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happiness is

Chapter Nineteen - Crossroad Blues

Plaything

Title: Crossroad Blues (19/??)
Author: so_jayded
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2000
Genre: Hancest



Taylor

Zac was drunk and scowling when we left LuLu's and I didn't understand why. We were silent for a few blocks, then out of nowhere Zac slammed his fist down on the dashboard and I jumped. "What the hell, Zac?"

"Why are you - Why didn't you tell me?"

I looked over at him briefly, then refocused on the road. "What didn't I tell you?"

"That you were looking into adoption!"

I blinked and looked over at him. "I've been thinking about it for years, why wouldn't I look into it?"

"Don't you think you should've, oh, I don't know, talked to me about it?!"

I gripped the steering wheel hard and kept my eyes on the road. "I was just thinking about it," I said softly. "I wasn't filling out paperwork or anything."

Zac's breathing was fast and hard and his fists were both against the dashboard. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but I blinked them back and pressed down harder on the gas, trying to get home before the tears spilled over and I had to pull off the road. "You're thinking about making a decision that's going to change my life forever and you don't even think to talk to me about it before you start researching it?!"

I slammed on the brakes then, pulled over into the breakdown lane and put my hands over my face. The heels of my hands dug into my eyes and they burned so much. "If you don't want a baby, you just had to tell me," I whispered.

"I don't fucking want a kid, Taylor," he snarled. "How's that? It's gonna mess everything up. As soon as the kid learns how to talk she's gonna say some stupid shit to a fan and then our lives go to hell forever."

The tears spilled over my hands then, I could feel my cheeks heating up and my chest started to burn from holding back sobs. "That's all you had to say," I whispered. "I. I'm going to go."

I fumbled for the handle and shoved the door open, stumbling out of the car and almost falling on my face into the blacktop. It didn't occur to me that it was a bad idea to leave Zac in the car by himself, or that I didn't really have anywhere to walk to, but I couldn't stand to be near him right then and I just needed to get away. I closed the driver's side door with a slam, not even bothering to look inside at Zac and stuffed my hands in my pockets and just started to walk.

By the time the car was out of eye shot, I sat down on the curb of the road and started crying outright. I fumbled for my phone in my pocket and called the first person I could think of - Isaac - and waited for him to pick up.

"Hello?" he said groggily after a few rings.

"I-Ike," I gasped into the phone, choking down a sob. "I n-need you to come g-get me."

***

Once we'd gotten back to Isaac's place, he brought Tabitha back to bed and sat me down on the couch with a cup of tea. "Are you alright?" he finally asked. "Did you fight with Zac?"

I almost started sobbing at the mention of Zac's name. I did start shaking and my tea spilled over onto my fingers. Isaac didn't even scold me for getting it on the carpet.

"I take that as a yes," he said, squeezing my shoulder.

I nodded. "He was so mean to me, Ike," I whispered. "He told me he didn't 'fucking want a kid'." My lips started trembling and I set the tea down. "I-I just want a family."

Isaac pulled me into a hug and kept me there for a few minutes, rubbing my back and trying to get me to stop crying, probably. "He's drunk, Tay."

"Exactly," I mumbled against his shoulder. "And telling the truth. Not coming up with excuses anymore. He doesn't want a family with me."

Ike grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back a little, forcing me to look him in the eye. "Tay..."

"There's nothing you can say, Ike. Can I just please use the spare room tonight? I'll have Mom pick me up in the morning."

He sighed and let go of me, nodding. I stood up slowly and made my way upstairs. I stopped by Tabby's room, peeked in, and watched her sleep for a while. I thought about a lot while I stood there in the doorway, about how much I loved Zac, how much I wanted a family. How much easier my life would've been if I'd been just a little bit more normal. And though I was ashamed to admit it, I thought about how easy it would be to walk away and find someone else who would love me and want a family with me.

It would be so easy. Maybe that meant I'd fallen out of love with him. My fingers shook against the door frame to Tabitha's room. Maybe I was just so used to him that I didn't know how to live without him and I wasn't in love with him anymore. Or maybe I was just so angry and upset at what he'd said that I didn't know what to feel. I wasn't sure what to think.

