Work Text:
“Hey, Rocky?”
<Yes, what, question?>
“Do eridians have like, decorative carapace lacquer? Or paint?”
<Yes, many many carapace lacquer. Change texture>
“...Could you make me some with colour? I'll get the pigments, don't worry about that, but-”
<Grace bone on inside of Grace body. Where put lacquer, question?>
“The little hard bits on the ends of my fingers”
<Ah. Yes. Good good. Rocky make>
He stares at the little pot of lacquer like it's threatening him specifically. It's a nice rich yellow, made with ochre pigments that he ground himself. Holding the bottle in his hand feels like a crime, even all these years later. It takes him back to being a teenager, watching the skirt that he paid for with hours of lawn mowing and yardwork in the summer heat be ripped from his body.
He stares at it, at this little container of yellow lacquer, his hand trembling around it. Some part of him still thinks it’s living in that sun-bleached house in Wyoming, signed up for every sport his high school offers against his will, sleeping in a room with no door because his father took it off the hinges.
The skirt was pale yellow with little flowers on it. Handkerchief style, the tag had said. He misses the way it felt against his bare legs. He still recoils at the sound of tearing fabric.
(‘No son of mine is gonna be a faggot, or one of them transvestite freaks! You trying to be a woman, Ryland? Not under my fucking roof, you hear me? You're a man, fucking act like it’
He’s too inconsolable to respond in any diffusing way, because his fucking skirt is destroyed.)
He doesn't know what to do from here. He can't bring himself to crack open the bottle just yet, but some primal part at the back of his brain refuses to let him put it down. So it continues to be held in his right hand. He stares at the bottle. It stares back at him, unwavering, symbolic of something that was dragged out of him kicking and screaming. Somewhere in him, there is still a teenage boy putting on clear nail polish while out on his own so his dad doesn't smell it on him. Melting down over a precious pile of fabric, soft and beautiful and ruined.
(‘You’re a monster,’ he sobs, yellow scraps clutched tightly in his fingers ‘I hate you! I-I wish you'd just go die already!’ He knows that’ll only make it worse, but his body is wound so tight he just has to let it out.
‘I hope you get fuckin AIDS like the rest of your lot.’ The slap to the face burns, but the pain is consumed by the blatant rejection of his identity.
‘I'm not gay, dad.' It's the truth, in the capacity he understands in this moment. He does like girls. Sometimes boys too, when they're kind and soft around the edges like him.
‘Damn right you're not. Not if I can help it.’
‘I’m serious, I just-’
‘You just what?’
‘... I thought it was pretty.’ He does so love pretty things.
‘You're a man. Real men don't like girly shit. Real men don't play dress up with women's clothes!’
‘Says who? It's just fabric! What difference does it fucking make?’
His father's face turns stony, a cold rage glinting in his eye.
‘Get over here, boy.’
He made it worse. He made it so, so much worse.
‘I-I’m sorry- Dad, please, you’re hurting me-!’)
He twists the top off. The fumes are sharp, solvents evaporating from within the jar and hitting the delicate mucous membranes of his nose. To him, it smells of quiet teenage rebellion, something just for him. Something ripped from him, and squeezed and squeezed until it choked.
He was telling the truth, but not the way he thought. It turns out he just likes looking at pretty people, and isn’t interested in them at all. At least, not like that. He wonders if it would've made a difference to his father. He knows the answer.
“Grace?”
“Gah! Hi, Simon,” Oh jeez, that guy really does just grow up out of the floor sometimes.
“What're you doing? It smells weird in here.”
He can't speak. It's as if his larynx has suddenly gone on strike.
“Oh, is that nail polish?” There's movement, and his body reacts before he can do anything about it, recoiling.
“... You okay?”
He can't look up. He can barely breathe.
A hand touches his face, gentle and kind. He flinches anyway.
Fingertips tilt his chin up with light pressure.
“There he is,” Simon smiles sadly down at him.
Grace has always been afraid of men. Angry men, arrogant men, cruel men. Men like his father.
Simon is not any of those things. He's kind, caring, gentle, compassionate. He is strong and sturdy, but he's not a threat. He's safety. He's home.
“What's going on in that head of yours, angel?” And oh, if he doesn't just melt at that. He loves pet names, loves the warm feeling of belonging that comes with them. A reminder that the non romantic nature of their relationship does not make it less intimate. He is Simon's, and Simon is his, in all the ways that matter. This one only comes out sometimes, but that just makes it more special when it does. It's disarming, and they both know that.
“Just- haven't done this in a while. As in, two decades” he squirms a little, tilting his head away “and I've never used coloured stuff. It always had to be clear before.”
“Before?”
“When I still lived with my dad. He was, uhm-”
(A hand around his wrist, dragging him so harshly it feels like his shoulder is being yanked from the socket, away, away from the ruins of his precious skirt, away from the semblance of safety that was his room. His father makes a phone call, but he doesn’t hear a word because he is absolutely petrified. He’s going to be hurt for this, he’s going to be beaten bloody for daring to be anything less than the perfect jock of a son his father wanted)
“You don't have to tell me” Simon moves to sit next to him on the bed, pressing their bodies together to create a line of firm warm contact.
