Work Text:
1.
“This floor is laminate,” Wes says.
*
2.
“This wallpaper is yellowing,” Wes says.
“The house has not been redecorated prior to being put on the market,” the realtor tells him. “It was constructed in the seventies, and the heirs have no interest in putting the work in themselves. All furnishings and decorations are contemporary, and the need to do some updating is reflected in the price.”
“Hmm.”
“You’d never be happy with anybody else’s wallpaper anyway,” Travis says.
“Untrue,” Wes lies.
“Sure, babe,” Travis says, insincere. Wes scowls at the blotchy blue pattern.
“Are those flowers?” he asks.
“Yes,” the realtor says uncertainly.
“I don’t like flowers.”
“Wes doesn’t like babies or Santa Claus, either,” Travis says. “Ignore him.”
The realtor appears perfectly happy to do so. “Do you have any questions, Travis?”
“What’s the cubic measurement of this room, Daphne?”
Daphne is baffled.
“Do you mean square footage?” Wes asks.
“I don’t know,” Travis says. “Do I mean square footage, Daphne?”
“I think you might,” she says, turning pink under the force of Travis’ smile. “It’s sixteen and three-quarters by twenty-three, and there’s a utility room just through—“
“Why did I even bring you?” Wes asks rhetorically. “This isn’t even going to be your house. And why is the realtor answering your questions? You don’t even have real questions.”
“So you don’t want to know the square footage of your new home right down to the quarter?”
“Not the point,” Wes says, because of course he does.
“You want to know it down to the quarter inch,” Travis says firmly. He turns to Daphne. “And he brought me because he will not feel adequate as a provider if his boyfriend does not like the home he purchases. Or at least that’s what our therapist told me. I just think he’s co-dependent.”
Wes is getting used to this, almost becoming inured to it, though the sooner that happens the better, so he very carefully does not bury his head in his hands, and instead takes advantage of the realtor’s Travis-induced distraction to work carefully at the wallpaper where it is peeling away from the wall, curling unhappily away from the plaster. Wes is always suspicious of a wallpaper’s unhappiness. He pulls gently, easing it away from the embrace of forty-year-old paste and into his hands.
“—really think this could be something,” Travis is saying to the nodding realtor. “Wes could stay with the contemporary thing, put in a disco ball and a swing—he wouldn’t, but he could—“
“Do you have children?” the realtor asks hopefully.
“Not that kind of swing—“ Travis is saying when Wes points at the revealed wall and furiously hisses, “Damp!”
That puts an end to that conversation, and nobody is more relieved than Wes, although the realtor comes a close second.
On the way out, Travis says, “I think those were peacocks on the wallpaper anyway, and I know how you feel about birds indoors.”
“That’s why I brought you along,” Wes says.
Co-dependent provider indeed.
*
3.
The third house they visit doesn’t have a garden, just a small concrete entryway between the gate and the front door with its entablature, so Wes knows he isn’t going to go for it as soon as they pull up, but Travis makes him go inside anyway.
Wes walks directly through the rooms to the back of the house, where he looks out the multi-pane window at the small back area. It’s about the same size as the front, and although it does have grass, that does not make it a garden.
“No,” Wes says.
“Mm,” Travis says, in what Wes thinks might actually be agreement. “Your rage would get scary again if you didn’t have a lawn to mow.”
Wes doesn’t dignify that with an answer. When he turns around he almost bumps into the realtor, but she’s checking her phone, and doesn’t even look up.
She and Travis trail him back through the ground floor.
“This is quite large,” Wes says.
“Yes,” the realtor says, voice a little indolent, eyes still on the lit-up screen of her phone. “That’s the beauty of a Georgian recreation like this. You don’t need a mansion to get a little breathing space.”
“I’m not sure why anybody would want to make a new house look like this,” Travis says critically.
“People get very attached to architectural styles, and if they can’t buy the original sometimes they make do.”
“This is not accurate,” Wes says, looking at the glass chandelier with its beautiful, beckoning arms.
