#;well

He’s only half-listening, nose stuck in a book as he leisurely reclined ‘pon the couch they shared. There’s only a brief flit of his eyes as first reaction–only a moment spared from the written word to glance at the blond, brow raised. Always with the silliness. Where did he keep coming up with such things?

   “Congratulations, you’ve won.”   Spare him the honor of joining such ridiculous competition. If Guy wanted to make a fool of himself, so be it; he didn’t have to drag the militant down with him. For so silly a thing as saying in different ways ‘I lo–’  for saying–l o v   l  

Saying what now? He must have misheard, surely. He’d said ‘like’, hadn’t he? Oh dear. Slowly the book dropped and his interest in words had changed dramatically. Oh dear. A flat snark come-back wasn’t the proper response after all, was it. What was? He couldn’t just–he couldn’t just say it back, surely not. He wasn’t–he wasn’t sure he felt quite so strongly as the blond did. He–wasn’t sure it was possible. Could he? The man had already left once. What’s to say he wouldn’t do so again?

And even then–it was inevitable, wasn’t it. Perhaps not that month, year, decade, but eventually. Heavens!–a decade. That seemed like far too much time. He could easily see himself with Guy a year from then, but a decade? Oh dear. That was a bit much. By then he’d really be expected to think about the family legacy. Was adopting two generations in a row an okay thing to do? He couldn’t just hand the family off to Raymond–things would fall back down into corruption and his cousin hadn’t quite the mind his father had. The family would be ruined.

Oh dear. He was panicking now–quietly, stoically, only noticeable in that the heat that burned his face when he’d realized what had been said had chilled into pale pallor as his breath came shallow and quick.  Okay, relax. Don’t take things so deathly serious for once. Stop clenching that jaw, and say something. Smooth it over. Those lessons in conversation and manners and such had to have some use, surely. 

“She’s old, and it’s about time she died.”