Work Text:
"So you boys just have a look through this stuff, and anything you don't want, we can take down to the Goodwill, ok?" Karin said, as Gus tucked baby Bianca into her car seat, Lars' blanket securely cosied around her.
The yard was full of Dad's junk from the attic, crates and crumbling cardboard boxes, old gym gear, trophies. Casey tilted his head towards a stack of records, and began rifling through, but Lars just looked at the labyrinth of stuff. As the car pulled out of the driveway Karin called, "Maybe there's things to decorate the garage with!" and with a puff of dust and noise they were gone.
"It's fine as is." grumbled Lars. Casey smiled and huffed a laugh through his nose. Lars sighed, and began picking his way through the maze of clutter.
Most of it he didn't care about - not the trophies or the sports gear. Other things jangled at him uncomfortably - the rolled up rug from his father's study with the colour that reminded Lars of sick, and a smell not much better - remembering it under his five-year-old feet one night, before he started to just quietly take care of himself whenever he woke up sad or queasy.
"I don't know why they don't just get rid of it all!" He exclaimed, louder than he meant to, flapping his arms down in frustration. He span on his heel. Casey looked up, startled. He was sitting amid a pile of vinyls, a neat stack to his side, gloved hands holding one in his lap carefully.
Lars blinked, then stepped over an old suitcase to join him, looking down in the crisp September air.
"Do you want those, Casey?"
Casey tapped lightly on the cardboard sleeve. "If it's ok." He angled his head towards the garage. "I don't want to be too messy."
"No, don't be silly," Lars smiled. "I'll help you look for more."
Leaves swam hazily in the air. The sunlight was slanted, the way it gets in autumn, like it's peeking in through the banisters on a party, after it's been told its time to go to bed. Lars investigated, and looking back at Driver, he began to see the piles of junk in a different light.
A small pile of objects started to grow next to Casey. He wasn't really aware of it, absorbed in first the vinyls he'd found so far, and then in old comics and nat geos and even a stack of old auto mags. The pages whispered as he turned them, the yard still smelled fresh and green despite the cold ground starting to numb his ass, and he felt quietly content in the way he'd been feeling more and more over the last few months.
He felt Lars plop down next to him, thigh nudging against his own, and it felt warm and solid. Then Lars cleared his throat and made a little distance between them. Casey wanted to yank him back.
"So I found more records, here, you can take any, I don't mind," Lars said as Casey smiled at him. He was just so...Nice, placing the records neatly in front of Driver's crossed legs, chattering away, and Casey realised with a painful twist in his chest that the whole pile of bric-a-brac had been picked out for him.
"I got these mugs because they have matching ducks on them and I don't have any matching mugs, and then we can match too? I can use the blue one, and you can use the green one?"
Casey nodded.
"Then I grabbed this blanket because you don't wear shirts when you sleep and you look cold in the morning sometimes. Here's a rug that we can put down where you do your exercises because the floor is really hard there and you might get bruised. But it's not the orange one, it's the dark blue one, we don't want the orange one."
Casey shook his head, "No". He was feeling...a little overwhelmed. Lars did this sometimes, making decisions for the both of them, included Casey in the "we" that meant "I", strictly speaking, but it wasn't rudeness or self-absorption. It was like at some point during the six months Driver had been staying, the bubble of Lars had extended over him like sinking into a warm tub. He could float, let Lars make the decisions, knowing if he needed to say anything he'd be listened to without question, even if he was terse and didn't (couldn't, sometimes) explain the whys.
"Then I saw you had those magazines so I thought we could put them in this, and the records too," - patting a wooden bookshelf that lay on it's back next to them - "If I move the armoire there should be room next to the window and then we can put some chairs in the sunlight and read together, does that sound nice?"
Driver thought it sounded nicer than he could bear. His throat was all raw. He tried to say "Yes," but it came out weird. But Lars nodded in satisfaction anyway.
"Now, this other thing, it's a surprise," he grinned impishly, propelling to his feet, stretching out a hand to pull Casey up, but quickly pulling it back in. Then he extended his arm out instead, fist clenched, and Casey hooked a gloved hand around it and lightly rose up. To his surprise, Lars covered it with his other palm, and he didn't let go as he led Driver through the labyrinth.
"What a gentleman," Casey said quietly, smiling across at him, and Lars flushed and dipped his head with a grin.
They came to a stop by a table with something covered by some old curtains. It was kind of box-shaped, Casey thought, the covered something.
"Ok, I don't know if it works or not, but you're so clever with machines that I thought, maybe it'll probably work, if...?" Lars trailed off, eyes glancing around the yard, settling on the box, then at Driver's hand in his, back at the box, yard again.
Casey huffed a chuckle and stepped forward to put the man out of his misery. His heart was still beating a bit odd in his chest. He had to lean forward awkwardly because Lars still hadn't let go of his arm, and Casey wasn't about to pull it away.
Driver made a weird sound with his lips and tongue that Lars took a moment to recognise as a drum roll. His (long, elegant, leather-clad) fingers settled on the worn fabric then grasped it in a twist, pulling it slowly down to reveal...
"A record player!" Lars burst out. We can put it by the shelf with the records and chairs and books."
Casey's jaw worked. He swallowed a few times, then stepped back and layered his hand on top of Lars's, on top of his own hand, on top of Lars' warm soft sweater sleeve. "A hand sandwich," he said out loud, and felt like a fucking idiot.
Lars laughed like it was the best thing he'd ever heard.
"You're funny, you're so funny Casey." He beamed, and his smile felt just like the slanting sunlight. "Did you want anything else?"
"You." Driver thought. Out loud he said "what about something for you?"
"Oh, I don't really want anything. Except..I guess it feels nice to give people presents. So if you wanted to give me a present, that would be ok."
"Like, I pick you something you'd like?"
"Yes Casey, that's what a present is," Lars laughed, and Driver didn't mind, because it sounded so fond that he thought he'd make a fool of himself forever just to make Lars laugh at him like that.
Looking at the corridors of junk he felt pretty lost. He remembered a kitchen and a boy and a toothpick, because the boy had been looking at Driver in a way that suggested he wanted to imitate him, like Driver had with older boys at the corner store, and for a short period of time that hadn't felt like a bad thing. But he didn't want Lars to be anyone but Lars, so what would Lars like?
Lars watched Casey stalk through the junk maze. Casey looked pretty serious. Lars bounced up and down on his heels and hummed a little.
"Ok." Driver said, and pushed something into Lars' hands without any other fanfare.
"For me?" Lars beamed.
Driver nodded tersely, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets.
Lars flipped over the rectangle. It was an old needlework, no glass in the frame, so Lars could stroke gently over the dense cross stitch. The picture was kinda silly, he realised with delight, two fluffy dogs in an old motor car with the roof off, one wearing goggles and driving, the other leaning out the window with it's tongue flapping in the wind. Underneath, neatly-stitched cursive said "Sunday Driving".
"I love it!" Lars yelled, and a huge grin cracked across Casey's face. He nudged in close next to Lars, arms pressing gently the whole way from wrist to shoulder.
"Yeah? It's an ok present?"
"Of course, silly." Lars laughed, and pressed back. "It's us."