“I-I know” He doesn't want to talk about it. He really, really doesn't. He knows Simon is gonna tell him it's so much worse than he thought, and he hates that. He hates losing the illusion that his dad just kind of sucked.
“I think I need to. I don't want to, but- I don't know if it's good for me. Keeping it all jammed in here” he taps his temple with his free hand.
“It's not. I would know,” Simon replies, direct as ever, “But you still don't have to tell me. ‘S up to you.”
It is, but it doesn't feel like that.
“...My dad was not a good person. He was probably one of the worst people I've ever had the displeasure of meeting.” The nervous laugh that escapes him tastes sour in his mouth.
“He hated everything about me. How I spoke, how I dressed, my interests, my personality. He convinced himself I was gay, and tried his best to ‘turn me straight’ and ‘toughen me up’. He wasn't all bad. He was even good, sometimes. But I had to be someone else to get that version of him. I had to be Lucas Burke's son. I wasn't allowed to just be Ryland.”
“Burke?”
“Grace was my mother's maiden name. I took it after I moved out.”
Simon nods.
“...I bought a skirt for myself when I was sixteen. I saved up for it for weeks, went to the mall just to look at it on the rack, to make sure it was still there.”
“What did it look like?”
“Light yellow with little flowers all over it. Handkerchief style, I think it’s called? The fabric draped unevenly in a way that looked really beautiful, hit me at around my calf at the longest points. And it was so soft, too. I loved that thing,” he feels a wave of suffocating sadness thinking of that skirt, and what was done to it, “He destroyed it. Caught me with it in my room and ripped it right off of me,” the tearing of fabric had reverberated through his whole body, “it was like watching a part of myself be murdered.”
He thinks a part of him did die in that room. He’s done his best to pick up the pieces, but he’s never been the same.
“All that over a fucking skirt? He sounds like a nightmare”
“He really was! And that wasn't the end of it, either. I yelled at him over that, and he, sort of, uh-”
(‘No, no, please, I said I was sorry, don't do this, dad, please!’
‘You’ll thank me for this someday’
His shirt is yanked over his head, he feels like he’s gonna be sick, he can't, he can't-
There's a woman in his room, dressed in very little clothing. The door is locked, his shirt is gone, he's not even wearing pants, oh god, he can't-)
“He hired a prostitute, er, sex worker. Locked me in my room with her for an hour and a half. In my underwear.” An attempt at ‘corrective rape', his brain supplies unhelpfully.
“Holy fucking shit, Ryland, I-”
“Nothing happened!” He's quick to assure, “It completely backfired on him, she refused to do anything to me because I was underage and clearly very not interested.”
“You promise nothing happened? This isn't another Linda situation?”
“No, no, gosh no! She would never. She was really sweet, actually? Her name was Jules. I just talked to her, and she wrapped me in a blanket and held me until the time ran out. My dad still had to pay her too.” he smiles fondly, “We stayed in touch after that. In case I needed to get out someday, or someone to talk to. I went out of state for university to get away from my dad, and she was the one who brought me. We made a whole road trip out of it. Lost contact eventually, but I hope she's okay, wherever she ended up.”
“Good. I'm… I'm glad you had someone looking out for you, at least. And I'm sorry you had to go through that. You deserved so much better than that fucking piece of shit.”
“Hey, at least he's dead, right?” Not dead enough, in his opinion, given that he'd just freaked out over nail polish. Even lightyears away and six feet under, his dad still has a grip on him.
Simon pulls him out of his head with a request “Would you paint mine too?”
“Yeah, yeah of course. Is yellow okay?”
“Yellow is perfect” he holds out his hand, palm down.
The lacquer is just deep enough to stand out against Simon's skin. He seems genuinely happy with it too, even though it's a bit messy.
“Your turn” he doesn't take the bottle away, holding out his hand instead.
Okay. Deep breath. Everything is fine. Nothing bad is going to happen if he gives the lacquer to Simon.
“It's okay, Ry” He says in a soft voice, like he's coaxing a scared animal out of hiding.
Fitting, given that's exactly what he feels like right now. A fox in a trap. With a shaking hand, he presses the brush into Simon's hand, not quite able to let go of the jar yet. Lips press against his temple as Simon's fingers wrap around the handle.
It goes on cold and glossy, the colour payoff a little weak given that it wasn't really designed for pigment, but it's thin enough to be buildable. Simon is careful and deliberate in a way that indicates a practiced ease.
The colour looks so right on him that he thinks he'll cry. A long dormant warmth blooms in his chest like flowers at sunrise, looking at the deep yellow. Nothing bad happens. Nothing hurts, no one yells, no one destroys the things he loves. It's just him, Simon, and their matching yellow nails.
“It suits you” Simon murmurs.
And he's right. It really does.