“I’m led to believe the previous owners consulted with the Georgian society, and every particular is—“
“This is accurate as compared to Georgian edifices in England,” Wes explains, “but when the style made the leap over here it was simplified of necessity. This is too ornate for the interiors that would have been constructed in America.”
“Ah,” the realtor says, judging him.
“Are you attached to the Georgian style, Wes?” Travis asks.
“No,” Wes says truthfully, though he could become so.
The mouldings on the ceiling are too intricate for accuracy also, but Wes would be willing to sacrifice accuracy for loveliness.
“Is that fireplace functional?” he asks, peering behind the firescreen with its trompe l’oeil.
“Yes,” the realtor says. “So elegant, too.”
“Is that a Chippendale?”
“Where?” Travis asks eagerly.
“The chair,” Wes tells him.
“Oh,” Travis says, disappointed.
“No expense has been spared,” the realtor says. “And Georgian houses were not common on the West Coast, as you surely know. You’d do better to relocate to New England if you were searching for something like this.”
Wes’ eye traces the raised circles carved into the border of the panelling on the wall; they’re continued onto the door that leads to the next room, though he thinks he remembers triangles on the other side of the wood. When he pulls open the door, he sees he was correct, and that they are reflected in the border as well, one perfect little detail that breaks his heart.
“This house is taunting me,” he says. “We need to leave!”
“But you’re into it!” Travis protests, surprised.
“It has no garden!” he says in something that is definitively not a wail, and refuses to sulk for the rest of the day.
*
4.
Two days later, they’re in the middle of group when Dr Ryan asks Wes how the house-hunting is going and Travis starts laughing loudly.
“Shut up,” Wes says, and Travis does, pressing his lips together and mewling to choke the laughter down. His lips are moving constantly to prevent them from stretching into a grin, and the merriment releases itself through the crinkles around his eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake.”
“I have to tell her,” Travis says. “It’s too good.”
Wes looks away, into the corner where chairs are stacked haphazardly, although some were left strewn around by whatever group had the room last. One of the chairs has a sign taped to the back. It says kick me; Wes sometimes thinks they got lucky with Dr Ryan.
“So Daphne is taking us to all these nice places,” Travis starts.
“Very few of these places have been nice, and none have been suitable,” Wes clarifies.
“Are you still going with him, Travis?” Dakota asks.
“Yes,” Travis says, and Dr Ryan hmms.
Bitter experience has taught Wes to ignore all such sounds, but Travis never learns.
“What?” he asks. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, nothing,” Dr Ryan says. “Have you liked any of the places you’ve seen, Travis?”
“Not really,” Travis says at the same time as Wes tells her, “Travis likes everything. He has no discernment.”
“That’s why I’m dating you,” Travis agrees. “And anyway, it doesn’t really matter what I think, it isn’t my house.”
“Hmm,” Dr Ryan says. “Have you given any thought to the possibility—“
“No,” Wes interrupts. She frowns at him mildly. “No,” he insists, and she relents.
“I want to hear the story,” Rozelle says. “What did Wes do?”
“It’s a fixer-upper,” Travis says. “Daphne told us it was a fixer-upper. And Wes tells her he has no interest in that.”
“I have no interest in a fixer-upper,” Wes says loftily.
The group nods understandingly.
“But then he says it depends how much work needs to be done.”
“There’s always more than you think,” Mr Dumont says.
“You know that’s right,” Clyde mutters, and Travis forges ahead, probably hoping to avoid having to listen to the story about the contractor again.
“So we go through the place anyway, and Wes is going through this whole building with a fine-tooth comb, like, looking for any little thing that was wrong with it, and—“
Travis starts laughing again.
“There were many things wrong with it,” Wes offers, resigned.
“There were many things wrong with it,” Travis agrees. “And there’s something wrong with the electricity, so Wes decides to see if he can fix it, because if he can fix it in less than five minutes the place might still be worth buying.”
