Entry tags:

happiness is

Chapter Twenty - Behavioral Health Division

Plaything

Title: Behavioral Health Division (20/??)
Author: tumbling_down
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2100
Genre: Hancest



Zac

Fights weren't something that I was used to having with Taylor. Little arguments once in a while where we glared at each other for an hour or two, sure. A few occasions when one of us needed to get out of the house for a little bit, of course. But I had never, ever been so scared that Taylor was more mad at me than I knew how to fix. We had never spent so long apart because of a fight.

"I need to know if I can stay with you or not," he said. And he was so serious, his eyes going back and forth between mine while I stared at him. Had he really just said that, suggested that he would leave me? Could leave me?

"I..." I trailed off, staring at him. How was I supposed to answer that? "I want to have a family with you, Tay, I really do but...what if we can't do it? What if the requirements and...what if we can't do it?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, rubbing his thumbs over my cheeks to wipe the tears away that were still falling.

"You said that it's something you need," I said, clutching his hands between mine. "I'm not going to...if you really feel that way then who am I to say you can't do it?"

"But you have to want it too, Zac. You have to...I want us to have a family. Do you understand that?"

"I want to have a family with you," I said. "I really, really do, I promise. But what if it doesn't work out? What if you can't adopt? What if...I don't know, it just doesn't work? We're over, then? What? I don't understand."

"I..." he trailed off, rubbing his thumb over the top of my hand and glancing at our mother. She was watching us very carefully, as if she thought we might throw punches or something if she weren't there to keep an eye out. "Do you think, maybe, we could have...some privacy?" he asked.

She looked startled. I think that she hadn't realized what the two of us were even having a conversation about, had probably zoned out or something. "Of course, sorry," she said, standing up and hurrying out of the room. I heard her say something to Isaac and Tabitha in the living room and then the volume on the television got louder.

"Zac, this is something that we need to research, you know? We need to find out all of the information that there is and then sit down and talk about it. I don't know if it'll work out, but I'd like it to. If you want."

"And if I don't...then we're over, that's what you're saying?" I asked because it just seemed so unusually black and white for him. "I don't understand how...I mean..."

"I thought a lot last night," he said, sitting back down on his stool. "And I want to have kids, Zac. I'm not gonna feel like...like I'm who I'm supposed to be until I can do that."

"I said I want to have a family with you. I don't know what else you want me to say. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like it came out...I..." I wiped at my eyes again because I could not, for the life of me, stop crying. "I just want to know what...happens if the adopting thing doesn't work out."

Maybe I was being retarded, but it sure sounded like he was telling me that if he and I couldn't have a family together, no matter what the reasons, he was going to leave me to find someone that could. "Then we'd find somebody to, you know, have a kid for us."

"What if that didn't work out?"

"What do you want me to say, Zac?" he asked me quietly and probably looked just as miserable as I did but without the tears, which was weird.

"That you wouldn't leave me if it didn't work out!" I shrieked, sounding much more like him than myself. "What the hell do you think I want you to say?"

"I can't say that!" he shouted back, slamming his hands down on the counter. He took a deep breath and said, much quieter, "God, it's times like this that I wish we hadn't let ourselves...that we had just...been fucking normal."

"Oh, because you and any other guy would have such an easy time adopting a kid," I muttered, slouching in my stool and leaning onto the counter, resting my face back into my arms. "And like a girl you married couldn't possibly have some sort of problem and not be able to have kids."

"Well it'd be a lot easier than trying to have a kid with my fucking brother, don't you think?"

"What the hell, Taylor?" I asked, lifting my head up and looking at him. He just looked angry, now. "If you want this over, just fucking say it."

"I don't want this over," he muttered. "You keep saying I want it over and that's the last fucking thing I want. It makes me feel like you're looking for a way out, or something."

"Why would I be trying to look for a way out?"

"I don't know, I just feel that way," he said angrily, gripping the counter top between his fingers. "What are we doing, here?"

"You tell me," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "You're the one who's willing to give us up so easily."

"That is such bullshit and you know it!" he screamed, standing up and glaring down at me. I stood up, too, but his glare was still more effective than mine. "It's not easy, Zac. It's not. It's not what I want and it's not even what I'm thinking about! I just want to try and figure out if you and I can even have a family together. Why are you blowing this so out of proportion?"

"Because you basically said we'd be over if it didn't work out!"

