Cat Swinging Room
Title: Cat Swinging Room
Fandom: Brothers & Sisters
Word count: ~2,135
Rating: PG (for drunkenness and m/m kissing)
Summary: Kevin and Scotty find the perfect house, but the owner won't sell to them.
Author's Notes: I wrote this a while ago (read: before Luc was invented and before the boys were trying to have a kid). It just took me a while to post because I had to work out some legal kinks (Kevin wouldn't allow someone to get away with something illegal). I own nothing, except Chris. For Gilmore girls fans, see if you can find the reference ;).
"I think it's time we began looking for a house," Kevin announced one morning.
"I agree. I love this loft. . .but, it's only meant for one person."
"No cat swinging room," Kevin teased.
Kevin and Scotty walked up the driveway of another house with another "For Sale" sign in the front yard.
"It looks beautiful," Scotty said, and Kevin could hear the hope in his voice.
Kevin had given up hope three houses ago. The house was a white brick, one story. Yellow marigolds lined the front of the house.
"As you can see, this is a very spacious living room," the realtor said as they walked into the tenth house that day.
Both admired the hard wood floors.
"Enough room for your knickknacks," Scotty teased.
Kevin backhanded him in the arm.
"I hear that you'd be interested in the kitchen?" the realtor said, looking at Scotty.
"Guilty," Scotty replied happily, raising his hand halfway like a schoolboy.
They walked into the kitchen and Scotty gasped. He walked slowly around, his hand grazing the counter space, the island, the cabinets.
"What do you think?" Kevin asked.
He knew that if Scotty didn't like the kitchen, there would be no further consideration of a place.
"Oh my gosh Kevin!" Scotty breathed. "It has amazing counter and cabinet space. An island. It's spacious and well laid out. I'm in love with this kitchen."
"Okay, so now that my husband is going to leave me for a kitchen. . .may we see the rest of the house?"
Scotty gave Kevin a quick hug.
"This is the master bedroom."
"Plenty of cat swinging room," Scotty whispered.
Kevin elbowed him in the ribs, smirking.
"And here's another bedroom. Perhaps a spare room?"
"Wow, these are really good sized," Kevin complimented.
"This is the bathroom."
"There's a bathtub for your bubble baths," Scotty teased.
Kevin felt himself blush. The realtor turned to look at them.
"How long have you two been married?"
"Six months, 2 weeks and 5 days," Scotty said proudly.
"Congratulations."
"Thank you," Kevin replied modestly, finding the question kind of odd.
"There's a deck through here," the realtor led them through the back door.
"The view is amazing!" Scotty said in disbelief. "I wouldn't mind coming out here with a good book and a cup of coffee.
"And there's a hot tub!" Scotty noticed, practically drooling.
"If you notice, it's mostly surrounded by trees, so you'll have plenty of privacy in there.
"And that ends the tour. Would you like to see some more houses, or would you like to pick from the ones we've already looked at?"
Kevin and Scotty exchanged a look.
"We have one picked out. How soon can we make an offer?" Kevin replied.
"Come to my office first thing tomorrow and we'll do the paper work."
Inside the car, Kevin and Scotty turned to look at each other.
"I love that house," Scotty said.
Later the next day, after making an offer, Kevin received a phone call.
"It's the realtor," he announced.
Scotty came to join him at the desk, resting a nervous hand on Kevin's shoulder.
"Hi. . .Uh-oh, what?. . .You're kidding me, right?"
Kevin's eyes were closed in frustration.
"Calm down," Scotty whispered in his other ear, wrapping his arms around Kevin from behind.
"No, no, I get it. Thanks for calling. Bye."
"We didn't get it did we?" Scotty said, feeling the disappointment welling up inside of him.
Kevin looked into Scotty's eyes for a moment before replying. "No. I don't know if I should yell or cry. I was all ready to yell, but I can't yell at you over this."