Everybody in the room who has ever owned a house is shaking their head in mute horror. Travis is laughing through his words.
“So he goes downstairs to the electricity—box.”
“Ah—“
“I don’t care what it’s called,” Travis says sharply. “And he goes, ‘green is ground’, and he fucks up all the lights.”
“Oh, dear,” Mrs Dumont says, concerned.
“Yeah. So we all head back upstairs, and Daphne is on the phone to an electrician when Wes goes into the bathroom to look for—“
“A nailclippers,” Wes says. “For the wires.”
“That none of us could see, because none of us had a flashlight, and that is how Wes cut his hand on the mirror in the bathroom.”
Travis holds up Wes’ hand as evidence. It has a band-aid. The band-aid is brightly coloured and says kapow! Travis bought Wes’ band-aids last.
“So he tries to rinse his hand off under the tap, but he forgets that Daphne told us the plumbing wasn’t functional.”
“The plumbing was functional,” Wes says gloomily.
“The water turns on like a geyser,” Travis tells them. “It just won’t turn off. So we’re standing there in the dark while Daphne’s on the phone outside—“
“She should have been paying attention,” Wes says. “It’s her job not to let people do things like that.”
“—and Wes shuts the bathroom door. He just shuts the bathroom door, and we’re trapped inside, and the water is rising, okay, I am afraid I am going to drown—“
“He knows how to swim,” Wes says.
“And it just keeps rising, and I am trying to find the window in the dark so that I can climb out—“
“Deserter.”
“And Daphne says, ‘What are you two doing in there?’”
“Because she has made some correct assumptions about Travis,” Wes tells them.
“Because she has made some unfortunately incorrect assumptions about Wes,” Travis tells them. Wes glares at him. “And she says, ‘Is there water on the floor?’”
“Oh, no,” Dakota says, thrilled.
“And she opens the door.” Travis pauses. “And then she says, ‘These shoes are Prada!’”
The group laughs.
“Her fault,” Wes says robustly.
“Then why did you send her flowers?”
“I suffer from baseless guilt.”
“You really don’t,” Travis says. “Right, Dr Ryan? He doesn’t, right?”
Dr Ryan’s lips are twitching.
“That’s really unprofessional,” Wes says, and she chuckles before getting herself back under control.
“So you haven’t yet spoken to Travis about the purpose of seeking out a home—“
“Have I ever told you about this cowboy who did our extension?” Clyde blessedly interrupts.
“You have, Clyde,” Dr Ryan says firmly, and changes the subject.
Sometimes she’s all right.
*
5.
Daphne looks extremely reluctant the next time she takes them on a viewing.
“I want to apologise again,” Wes tells her, but she just looks like she’s swallowed an egg and gives him a wide berth.
“Travis,” she says, in a more friendly fashion, but she still looks dubious, possibly merely because most women look at Travis like that eventually, but more specifically, probably because she thinks Travis is the kind of man who would screw his boyfriend in the bathroom at an open house whilst she was escorting them around the premises.
Wes hopes she never has to discover that she’s right.
“We’re looking at an apartment today,” she says brusquely, sounding stressed to her breaking point.
“I want a house,” Wes says. “An apartment is too small.”
“An apartment is not too small,” she says, and her voice is sickeningly sweet, but it’s okay: she’s faking it. “You are one person. A house is too big, and I’m sorry if your mind has yet to downscale from when you were married and probably thinking expansively, but even if you two ever did want to live together, this apartment would not be too small. And there’s a roof garden.”
“Okay,” Wes says, because he’s a little bit afraid she’s going to start crying tears of frustration and fury. “We’ll take a look.”
It’s not a bad choice for him, all told. It’s a brand-new two-bedroom, sizable enough, with muted paint on the walls and comfortable, classic furnishings. It’s a ten minute drive from work.
“This does not need any work,” Daphne says. “And if it ever should, the super’s nephew is a qualified electrician, and he will take care of it for you.”
“It’s not bad,” Wes says doubtfully.
