Entry tags:

happiness is

Chapter Twenty-Two - Bye Bye Bye

Plaything

Title: Bye Bye Bye (22/??)
Author: tumbling_down
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2200
Genre: Hancest



Zac

I stared up at him, watched as his eyes searched mine until I was sure, positive that he meant what he'd said. "Please don't leave," I said in a whisper, wrapping my arms around his waist and pulling him down into a hug. "Please, please, please."

His whole body relaxed into me after I'd said it and I felt his face on my neck, hot and wet from the tears he was still crying. "God, I love you so much," I told him, burying my fingers into his hair. "And I want to have a family with you, Tay, I really, really do."

He sniffled and returned my ridiculously tight embrace, his hands gripping my t-shirt so hard that I thought it might rip. "Are you sure? Because if you don't, it's okay, I'll...I'll be okay, I just need you."

I slid my hands to either side of his face and lifted him up a little so that I could look at him, make him know that I was being honest. "I do, I promise. I want to find out all of the information about it and I want you to adopt a little boy or girl or both, I don't fucking care, and I want to have a family with you." He leaned down and kissed me hard, adjusting himself so that our hips were pressed together. "Nothing would make me happier," I told him once we'd separated.

"I don't want to fight with you ever again," he mumbled, resting his head on my chest.

"Well...we can't promise that that won't happen, Tay," I said, running my fingers through his hair slowly, smoothing out the mess that it had become since he obviously hadn't showered or brushed it. "But we could try to work on being a little bit more communicative."

"Remember how we used to talk before we went to bed?" He asked. "Like, we'd talk about things that we'd done during the day and things we thought about?"

"Mmhmm." That had taken place for the first five months we had lived in the apartment together. Our lives were still fairly separate at that time and it took us a little while to adjust into a cohesive unit, so we spent a lot of time telling each other exactly what was going on. It had been nice, actually, slowly falling asleep to his voice while he told me about the bar that he had gone to with some friends, or some other thing that he had done when I wasn't with him. Over time, however, we had ended up becoming rather inseparable and no longer had that need.

"Well, maybe we could start doing that again," he said. "Just talk about...what we're thinking, more, you know? I think we almost expect each other to be able to just know what's going on in our heads, but we obviously can't do that."

"I think we should also try to spend a little more time apart," I told him, even though I hated the idea. Seriously, though? There was no other explanation for how often we were arguing. "Maybe hang out with our friends on our own, sometimes, or just...kind of do our own things."

"So...are we okay?" he asked, lifting his head back up to look down at me.

"I think so," I said, wiping the last traces of tears from his cheeks. "What kind of flowers did you get me?"

"Asiatic lilies," he said. "Since you hate roses so much."

"I don't hate roses. I just think they're overrated. Lilies are nice."

"Not just any lilies. Asiatic lilies. They're special," he informed me, lifting himself up so that he was sitting on my stomach with his legs on either side of me.

"Well, in that case, then we're okay," I laughed, reaching up to rub at his neck. "I missed you," I said after a moment.

"I think we need to stop running away from each other when we fight," he said, slipping his hands beneath my t-shirt and moving his fingers up onto my chest. My breath kind of hitched in my throat as I watched him. "It makes me want you so, so bad, and I'm starting to think it's not very healthy."

* * * * * * * * * *

After we'd made up a couple times, we took a shower, and then I started on a very late dinner for us because I knew he probably hadn't eaten in quite a while. As I was cooking some shrimp, the phone rang and Taylor answered it, hopping up onto his bar stool with Princess clutched under one of his arms. "Hey Jill," he said happily into the receiver. "What's up?"

I half listened to his side of the conversation while he got out a pen and paper to jot down whatever she was talking to him about. I wasn't really one to listen in on what he was talking to other people about, so I tried not to listen too much, but he was only a few feet away. Towards the end of their conversation, I heard him repeat the word 'house' at least ten times. He hung up and I turned to him with my eyebrows raised. "What's up?"

"Why don't you finish dinner and then we'll talk?" he asked with a grin, standing up and going to the cabinet so he could pull out some plates.

I finished the rice and shrimp and salad and put them onto plates for us while he poured glasses of wine and then I sat down and looked at him expectantly. "So..."

"Well, it's mostly good news," he told me, picking up his fork and poking at his rice. "She said that one of us shouldn't really have a problem adopting a baby, no matter what race it is, but that we should definitely take the already-born route. She said that there's too many issues with trying to adopt a baby from someone who hasn't given birth yet. Um..."

He paused to look down at the piece of paper he had scribbled a bunch of crap on - including an extremely ridiculous sketch of a horse, I think - and I cleared my throat and nodded my head at his plate. "I know you're excited, but you gotta eat."

He smiled sheepishly at me and took a few bites of his food before he continued. "The best thing she said was that she talked to her friend that works for social services, who actually does the home visits for adoption and shit, right?"