"I can't believe this," Scotty said softly, beginning to cry. "We offered to pay them what they wanted. We didn't even try to haggle."
He no longer had the strength to stand and crumpled to the floor behind the chair.
Kevin sat down beside him.
"I know," he murmured, taking Scotty into his arms. "I'll try and fix it. I'll do everything in my power to get us that house."
Just then, a knock came at the door.
"I'll go get rid of them," Kevin offered, kissing Scotty's head.
However, when Kevin opened the door, Sarah had other plans. She had pushed past Kevin into the loft before he could even greet her.
"What's wrong?" she asked, when the sight of Scotty caused her initial reason for coming to fade from her mind.
Reluctantly Scotty stood up.
"We've been searching for houses, and we found one we loved. However the owners don't want to sell to us and we don't know why," Kevin explained as diplomatically as he could.
"What?!? That's horrible!" Sarah exclaimed.
Scotty came to stand beside Kevin, who immediately put his arm around his shoulders.
"I'm so sorry," she said, hugging both of them.
"Sarah, why are you here?" Kevin asked. "We'd really just like to be alone right now."
"Right, of course. I'll tell you later. I'm so sorry for everything."
Then as an after thought, she turned at the door, "By the way, there's going to be a dinner at Mom's tonight. Do you want me to see if I can get you two out of it?"
"No, no we'll go. What's the occasion?"
"I have good news I want to share with the family."
"Crap," Kevin muttered.
"Kevin. . .I love you. I hate this happened to you. To both of you. I really do love you both."
She gave them both a pitying look before hurrying over to kiss both of them on the cheek and leaving.
"Can I wallow for a bit? Then maybe I'll feel a little better by dinner," Scotty requested.
"On one condition: you let me join you."
"Misery loves company," Scotty conceded.
The couple sat on the couch, and Scotty leaned forward, resting his head in his hands which were propped on his knees. Kevin began rubbing his hand on Scotty's back.
"I hate this so much," Scotty said when he could no longer take the silence. "I hate when people make me feel worthless."
Kevin bit his lip, remembering he had once done that.
"You're not worthless Scotty. Everyone's just jealous because I get to have you all to myself."
Scotty turned to face Kevin.
"I have no idea how that's even applicable, but that was really sweet. Thank you."
He managed a small smile.
Kevin gently wiped some of Scotty's tears from his cheeks.
"Come here," Kevin said, holding his arms out.
Scotty leaned closer, letting his head rest on Kevin's chest.
"Scotty, I have learned so much from you. One of the first things you taught me was that it's impossible to be faithful if we don't know why we should. I used to buy into the belief that it was impossible for gay men to remain faithful. But with you, it would be a heck of a lot harder not to be. People work so hard to ban gay marriage, and yet, I'll bet, I love you more than most of those snobs love their spouses."
"I love you too Kevin."
Kevin kissed the top of Scotty's head.
"I've watched marriages fall apart all around me, but I have complete faith in ours."
Scotty grabbed one of Kevin's hands. He gently stroked his thumb against the back of the familiar hand.
"Good, because I have no intentions of ever leaving you," Scotty said, kissing Kevin's hand.
He let go of the hand, which Kevin placed on Scotty's side. Scotty looked up so his face was in front of Kevin's.
"We'll get through this, and we will find an amazing house that we love."
"With an amazing kitchen," Kevin promised.
"And a hot tub."
"And hardwood floors," Kevin added.
"And cat swinging room," Scotty teased, before leaning in to kiss Kevin.
As they kissed, Kevin tightened his arms around Scotty, not wanting to let him go. Life would always throw them curve balls, but as long as they were together they could tackle anything.
"We should get ready for dinner," Scotty said, breaking the kiss.
"Okay," Kevin conceded.
But before they moved, they held each others look.
"I still love that," Scotty said, with a sincere smile.
"I love seeing you smile," Kevin said, smiling himself.
"I love you."
"I love you."
"We really need to get ready, Kev."