He sat back down and buried his face into his arms and I stood there lamely, watching his shoulders as they started to shake. When I tried to touch him he shrugged me off and sniffled, rubbing his face across the fabric of his sweater. "We can't even get along just talking about having a kid," he whispered. "What would we be like if we had one?"

"We haven't exactly been talking much about actually having a kid," I said quietly, trying again to grip his shoulder and that time he let me.

"That's the problem," he sighed and I started trying to rub the knots out of his back. "How could we take care of a kid when we're always so focused on our own crap? This is probably the stupidest argument we've ever had and we haven't accomplished anything. How could we ever have a discussion about our kid, about what's good for it and what...we'd just butt heads every damn time because we have such different ideas."

"It'll probably be different once we actually have a kid to be talking about, Tay," I said, pulling his hair back from his face and kissing the top of his head.

"Maybe."

I sighed and let go of his hair. "So what now?" I asked, taking a few steps back and leaning against the kitchen sink.

"I don't know. You really want to have a family with me?" he asked, turning and looking a little too hopefully at me.

"Yeah, Tay, I do. We just would have to figure out how...to be ridiculously careful."

"Well, okay, then let's wait until Jill gets back to us with some information, okay?"

"I still need you to tell me what happens if it doesn't work out," I said slowly, staring down at the floor because I really, really didn't want to look at him when he said what I knew he was going to say.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Oh." The tears were there again and I just wanted to be alone someplace and cry alone and have him stop looking at me.

"Zac..." I heard him stand up from his stool but I couldn't really see anything.

"I just..." I paused, turning around to face the sink so that I could grab a napkin and press it against my eyes. "I need to go...someplace else," I somehow managed to blurt out, heading through the kitchen door and down the hall that would take me outside, out to my car.

"Zac, wait," I heard him say, much closer than I would have expected, but I couldn't look at him right then.

"Let me know when...when you know, okay?" I asked, and then I walked out of Isaac's house and got into my car as quickly as possible.

* * * * * * * * * *

I hadn't slept at all the night before. I couldn't sleep in our bed alone and I had been too miserable to sleep on the couch, so I had just sat there. Princess and I had had at least ten staring matches before I finally put her into the bathroom because looking at her made me upset. When my mom had called and told me to meet her at Isaac's house, I was more than happy to do as she'd said because I couldn't handle being away from him.

After that argument, though, I stumbled into the apartment and collapsed onto the bed in the extra bedroom and passed out. I don't even know how long I slept because I have no idea what time it was when I got back. All I know is that I woke up to my phone ringing at five in the evening and I answered it to be greeted by my father.

"Tay's a right mess," he said without waiting for me to say hello.

"Oh, and I'm just great, Dad," I mumbled, shoving my face into the pillow.

"I wish you'd come over here and sort this out," he said. "Your mother is upset, Taylor's been down in the studio making a racket all day, and everyone in this house is going a little bit crazy."

"And I suppose it's all my fault?" I asked. "He doesn't know if he'd leave me or not if we can't adopt a kid, Dad. How's that supposed to make me feel? I want to have a family with him, I do, but if it doesn't work out? That's not my fault or his fault and he's thinking about just walking away then? I don't even know how to comprehend that."

"Zac, you know how important it is to him to ha-"

"If you and mom hadn't been able to have kids, if she hadn't been able to do it, would you have left her?"

"No, of course not," he defended, sounding horrified.

"It's kind of the same thing."

"Do you think he'd really do it?"

"How should I know if he doesn't?" I asked, finally pulling myself up off the bed and stumbling my way to the kitchen. Princess was sitting in the middle of the living room looking rather sad and I felt kind of bad for shoving her into the bathroom earlier.

"Maybe he was just still upset about what you said to him on your way home, Zac. That was a little out of line."

"I know it was out of line," I told him, picking the kitten up and taking her with me while I filled up her food and water bowls. "But I was drunk and I didn't mean it like it sounded and he knows that, now. It was stupid of me to say, right, I get that. But he's not exactly the kind of person to hold a grudge."

"So you really think that he might break things off between the two of you if you can't adopt a kid?"

"I don't know," I said. "If he doesn't know, either, then I guess that...yeah, he might."

"But if you can adopt one, then there's n-"

"Dad, if he's willing to leave me because of something that we can't help, I can't have a family with him. What kind of family has...ultimatums like that?"

He sighed into the receiver and I could picture him rubbing his face with his other hand and looking worried. "Alright, Zac, I'm gonna go speak with him and either he or I will call you back, okay?"

"Sure thing."

NEXT