I'd always known that being gay and being in love with my little brother was going to cause problems. I'd known it from the minute I realized both things, shortly after my fourteenth birthday when Zac had crawled into bed with me and I'd just felt so right holding him and keeping the nightmares away from him. After he'd fallen back asleep I'd pulled away from him and picked my stuffed rabbit off the bottom of my bed and sat up all night, thinking about how hard it was going to be to hide it from Zac and deal with it. After we'd gotten together a year and a half later, we'd sat down and had a talk about how important it was to keep this between just us. Our entire lives had been lived under the premise of secrecy and trying not to create problems for ourselves. We'd learned to keep everything close and this was one of those things that would rip our little shell open. If we were going to adopt a baby, it was going to be harder to hide. We were going to have to hide more while hiding less.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea, but if I lived my entire life based on how to best hide from the entire world, I wasn't really living the life I wanted to. And this was definitely what I wanted. It had never been a pressing issue, really, but it had always been on the back of my mind and every so often it came forward and I thought about it for a while. Now, though, watching Tabby grow up and seeing Zoe get so big and just knowing that Zac and I had been together for ten years made me really want to have a family.

It would be so easy just to let go and go it on my own. Or find someone else to love and have a child with. But I couldn't just give Zac up. He was the love of my life.

I had to get to sleep before I went crazy.

Letting go of the door frame, I made my way down the hall to the spare room. I collapsed on the bed, shoes and all, and started crying into the pillow again like a six year old girl.

***

When I stumbled downstairs the next morning, Zac was leaning against the kitchen island with his head in his hands. Mom was sitting at the table, arms folded, with two cups of coffee in front of her. "Good morning, Tay," she said, pushing one of the cups across the table. "Sit down."

I pulled out a chair and sat down, miserable that I had to deal with this as soon as I woke up. My face was still all puffy from crying the night before but I'd gotten to stew on it long enough that I wanted to punch Zac hard enough in the mouth to dislocate his jaw. "What are you doing here?" I asked, staring into the coffee and, for the first time in a long time, not bothering to drink it.

"Zac called me to pick him up last night."

I gripped the mug hard. "You should've made him walk."

"I did," she said, and that's when I noticed she wasn't even looking at him. "I came down, took the keys, and made him walk home."

"What is he doing here, then?"

She sipped her coffee. "I made him come."

"So he could make me cry again?" I looked down into my coffee. "No thanks." I paused, letting silence fall over the room for a few moments. "I was going to call to see if I could stay with you for a few days."

"Until you two made up?"

I shook my head. "Until I found a place."

Zac broke down then, against the island. It was strange because I was usually the one doing the miserable crying. "Please, Tay," he whimpered. "Please, I'm so, so sorry."

"You were telling the truth," I said, pushing the coffee away and running my hands through my hair. "I get it. Everybody's got different goals in life. I want to have a family and you... you obviously don't, if last night was any indication."

"It's not that," he said desperately, looking up at me. "I do. I do want a family with you, I'm just so scared of what's going to happen if our child blurts something out and I was so, so angry that you hadn't even talked to me about maybe thinking about it again... I just exploded. You know how I get sometimes. Please. Please just don't leave."

I looked down at my hands, spread on the table and I sighed. "It's a lot of risk. I know. I didn't even know if we could manage it, yet. That's why I hadn't even brought it up yet because I wanted to have all the information before we sat down so it wouldn't be speculation, you know? I wanted to be able to sit down and talk about our future... and not have half the conversation be filled with 'I don't know's."

He slumped back down against the counter. "I really fucked up this time, didn't I?"

"Yeah," I said, looking down at the table again. "You did."

"How can we fix this?" He asked.

I shook my head and picked myself up out of my chair. "I don't know," I said, walking over to him. I put my hands on his cheeks and lifted his face up. "I don't want to lose you, Zac, but I'm starting to think our life goals are. They're total opposites."

Zac's arms looped around me and he crushed himself against me, crying into my shirt. "They're not, Tay. I swear. They're not. I want to be with you forever, have a family with you. I'm just afraid it'll all come crashing down on us."

I rubbed his back, wondering at how this had switched around. I was the upset one last night, and here he was, sobbing into my shirt and wondering if I was ever going to forgive him.

"I love you," I told him. "You're everything to me. But this is something I need, Zac. And if you don't feel like you want to do it with me, I need to know, because if you're not sure, I think I'm going to have to sit down and rethink where my life is going."

"What do you mean?" He asked, looking up at me. I wanted to wipe the tear tracks away, to kiss him until he felt better but I couldn't right then.

"I need to know if I can stay with you or not."

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