"What's the big news Sarah?" Kevin asked walking in.
"What kind of Walker are you?" she replied. "No announcements until dinner. You know that. How are you and Scotty doing?"
"What's wrong with them? Is everything okay between you two? Oh, don't tell me you're getting separated now too. You can work through it."
"Mom!" Kevin interrupted. "Mom, everything is fine between Scotty and me. I promise. I don't want to talk about it tonight. This dinner is about Sarah and her good news."
"Okay, now what's the news?" Kitty asked excitedly, after everyone was seated around the table.
Sarah stood up.
"Chris and I," Sarah motioned to her boyfriend of three years, "Are engaged."
A squeal rose from the table.
Dinner seemed to go without a hitch, everyone brimming with happiness for Sarah and Chris.
"Where did all the wine go?" Saul asked, when he found the bottles on the table to be empty. "I know this family drinks a lot of wine, but we never go through it this quickly."
Everyone exchanged looks. One look at Scotty, and Kevin realized he was drunk.
"Scotty, what have you done?" Kevin asked, horrified.
"You said everything was alright," Nora reprimanded.
"Between us, yes."
"Tell them our happy news," Scotty urged. "Go ahead."
"We've been house hunting, and we found the perfect house, but they wouldn't sell it to us."
"Why not?" Nora asked.
"Here's the punchline of the joke," Scotty said bitterly. "Because we're gay."
Everyone stared a moment at them, unsure of what to say.
"This sucks!" Scotty burst out. "This whole stupid, homophobic country. They'll sometimes let us get married, but even then it's not a real marriage, it's a domestic partnership. Then they won't even let us buy houses, because, I don't know, maybe our money is tainted with homo-germs, or it's so sinful for us to be living there, but if we were an unmarried heterosexual couple, who were just looking for a sex house, oh, then they'd be okay. No matter what we do, we'll never have equal rights. We'll always be the freaks."
Scotty stood up in anger, knocking his chair down, and stormed off.
"I'm sorry everyone," Kevin said hurriedly, rushing from the dining room.
He had never seen Scotty this drunk, and had no idea what he was capable of. He soon found Scotty sitting by the pool.
"Scotty, my love," Kevin crooned, as though talking to an injured animal, "Please come away from the water."
All Kevin could think of was the number of water deaths due to drunkenness. As Scotty came closer to Kevin, Kevin saw his eyes were red and puffy again from crying. He wordlessly pulled Scotty close to him, allowing him to cry into his shoulder.
"Kevin, I'm sorry I’m such a mess. I'll go apologize to your family."
"Hey, Scotty calm down for a minute. Tonight was a big night for you."
"Even still--"
"No," Kevin interrupted. "I think you misunderstand. Tonight you became a Walker."
Scotty couldn't help but to laugh at that.
"So I'm officially crazy?"
"My dear, you received that title the day you accepted my wedding proposal."
"No," Scotty disagreed, looking up into Kevin's blue eyes. "It was that first day I saw you and knew I wanted to be more than just the witness."
"And you were. You are. You are Scotty Wandell from Oxford, Mississippi. Son of Wally and Bertha Wandell."
"Married to Kevin Walker from Pasadena, California. Son of William and Nora Walker."
"I love you so much Scotty. No one is ever going to keep me away from you."
"I love you too."
"Then can you do me an itsy bitsy teeny weeny favor?"
"Put on a yellow polka dot bikini?"
Kevin laughed.
"I don't know, you just might have the body for it. Now, can you please try and stay sober. . .well mostly sober? I was so scared seeing you lose control like that."
"As long as you do the same."
"Of course. About your outburst: we don't know that's why she won't sell us the house. If we had proof, believe me, I would have her in court tomorrow morning. I'll go talk to her and see if I can find out why she won't sell to us. I saw your face when you saw that kitchen: you're ready to dump me for it."
"Don't be ridiculous: a kitchen doesn't have a finger for a ring."