“What would make it better?” Daphne asks. Her shoulders relax slightly, coming out of their tense hunch.
“I don’t know,” Wes says.
“Helpful.”
“The couch is brown,” Travis says.
“It’s beige. You gave me the impression that your partner would not be happy with furniture of anyone else’s choosing, but I picked an apartment furnished in a way I thought would suit him anyway.”
She looks at Wes questioningly. “It’s fine,” he says reluctantly.
“Try the faucets,” Travis says restlessly. “You saw what happened at the last place.”
Wes does not want to try the faucets, but stuck between Daphne’s glare and Travis’ beseeching eyes, he ducks into the bathroom purely to escape.
“The faucets are fine,” he says when he comes back out.
Travis mutters in dissatisfaction, and walks over to the wall to flip the light-switches on and off, squinting suspiciously at the fixtures.
His restless unhappiness is communicating itself to Wes, but he’s already checked the faucets, so he says, instead, “You hate it.”
“No,” Travis lies.
Wes walks over to the kitchen, checks the faucets there too. They’re fine.
“It’s too small,” Wes says.
“No,” Travis says. “It’s big enough.” He starts flipping the light-switches in the kitchen.
“What’s the problem?” Daphne asks impatiently.
“It’s a box in the sky!” Travis bursts out. “How can you want to live in a shoebox in the sky? I don’t care if you wear size twelves, this is still a shoebox! You can’t drive somewhere new, you can’t—“
“I’m not buying a trailer,” Wes says. “Or a houseboat.”
“I know you get seasick,” Travis allows.
“I want a home,” Wes says. “I want—“
“This?” Travis asks, shoulders shifting under his thin sweater, straining against some invisible restraint.
Wes doesn’t answer, because he can’t think of anything to say that won’t say far too much.
Travis looks disappointed, but Wes doesn’t know what to do to make that go away, and after a second, when Travis turns on Daphne, Wes moves from the tiled kitchen back into the living room area and drops to his knees beside the couch.
“This has no view!” Travis says, jabbing an accusatory finger at the window.
“This is not to my specifications at all,” Wes bites out. The carpet is not nailed down. “And it is entirely inappropriate for my needs.”
“If you’re willing to spend a little more there’s an empty unit four floors up,” she tells Wes, but he’s already scrambling back to his feet.
“I’m not willing to spend more on something that isn’t going to give me what I want,” he says.
Daphne’s gaze moves from Wes to Travis.
“Well why the hell didn’t you tell me that five viewings ago?” she asks despairingly, apropos of nothing, or so Wes tells himself.
“And this floor is laminate!” he finishes, vicious and triumphant.
*
+1.
“This is the last place I’m taking you to,” Daphne says firmly. “And I’m only doing this because a., I feel sorry for you, and b., I feel like I deserve a cheque for putting up with you.”
“Why would you feel sorry for Wes?” Travis asks, hackles rising.
“Settle down,” Daphne says before he can start in on her. “We’re here.”
“It’s a house,” Travis says, surly, but he gets out of the car without protest.
It’s a detached house, set far back from the street, quite a stretch of land between it and its nearest neighbour.
“Which you are going to come inside,” Daphne calls back over her shoulder, already moving quickly down the path to the porch.
“This is a nice lawn,” Wes says, cutting into Travis’ muttering.
Travis quirks a smile at him. “Big enough for you?”
“Depends how much you irritate me.”
Travis is looking happier when Daphne yells, “I don’t have to be here, and I don’t have all day!”
They catch up quickly.
“Two stories?” Wes asks.
“And a converted attic,” she says. “I’m not even going to ask why you feel you need all this room, but there’s plenty of it.”
“This looks recent.”
“Eight years old. The family is moving out of state for work. I’m not claiming there won’t be crayon on the walls, but it’s in pretty good condition.”
They’re inside the foyer now. It’s not exactly to Wes’ taste, but it could be. Travis is looking around blankly, arms hanging loose at his sides.
