Chapter Text
A phone call before dawn was rare. Christophe swung his feet over his bed, groggily stretched his arms toward the ceiling, then grumbled. Who ever was calling him better be dead, or just about so. After that thought he tried to remember which of his friends and family members were even still alive.
He wasn't fast enough to get to the corded phone downstairs, the one right above the coffee pot. He was on the last step when the ringing stopped.
Figuring any hopes of sleep were dashed, he tinkered with the pot in silence, checking to see if it needed a quick rinse with vinegar before his day started. He had plenty of time, so he might as well.
The phone rang again, right next to his ear as the coffee pot sat disassembled on his counter.
"Goddamn it, what is it?" He snapped, cradling the phone with his shoulder. He kept inspecting the coffee maker, then started to put it back together. It was clean enough, he decided as he waited for a response.
"Christophe?" A man's voice asked. "Christophe, I need a favor, a big one."
Christophe tried to decode the voice. Was it a work favor this person was looking for, or was it a friend hard up for cash? Sure he had cash to lend, but he wasn't eager to go be someone back up PI snoop through a rich person's life in some hellish far flung place.
"Christophe?"
"What's the favor, mother fucker?" Christophe asked, with just a hint of a snarl.
Before he could read the riot act of how he expected double time, and expenses, and for this shitty detective to kiss his boots and the ground he walked on for the next month for him to do it, the voice on the phone interrupted.
"I need you to take a child over the weekend," the man said. "Please. This is an emergency. I know you took my class last month. You passed the class and are licensed. I've spent 10 straight days sleeping at my office with this teenager, and I cannot do it another day. Just give me two days, if I can have two days off of work, then I can go back to trying to find a suitable home for him."
Ah, a switch in Christophe's head flipped, this was Gregory.
Gregory the social worker who was currently employed as a case manager and had either no interest in Christophe or was just dense as a piece of homemade bread. When Christophe asked if Gregory'd like to get a drink, all he could talk about was work. When Christophe made a Facebook page, just to friend Gregory, he was tagged in an advertisement for these classes.
The symbolism of Christophe showing up twice a week to a class taught by Gregory about fostering children was apparently also misinterpreted. But at least, for a month, they did get to spend two nights every week in close proximity. Sometimes they'd go to dinner afterwards, or just chat in the parking lot, but no matter how heavy handed Christophe's flirting happened to be, Gregory never caught on.
"Please," Gregory begged, "Phillip is a very sweet boy, and for reasons that are his own, he cannot go to the shelter in town. He's an Omega who keeps to himself; I promise he will not be a bother."
"So, when you need someone to watch an male Omega, they must also be a male Omega?" Christophe asked, eyeing the tin of ground coffee he kept on the counter. "So it has to be me?"
"We have a shortage of fosters," Gregory mumbled, "It's a shame, but you know how these things are. I can only send him with someone who is certified, and," he paused and Christophe's eyes rolled back into his head, "you're the only person I've managed to keep in the class for the entire month. My other fosters, the ones I inherited, their homes are full. Please, with hundreds and thousands on top."
Christophe was not sure what the hell that meant. Was that an American thing, or some English nonsense? It was too early for metaphors and idioms in his third language.
"So it has to be me?"
"Are you'll saying you'll do it? Oh, you are a lifesaver. This is splendid. I am sure, as a soldier," that is what Christophe had told Gregory his job was, even though he'd left it, "you understand how furiously you come to miss your own bed."
Christophe did not know where he had said he'd do it. To his understanding, there were no statements he had made that could have been warped into a yes. In the next few seconds he either could tell his newest crush that he would not be the good Samaritan that let him have a well deserved weekend off, or he could take a teenage boy into his charge.
A boy that was somehow too rebellious for a group home, which at least according to what Gregory had to say, was a fairly rowdy place.
"Does he have things?" Christophe sighed, longingly staring at his coffee mug from across the kitchen. He had been warned, in the certification, that sometimes children would show up with empty handed, carrying just the personal affects they were wearing.
"You do not have to be the one who gives him a wardrobe. He has enough for a weekend." Gregory seemed delighted. "This means so much to me, you do not know the half of it. I am not young enough to be sleeping in a desk chair and I'm sure Phillip will quite appreciate a nice firm bed."
Christophe did have a seldom used guest room with a twin bed he'd bought at some rummage sale. From time to time someone from work would be forced to make an overnight stop, and it was better to rest with a coworker with a full fridge than at a motel, eating pizza for the 4th time in a week.
"He can be a bit particular about his food, but he is a sweet well mannered boy," Gregory explained.
"Particular?" Christophe asked, growing increasingly bored. He was also starting to get agitated with himself for agreeing to this in the first place.
"It will be fine," Gregory soothed. "I'll drop him off at seven, and then I can pick him up after dinner on Sunday? You remember the rules right? No alcohol in the house, no unlocked weapons. He shouldn't be a problem to leave your kitchen block out, he's not like that, but no firearms. No drugs that aren't prescribed by your doctor, and no overnight visitors that are not certified."
"Are you certified?" Christophe asked, wondering where he'd stash his booze and marijuana for the next 48 hours.
"Of course I am certified," Gregory chuckled. "I taught the class."
"Then you can sleep over, or at least you can come over for dinner, right?"
Smooth, very smooth.
"You want to have me for dinner?" Gregory seemed touched and Christophe couldn't help but chuckle.
"If you're so exhausted from work, I might as well send you off to vacation with a good meal."
Would Gregory be as oblivious to the flirting as he always was? That was something Christophe could never accept. If he tried again, maybe he would understand. Maybe with enough effort, Gregory could see how enraptured Christophe was.
"That does sound lovely," Gregory admitted. "Is seven alright for dinner? I was planning to feed Phillip before the exchange, just to simplify things."
"It's two days," Christophe brushed it off, "what could possibly go wrong?"