"Only a technicality."
Fandom: Brothers & Sisters
Word count: ~2,135
Rating: PG (for drunkenness and m/m kissing)
Summary: Kevin and Scotty find the perfect house, but the owner won't sell to them.
Author's Notes: I wrote this a while ago (read: before Luc was invented and before the boys were trying to have a kid). It just took me a while to post because I had to work out some legal kinks (Kevin wouldn't allow someone to get away with something illegal). I own nothing, except Chris. For Gilmore girls fans, see if you can find the reference ;).
"I think it's time we began looking for a house," Kevin announced one morning.
"I agree. I love this loft. . .but, it's only meant for one person."
"No cat swinging room," Kevin teased.
Kevin and Scotty walked up the driveway of another house with another "For Sale" sign in the front yard.
"It looks beautiful," Scotty said, and Kevin could hear the hope in his voice.
Kevin had given up hope three houses ago. The house was a white brick, one story. Yellow marigolds lined the front of the house.
"As you can see, this is a very spacious living room," the realtor said as they walked into the tenth house that day.
Both admired the hard wood floors.
"Enough room for your knickknacks," Scotty teased.
Kevin backhanded him in the arm.
"I hear that you'd be interested in the kitchen?" the realtor said, looking at Scotty.
"Guilty," Scotty replied happily, raising his hand halfway like a schoolboy.
They walked into the kitchen and Scotty gasped. He walked slowly around, his hand grazing the counter space, the island, the cabinets.
"What do you think?" Kevin asked.
He knew that if Scotty didn't like the kitchen, there would be no further consideration of a place.
"Oh my gosh Kevin!" Scotty breathed. "It has amazing counter and cabinet space. An island. It's spacious and well laid out. I'm in love with this kitchen."
"Okay, so now that my husband is going to leave me for a kitchen. . .may we see the rest of the house?"
Scotty gave Kevin a quick hug.
"This is the master bedroom."
"Plenty of cat swinging room," Scotty whispered.
Kevin elbowed him in the ribs, smirking.
"And here's another bedroom. Perhaps a spare room?"
"Wow, these are really good sized," Kevin complimented.
"This is the bathroom."
"There's a bathtub for your bubble baths," Scotty teased.
Kevin felt himself blush. The realtor turned to look at them.
"How long have you two been married?"
"Six months, 2 weeks and 5 days," Scotty said proudly.
"Congratulations."
"Thank you," Kevin replied modestly, finding the question kind of odd.
"There's a deck through here," the realtor led them through the back door.
"The view is amazing!" Scotty said in disbelief. "I wouldn't mind coming out here with a good book and a cup of coffee.
"And there's a hot tub!" Scotty noticed, practically drooling.
"If you notice, it's mostly surrounded by trees, so you'll have plenty of privacy in there.
"And that ends the tour. Would you like to see some more houses, or would you like to pick from the ones we've already looked at?"
Kevin and Scotty exchanged a look.
"We have one picked out. How soon can we make an offer?" Kevin replied.
"Come to my office first thing tomorrow and we'll do the paper work."
Inside the car, Kevin and Scotty turned to look at each other.
"I love that house," Scotty said.
Later the next day, after making an offer, Kevin received a phone call.
"It's the realtor," he announced.
Scotty came to join him at the desk, resting a nervous hand on Kevin's shoulder.
"Hi. . .Uh-oh, what?. . .You're kidding me, right?"
Kevin's eyes were closed in frustration.
"Calm down," Scotty whispered in his other ear, wrapping his arms around Kevin from behind.
"No, no, I get it. Thanks for calling. Bye."
"We didn't get it did we?" Scotty said, feeling the disappointment welling up inside of him.
Kevin looked into Scotty's eyes for a moment before replying. "No. I don't know if I should yell or cry. I was all ready to yell, but I can't yell at you over this."
"I can't believe this," Scotty said softly, beginning to cry. "We offered to pay them what they wanted. We didn't even try to haggle."