“Can we take a look around?” Wes asks, tracing a finger over the newel at the end of the banisters.
Daphne shrugs. “Knock yourselves out. I’ll be in the kitchen making some calls.”
“Thanks,” Wes says.
She vanishes, and he sticks his head into the rooms off the foyer, giving them a cursory glance. The living room looks fine, the bathroom is functional, and the coat closet—is a coat closet.
“I could hang my coats here,” Wes says.
“Mm,” Travis says.
Wes starts up the stairs, but when he realises Travis isn’t following him, he has to jog back down and grab Travis’ arm, pulling him along.
“There are too many bedrooms,” Travis says a few minutes later, breaking his silence.
“I like space,” Wes says.
“Mm,” Travis says, and Wes stops by the window in the master bedroom, looking down at the long garden out the back, green all the way down to the fence in the distance.
There’s a lonely swingset left behind, and he smiles helplessly. They could take that out, maybe. He kind of likes it, but he thinks Travis might not.
Travis comes up beside him, staring out too. Wes doesn’t know what he’s seeing.
“You could park the trailer out back,” he offers impulsively, “if you wanted.”
“What?” Travis asks. “Wouldn’t that lower the resale value or something?”
“Maybe,” Wes says, because it would, and he does care about that, but not enough. “But if it got you here I’d—“
“You want me living on your back lawn?” Travis asks sceptically.
“No,” Wes says, eyebrows rising helplessly. “I want you living in here.”
He feels Travis still beside him, the sudden absence of his constant, shifting movement.
“You want me living in here,” Travis repeats.
Wes turns to look at him, but Travis is still facing the window, looking at the reflection of his own surprised face.
“This can’t be a shock,” Wes says. It’s difficult to get out. “What did you think was happening?”
“You want me to live with you,” Travis says slowly.
“Dr Ryan pretty much flat out told you a week and a half ago.”
“I think I would remember that,” Travis says on an inhale, making the words sound gasped, frantic.
“But I’m not buying a houseboat, even if that’s what you’d—“
“That’s not what I want,” Travis tells him, but doesn’t volunteer what it is he does want.
“So I’m thinking this might work, right? You could keep the trailer out the back for a while, just while we were getting used to things—“
“I don’t want a trailer out the back.”
“—although if you ever actually used it we’d—oh.”
Travis is facing Wes now, and he looks amazed. There’s no reason for it, but it’s only fair, because that’s how Wes is feeling too.
“I don’t—you thought about this?”
Wes wants to speak, but he can’t. He isn’t capable of saying the things he thinks he should. He nods slowly, and it seems to be enough for Travis, whose face brightens.
“You want us to live together,” Travis says, disbelief still in his voice.
“Yes,” Wes says, moving closer.
“Here.”
“Say hello to our new bed,” Wes says, pouncing on Travis, sending him sprawling across the bare mattress.
His eyes are brilliant as he looks up at Wes. He’s smiling again.
“This is not our new bed,” Travis says. Wes would take issue with that, but his mouth is on Travis’ bared throat, and he has other things to occupy himself with.
“Mmm,” he says, a pleased hum, and drags his mouth down to the soft cotton of Travis’ sweater, sipping at skin along the way.
“Other people have slept in this bed,” Travis says, grin evident in his voice, and Wes freezes with his hands on Travis’ warm stomach. “Not a chance in hell you’re ever going to do anything in it.”
This is true, but Wes isn’t willing to concede ground quite yet, so he makes his way up to Travis’ mouth, paying a little harmless attention there, instead.
Travis’ mouth is giving in a way Wes is still getting used to, and sure in a way he’d only hoped for.
“We’re getting a new bed,” Travis murmurs, and when Wes is well on his way to forgetting why they aren’t doing anything else in this bed, Daphne walks in, reminding him. He’s a little relieved she’s interrupted them when he realises where Travis’ hands are.
She makes him sign the papers before she leaves so they can roll off the mattress onto the floorboards, continuing where they’d left off.
Wes doesn’t argue any of it.
end