"Mmhmm..."

"And she asked her what she would think if she were doing a homestudy and the prospective parent was a single male, but he lived with his brother."

"And I imagine that she had a good response if it's the best thing?" I asked with a laugh, watching him stare down a forkful of rice before putting it into his mouth and chewing.

"Well," he said, picking up the piece of paper and staring at it. "Apparently this person feels that a home like that, where the family is so close, would be a great place for a child to be raised."

"Seriously?" I asked because, honestly, that had been my biggest fear, having to rent another apartment for me to pretend I lived in. "That seems so...unrealistic."

"Yeah, but, these kids are coming from, you know, broken homes and shit, so seeing like...a family that's really tight and loving is a really positive thing, I guess? I dunno. Whatever, that just makes me happy that we don't have to, like, dick around with trying to make it look like we live separately."

He was seriously talking a mile a minute and it was insanely adorable, but he was not eating his dinner. "Eat," I reminded him and he took another few bites.

"The only problem is that Jill says that where you live is really important," he told me, making a point of taking a really big bite of shrimp and rice together. "She said that she thinks if we're really serious about this, that we should consider getting a house in the suburbs."

"A house?"

I sounded skeptical, I'm sure, but we had spent such a long time finding the apartment. It was literally perfect for us and it had been a gift from Taylor to me when I had turned eighteen and had been able to move out. I didn't like the idea of giving it up at all. "Is it...I mean, do we..."

He gripped my hand in his tightly. "I know," he said, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. "I love this place, too, but honestly? How could we bring a kid up here? It's the perfect size for you and me, but if we have a kid it's kind of small. We wouldn't have an extra bedroom anymore, your computer would have no place to go..."

I sighed and took a few more bites of food, watching him do the same before I gave his hand a squeeze. Really, giving up the apartment so that he could have something that he so desperately wanted - so that we could have something that would truly complete our lives...that wasn't going to destroy anything. "So...when do you want to start looking, then?"

* * * * * * * * * *

We sat in the living room after we had done the dishes and agreed to start house hunting on Wednesday. I popped 13 Going on 30 into the DVD player (because Taylor was seriously obsessed with the movie) and he rested against me when I wrapped my arms around his stomach. "Do you really think we can do it?" he asked after a few minutes.

I glanced at him but he was still staring at the television screen. "What do you mean?"

"Do you think that we can bring up our own kid? Like, give it everything that it needs and...you know, just be good parents in general?"

"I think so, yeah," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "I don't see why not."

"Do you...I mean, if we get to decide, would you want a girl or a boy?"

"Honestly?" I asked because I knew exactly what his answer was going to be.

"Yeah."

"I'd want a boy," I said and then he did turn to look at me with an odd expression. "What?"

"Really? A boy?"

"Yeah."

"How come?"

"Um...I dunno," I shrugged. "Maybe cause we've gotten to watch Zoe and Tabitha grow up? Just...okay, I know we're both gay but we're still guys, you know? I still like to play basketball and shoot zombies in video games and fix my car."

"But...I like to, you know, knit," he laughed, blushing a little bit when he said it.

"Yeah, but think about if you brought up a boy, how open minded he would be and, you know, sensitive and shit. There's not enough nice guys in the world and I can't imagine that we'd bring up a boy who would, like, get his rocks off on raping people or being abusive or not understanding or something."

He kissed my jaw and leaned into me a little closer, stuffing his face against my neck. "You make a fantastic argument."

"Maybe we should just get a boy and a girl," I laughed. "You can knit with our daughter and I can play football with our son."

"And we can raise them to be cliches," he said with a groan. "That's exactly what we want."

"Well, no, because...you can knit with our son, too, and I can play football with our daughter. They'd be very well rounded and wouldn't understand the meaning of a stereotype."

"Think so?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Would you really want to adopt two kids?"

"Um...yeah, I don't see why not," I shrugged.

"And what would you want to name them?" he asked me, grabbing the remote and pausing the movie. "I always wanted to name a kid Sennet."

I pushed him away from me and stared at him. "What? Isn't that like, a fish or something?"

He blinked at me for a minute before laughing and shrugging his shoulders. "I don't know, I just think it sounds cool. We could name our daughter Sennet and our son Calvin."

"Calvin," I said skeptically, pulling his shirt up a little so that I could see the waistband of his underwear which plainly said "CALVIN KLEIN" in big, black letters.

"It's a nice name!" he defended with a pout, pulling his shirt back down.

I laughed and pulled him back against me, kissing the top of his head. "I love you even though you're crazy," I said. "But I'm not letting you name our children Sennet and Calvin, no matter how blind I am to your insanity."

"Sennet is my favorite girl name ever," he defended. "I am so not backing down on that."

I rolled my eyes and took the remote back from him and pressed play. "Let's talk about it in the morning, okay?"

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