He no longer had the strength to stand and crumpled to the floor behind the chair.
Kevin sat down beside him.
"I know," he murmured, taking Scotty into his arms. "I'll try and fix it. I'll do everything in my power to get us that house."
Just then, a knock came at the door.
"I'll go get rid of them," Kevin offered, kissing Scotty's head.
However, when Kevin opened the door, Sarah had other plans. She had pushed past Kevin into the loft before he could even greet her.
"What's wrong?" she asked, when the sight of Scotty caused her initial reason for coming to fade from her mind.
Reluctantly Scotty stood up.
"We've been searching for houses, and we found one we loved. However the owners don't want to sell to us and we don't know why," Kevin explained as diplomatically as he could.
"What?!? That's horrible!" Sarah exclaimed.
Scotty came to stand beside Kevin, who immediately put his arm around his shoulders.
"I'm so sorry," she said, hugging both of them.
"Sarah, why are you here?" Kevin asked. "We'd really just like to be alone right now."
"Right, of course. I'll tell you later. I'm so sorry for everything."
Then as an after thought, she turned at the door, "By the way, there's going to be a dinner at Mom's tonight. Do you want me to see if I can get you two out of it?"
"No, no we'll go. What's the occasion?"
"I have good news I want to share with the family."
"Crap," Kevin muttered.
"Kevin. . .I love you. I hate this happened to you. To both of you. I really do love you both."
She gave them both a pitying look before hurrying over to kiss both of them on the cheek and leaving.
"Can I wallow for a bit? Then maybe I'll feel a little better by dinner," Scotty requested.
"On one condition: you let me join you."
"Misery loves company," Scotty conceded.
The couple sat on the couch, and Scotty leaned forward, resting his head in his hands which were propped on his knees. Kevin began rubbing his hand on Scotty's back.
"I hate this so much," Scotty said when he could no longer take the silence. "I hate when people make me feel worthless."
Kevin bit his lip, remembering he had once done that.
"You're not worthless Scotty. Everyone's just jealous because I get to have you all to myself."
Scotty turned to face Kevin.
"I have no idea how that's even applicable, but that was really sweet. Thank you."
He managed a small smile.
Kevin gently wiped some of Scotty's tears from his cheeks.
"Come here," Kevin said, holding his arms out.
Scotty leaned closer, letting his head rest on Kevin's chest.
"Scotty, I have learned so much from you. One of the first things you taught me was that it's impossible to be faithful if we don't know why we should. I used to buy into the belief that it was impossible for gay men to remain faithful. But with you, it would be a heck of a lot harder not to be. People work so hard to ban gay marriage, and yet, I'll bet, I love you more than most of those snobs love their spouses."
"I love you too Kevin."
Kevin kissed the top of Scotty's head.
"I've watched marriages fall apart all around me, but I have complete faith in ours."
Scotty grabbed one of Kevin's hands. He gently stroked his thumb against the back of the familiar hand.
"Good, because I have no intentions of ever leaving you," Scotty said, kissing Kevin's hand.
He let go of the hand, which Kevin placed on Scotty's side. Scotty looked up so his face was in front of Kevin's.
"We'll get through this, and we will find an amazing house that we love."
"With an amazing kitchen," Kevin promised.
"And a hot tub."
"And hardwood floors," Kevin added.
"And cat swinging room," Scotty teased, before leaning in to kiss Kevin.
As they kissed, Kevin tightened his arms around Scotty, not wanting to let him go. Life would always throw them curve balls, but as long as they were together they could tackle anything.
"We should get ready for dinner," Scotty said, breaking the kiss.
"Okay," Kevin conceded.
But before they moved, they held each others look.
"I still love that," Scotty said, with a sincere smile.
"I love seeing you smile," Kevin said, smiling himself.
"I love you."
"I love you."
"We really need to get ready, Kev."
