Work Text:
Now, if anyone asked, Aaron Dallas would tell you that he had no idea why he'd moved to Portland, Oregon after his disastrous attempt at a relationship with Steven Wakefield.
Or, if you caught him on a night in which he was feeling a bit more snarky, he might have said that he'd fled to Oregon to escape the Wakefield curse that seemed to infect Sweet Valley at every turn - even when half of the Wakefield twins lived 3000 miles away. It was a good lie, and one that made him look sympathetic in the wake of his ex-boyfriend falling into bed with another man.
Though, Aaron supposed, that was what he deserved, wasn't it? Hadn't he been "the other man" in Cara and Steven's relationship? His mother's cheating genes were alive and well in him, it seemed. He wondered, in his worse nights, if that meant he should finally forgive her for the way she'd destroyed their family.
But the truth was... he moved to Oregon purely out of nostalgia. The first man Aaron had ever fallen in love with had been from Oregon, though Aaron had no idea where he was now. When it came time to start a new life, moving towards the world that had given Aaron the life-altering hunk of human perfection known as Jeffrey French seemed like the logical step.
So he moved away from Sweet Valley and towards a part of his past that he'd never gotten over - a part that definitely did not involve Steven Wakefield.
Six months later, Aaron turned around in the middle of the Portland Pride Parade and almost ran into a pair of very familiar green eyes.
"Jeffrey?"
"Aaron?"
Jeffrey's eyes crinkled around the edges these days, because they'd all aged - but just like that, Aaron felt the same as he had back in high school, trying to calm his raging boner while they practiced fucking soccer drills.
"What are you doing in Portland?" Jeffrey asked. "The last I heard you were still stuck in Sweet Valley."
Ah dear sweet Jeffrey who had fled as California as soon as he got the chance. Honestly, he'd always been smarter than Aaron.
"Well, you know, it appears the Wakefield curse also extends to the big brother..." Aaron said, taking delighted note of the way Jeffrey's shirt clung to muscles that whispered to Aaron that he could still play soccer, if he wanted to - and oh, what those leg muscles were saying was another thing all together.
"Sounds like a long story," Jeffrey said, his voice rich with sympathy. "I'd definitely love to hear it. Maybe we could get dinner sometime and you could tell it to me.'
"I'd like that," Aaron answered.
The statement's subtlety was a glaring understatement, standing out amid the glitter and the rainbows. But it was a statement Aaron had been looking forward to for more than a decade.
As far as curses went, maybe the Wakefield one would work out well for him after all.