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Eric Chapman has fucked up. He shouldn't have told his prying mother that he was in a relationship. He should have just told her the truth.
But then she would have tried to set him up with the girl he used to go to high school with who always smelled weird and still wore candy necklaces.
Now he had to take his nonexistent significant other to this family reunion. He was just thankful he hadn't specified a gender, because that left him with more options.
He couldn't ask Georgie, because they used to date and that'd be weird.
He couldn't ask Antigone, because she couldn't handle that sort of long exposure to social interaction.
That didn't leave him with very many options. Correction: that left him with one option that he didn't really want to consider.
Rudyard.
How does one ask the person that they want to ask on a real date on a fake date?
As hard as that might be, then add in asking the person on a fake date to a family gathering.
This was a recipe for disaster.
His mom was already asking him if he and his partner would like to stay overnight and go to brunch with her the next morning. That meant a whole night and much of a morning of just him and Rudyard. That meant Rudyard meeting his mom, and his tiny little nieces and nephews.
It meant opening up a little bit more to Rudyard than he does to most people.
Oh God. They'd end up staying in his childhood bedroom.
His childhood bedroom only has one bed.
Yes, this was a recipe for disaster.
Asking Rudyard to be his fake boyfriend was almost as difficult as he'd always imagined asking Rudyard to be his real boyfriend would be.
The worst part is that Rudyard put up a fight. He made it clear that he didn't really want to do this, but would because it would give him leverage over Chapman.
Even though he knows that Rudyard isn't truly as prickly as he makes himself out to be, that still stings a bit. Would it really be that bad for Rudyard to date him?
It didn't matter if it would be. Eric needed nothing more from Rudyard than one day of pretending. Even if he didn't want it to be, that's all it was going to be. Pretending.
Holding Rudyard's hand was weird.
There were multiple reasons why this was weird, like how it was something Eric had dreamed about for ages or how his hands were really fucking cold, but the reason that's weirding Eric out the most is how nice it was. Up until that point, relationships were all high expectations and disappointments. He'd expected that doing couple like things with Rudyard would be awkward and stiff and generally not fun.
It was not. Holding hands with Rudyard was nice.
Rudyard's hands were beautiful. They were long fingered and slim, and wrapped around Eric's own hands perfectly.
Those hands also shook from nervous energy the whole day. It struck Eric, as he watched Rudyard struggle through a polite conversation with Ms. Chapman, that he was trying his hardest.
Rudyard wanted Eric's mom to like him. He was trying to be polite, trying to impress her, even.
And he had succeeded.
Ms. Chapman had a tendency of joining ranks with whoever Eric brought home in order to tease her son. Between Rudyard and her, they had an ample supply of material. The two of them teasing him didn't bother Eric, though. If anything, it felt right. Like he was meant to lean against his mom's kitchen counter with Rudyard while she cooked and they teased him relentlessly about the phase he had as a teenager when he thought he was going to be the next hip hop star. (There were pictures, and he wanted them burned. Rudyard kept them.)
He was also exposed to Rudyard dealing with children. The thing was, Rudyard was trying his hardest to be on his best behavior, and Eric's little nieces and nephews liked him immediately. (A lot of them had questions about dead bodies, which Eric could have answered but didn't like to. "Rudyard is the cool uncle." Annie had said seriously, and oh, the implication there. Eric isn't sure he'd ever blushed more.)
The family reunion wasn't a disaster, despite Eric's wasted aunt and homophobic uncle. It could even be considered a success, if Eric hadn't had to watch his mom's face as she talked with Rudyard. It would crush her, in a few weeks, when he called to say that he and Rudyard had broken up.
The whole bed thing could still be a disaster. Eric is just thankful that it's a full and not a twin. Still not ideal, but better. There was no way to avoid cuddling when you stuff two grown men on a full sized bed.
Chapman might combust. His elbows brush Rudyard's while he washes his face and Rudyard brushes his teeth. This could be too much. Seeing Rudyard here, in the room he grew up in, early in the morning with the sunlight lighting up his face and making him look soft... it was already too much.
In all honesty, Chapman had thought about sleeping with Rudyard before, but not quite like this. He wouldn't mind it as much if he could reach out and grab Rudyard's hand, or wrap an arm around him.
Instead, he lied awake and listened to Rudyard's gentle snoring. He thought about if this was real, even let himself pretend, for a moment, that it was.
He woke up before Rudyard to take a shower. As he walked back to the room, he could hear Rudyard talking on the phone to someone. Probably Antigone, he thought.
"It's just weird, Antigone. I shouldn't have agreed to come out here."
She said something that Chapman couldn't pick up, and he realized he didn't really want to. He wanted to turn back into the bathroom and not think about this, except he couldn't, because at that moment his elbow caught one of the picture frames hanging outside of his door and knocked it to the ground.
"Chapman?"
Rudyard opened the door and stared him down.
"How long have you been standing there?"
"It's fine, Rudyard." He said. "I didn't hear anything."
Except he did. Yes, it was likely that brunch would be a disaster.
Ms. Chapman can tell that something is up. She can always tell. When Rudyard got up to go to the restroom, she was grilling her son in a second.
"What is going on with you two? Yesterday you both seemed so happy, but today you seem off. Did you fight?"
"Everything's alright. It's just one of those... little fights. We argue a lot."
"Son..." Ms. Chapman trailed off. "I don't want you to be in a relationship that you don't want to be in, but Rudyard seems right for you. I think you should try to hold onto him."
"I'm trying, I promise."
Well, he was sort of trying. You can't exactly hold onto someone who was never yours to begin with.
In a few weeks, he would tell his mom that he and Rudyard weren't together anymore.
Why hadn't he just been honest with her since the beginning? Maybe some part of him wanted to see how Rudyard would interact with the people in his family.
Maybe he had wanted to spend this time with him.
He got what he wanted, at least. Rudyard wouldn't talk to him, pretty much at all. He'd still talk to Ms. Chapman, but never one on one with Eric.
He didn't decide to do anything about it until the ride home.
"So something's obviously the matter." He said.
"Eric, why did you ask me to do this?"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm sure there are other people you could have asked to go with you, or you could have just told the truth. Why did you choose me?"
Eric wasn't sure how to answer that. He also wasn't sure that public transportation was the best place to have this conversation.
"I... wanted to spend more time with you." The honest approach worked sometimes, right?
"Chapman, you can't say something like that after you've held hands with me all weekend. Tell me the truth, if I wanted to go to next year's reunion, this time as your actual boyfriend, what would you have to say about that?"
Eric figured he looked like a fish out of water, with the way he must have been gaping.
"I guess I would say that I would like that. And that I like you."
"Well that's settled then."
"It is?"
Rudyard rolled his eyes. "I've already met your mother, Chapman. She approves. Do you need a written contract saying that I'm your boyfriend now, or something?"
Eric smiled.
"Oh, Rudyard, I think I'm going to hold onto you."