"What's the big news Sarah?" Kevin asked walking in.
"What kind of Walker are you?" she replied. "No announcements until dinner. You know that. How are you and Scotty doing?"
"What's wrong with them? Is everything okay between you two? Oh, don't tell me you're getting separated now too. You can work through it."
"Mom!" Kevin interrupted. "Mom, everything is fine between Scotty and me. I promise. I don't want to talk about it tonight. This dinner is about Sarah and her good news."
"Okay, now what's the news?" Kitty asked excitedly, after everyone was seated around the table.
Sarah stood up.
"Chris and I," Sarah motioned to her boyfriend of three years, "Are engaged."
A squeal rose from the table.
Dinner seemed to go without a hitch, everyone brimming with happiness for Sarah and Chris.
"Where did all the wine go?" Saul asked, when he found the bottles on the table to be empty. "I know this family drinks a lot of wine, but we never go through it this quickly."
Everyone exchanged looks. One look at Scotty, and Kevin realized he was drunk.
"Scotty, what have you done?" Kevin asked, horrified.
"You said everything was alright," Nora reprimanded.
"Between us, yes."
"Tell them our happy news," Scotty urged. "Go ahead."
"We've been house hunting, and we found the perfect house, but they wouldn't sell it to us."
"Why not?" Nora asked.
"Here's the punchline of the joke," Scotty said bitterly. "Because we're gay."
Everyone stared a moment at them, unsure of what to say.
"This sucks!" Scotty burst out. "This whole stupid, homophobic country. They'll sometimes let us get married, but even then it's not a real marriage, it's a domestic partnership. Then they won't even let us buy houses, because, I don't know, maybe our money is tainted with homo-germs, or it's so sinful for us to be living there, but if we were an unmarried heterosexual couple, who were just looking for a sex house, oh, then they'd be okay. No matter what we do, we'll never have equal rights. We'll always be the freaks."
Scotty stood up in anger, knocking his chair down, and stormed off.
"I'm sorry everyone," Kevin said hurriedly, rushing from the dining room.
He had never seen Scotty this drunk, and had no idea what he was capable of. He soon found Scotty sitting by the pool.
"Scotty, my love," Kevin crooned, as though talking to an injured animal, "Please come away from the water."
All Kevin could think of was the number of water deaths due to drunkenness. As Scotty came closer to Kevin, Kevin saw his eyes were red and puffy again from crying. He wordlessly pulled Scotty close to him, allowing him to cry into his shoulder.
"Kevin, I'm sorry I’m such a mess. I'll go apologize to your family."
"Hey, Scotty calm down for a minute. Tonight was a big night for you."
"Even still--"
"No," Kevin interrupted. "I think you misunderstand. Tonight you became a Walker."
Scotty couldn't help but to laugh at that.
"So I'm officially crazy?"
"My dear, you received that title the day you accepted my wedding proposal."
"No," Scotty disagreed, looking up into Kevin's blue eyes. "It was that first day I saw you and knew I wanted to be more than just the witness."
"And you were. You are. You are Scotty Wandell from Oxford, Mississippi. Son of Wally and Bertha Wandell."
"Married to Kevin Walker from Pasadena, California. Son of William and Nora Walker."
"I love you so much Scotty. No one is ever going to keep me away from you."
"I love you too."
"Then can you do me an itsy bitsy teeny weeny favor?"
"Put on a yellow polka dot bikini?"
Kevin laughed.
"I don't know, you just might have the body for it. Now, can you please try and stay sober. . .well mostly sober? I was so scared seeing you lose control like that."
"As long as you do the same."
"Of course. About your outburst: we don't know that's why she won't sell us the house. If we had proof, believe me, I would have her in court tomorrow morning. I'll go talk to her and see if I can find out why she won't sell to us. I saw your face when you saw that kitchen: you're ready to dump me for it."
"Don't be ridiculous: a kitchen doesn't have a finger for a ring."
"Only a technicality."