it either. He just started rambling about that and it came from out of nowhere. I didn’t even joke about it! ... Not that I recall anyway.”
“That is weird…” Kevin admits. “And you have no idea what brought that on?”
“None whatsoever! …. I wanted to believe it was some case of wedding-jitters, but I’m not so sure anymore. I think, he was just looking for a reason to break up with me and when I finally wanted to talk to him, he seized the moment and he used to force the argument.”
“Seriously, Chad, why would he want to do that?” Kevin now asks feeling a bit annoyed.
“I know that Jason hates all the attention that comes from the media. It’s not his thing. and I believe that it was getting harder and harder for him to deal with my life. He always said that he just didn’t like it to be in the spotlight. He hates being 'Chad's lover' or 'Chad's boyfriend'.
He preferred to stay in the background. He always had the same problem with Robert’s campaigns. He wanted to be supportive to Robert, but he preferred to not get involved. He didn't like to be the focus of attention, unless it was about talking about God. He always said that being in the public’s eye was Robert’s ‘thing’ and not his.
And the only times where he did feel comfortable and confident talking in front of a crowd was in church, because he believes that he was born to serve God. But when it comes to something as 'frivolous' as my career..... Not important enough for him, I guess.
However, it’s a part of my life, it’s my income and I feel I owe that to my fans, especially to those who have been so supportive of us. I have to embrace the press….” Chad becomes quiet and shakes his head. “It’s inevitable. We’ve been together on and off for so long. We’ve fought and made up so many times, until I proposed to him…
But if he keeps looking for reasons not to be involved with me, with our marriage or with our future, than he might as well get lost. I realized two days ago, that there was just no way that I can win this… I got mad and I no longer wanted to listen to his pathetic excuses…" Chad says and his voice sounds very angry, but Kevin can see the pain in his eyes.
*****
“He was so mad at me, though I really don’t understand why we cannot even talk about this, and then he told me to get lost and that if I was really that disinterested in our future, the marriage was off…. Scotty, I tried…. I can’t seem to do anything right and…. I think, it's because he regrets his proposal. And now, he wants to force a break-up, so he no longer has to marry me….”
*****
“What are you going to do now, Chad?” Kevin asks.
*****
“How are you two going to solve this, Jason?” Scotty wants to know.
END OF PART 5