Work Text:
.01
I AM GAY AND I HAVE TAKEN A VOW OF SILENCE, Dwayne wrote, and Mom asked: "But why?" while Dad just looked annoyed, so he added: UNTIL GAY MARRIAGE HAS BEEN LEGALIZED, which was pretty good, if he did say so himself.
It definitely sounded nicer than 'because I don't want to talk about it to you people'.
"But, honey," Mom said, "didn't they already do that?" which was unfairly clever of her, although Dwayne supposed he should perhaps have checked that himself.
Happily, then Olive asked: "You're going to get married? To whom? Can I be a bridesmaid and wear a pretty dress? Can I?" and Dwayne would have written 'eventually, I hope', 'I don't know yet', 'yes, probably' and 'I already told you', except that those were a lot of words and even after nine months of practice, he'd never been able to write at the speed Olive talked.
In the end, he wrote NOT EVERYWHERE to Mom's question, which was true.
"Can it be a pink dress?" Olive asked. "I would love to wear a pink dress. Pink is my favorite color."
"Have you talked to your Uncle Frank about this?" Mom asked, and Dwayne would have shaken his head - no writing necessary for that one, except that Dad looked super annoyed at the mentioning of Uncle Frank, so instead he wrote I'M GOING TO LATER and she nodded, as if that made everything all right. Perhaps it would. It had been years since Uncle Frank had tried to kill himself, after all.
"If you've taken a vow of silence, how can you ask someone to marry you? Is it okay to kiss when you're not allowed to talk? Is he pretty? Does he have a sister?" Olive asked.
.02
"I'm gay," Dwayne said.
The dog tags had felt cold against his chest only seconds ago - now, they just felt hard and a little sharp as they pressed into his skin. He imagined pulling at them until they came loose; he still worked out regularly, so he probably had the strength for it, even if it would likely leave a bruise.
"Me, too," the other guy said, kissing him and laughing softly, breathlessly, and Dwayne thought: they're still not going to let me be a fighter pilot because I'm fucking color blind but it didn't hurt as much anymore as it used to, and then he stopped thinking and he was flying, flying.
.03
"I knew it," Dad said, and glowered at Uncle Frank, who looked back in that serene way that got Dad worked up like nothing else, because the one thing Dad handled worse than people who didn't meet his ideal of being winners were people who came right out and said that they couldn't care less that they didn't. "This is all your fault, Frank."
Mom looked at Dwayne instead, which probably said something quite profound about the difference between her and Dad.
"It's not like cooties, Richard," Uncle Frank said. "I'm not contagious."
"You - " Dad sputtered, and then Uncle Frank said: "Any feelings you have in that area are entirely on you, Richard - I don't accept any responsibility for those," and that pretty much shut Dad up right there and then, and Dwayne thought ew, even though he supposed he should be more or less OK with it, considering - assuming it was even true, of course. It probably wasn't.
"Richard, shut up," Mom said. "And Frank, stop needling him."
"It's no big deal, right?" Dwayne said, because he still liked it when Mom put her foot down with people other than himself, and he couldn't think of anything he could say that was more likely to get that to happen again, except that then Olive asked: "How can Uncle Frank have cooties? He's not a boy," and Uncle Frank asked: "Does that mean I'm a girl?" and Olive giggled the way girls did.
"You act like one, sure enough," Dad said, which was unfair.
"Only with the right kind of guy," Uncle Frank said, which should be ew! again, except that Uncle Frank was okay - if Dwayne asked him nicely, he'd probably lend him some porn, provided he swore not to tell Mom.
"Richard!" Mom said, sharply. "Frank!"
"He started it," Uncle Frank said.
.04
"Honey, I think your girlfriend is very nice," Mom said, doing the dishes, and Dwayne said, "Actually, he's my boyfriend," half-expecting her to drop a plate or something, the way it would have happened in the movies.
Instead, she said, "Oh, good. Because those were some really hairy legs I saw under the table - I wondered if maybe she was a werewolf or something," and Dwayne said, "Mom!" because seriously, and then she leaned over and kissed him on the forehead like he was ten or something and said, "Whatever turns you on, sweetie," which was super embarrassing.
Kind of awesome, but still super embarrassing.
.05
"It's a - " Uncle Frank said, and Dwayne said, "My room," because it was.
Granted, the word 'room' might be a bit of an exaggeration. It tended to give people rather a lot of expectations, all of which would turn out to be wrong.
"And that would be - " Uncle Frank said, staring, and Dwayne wondered if he should feel offended or jealous or something along those lines.
"My boyfriend," he said, simply, watching the way Uncle Frank didn't stop looking - if anything, the staring got a bit more focused, a bit more 'would I hit that? is that ass good enough for my nephew to be hitting that?' instead of merely appreciative, just a gay guy checking out a guy's naked ass because it was right there.
"Huh," Uncle Frank said, and then, since he was, at heart, a nice guy: "You want me to tell your mother?"
"I think she knows," Dwayne said, which wasn't entirely true. He hoped, but he wasn't sure.
It didn't help, he thought, that she'd married Dad; it made him continually underestimate how clever she was, and then, when he thought she was smart, she'd prove him wrong.
"Your mother's a smart woman," Uncle Frank said, nodding. "I'll probably be giving her a call later on today. Just, you know, to stay in touch."
If that was a dig at Dwayne's lack of calling home, it was subtle enough to ignore it.
"Yeah," Dwayne said. "Thanks."
"Are you sure you're not supposed to store brooms in there instead of people?" Uncle Frank asked, grinning, and Dwayne considered mentioning he'd bumped his head pretty badly getting a blow job last night, then decided not to, because he didn't want Mom to call and give him another lecture on the meaning and benefits of safe sex.