ax_main | Shaun and Nolan

The day after Thanksgiving, Shaun is full of attention for his introvert of a boyfriend. Some quiet time leads to difficult confessions, so the afternoon ends with plans for Bohemian Rhapsody therapy.

Much to Shaun's delight (and mild relief), Nolan had survived Thanksgiving with his family -- including sleeping in Shaun's old room without him, his impromptu duets with his mom over mashed potatoes, and the full aging-hippie extravaganza that was his Gilmore grandparents. In truth, it had been a warm and relaxed Thanksgiving day, with (as promised) much too much food even for four grandparents, two parents, and two teenage boys. Nolan had borne up wonderfully through it all, and Shaun felt like he loved him a little more with every passing minute.

So, on Friday, Shaun whisked Nolan out of the house and out into San Francisco, his city. Golden Gate Park boasted a hundred different things to do, but Shaun had one destination in mind: the contemplative quiet of the Japanese Tea Garden. While the park always had plenty of tourists, this was a place people came to admire beauty, to appreciate the cultivated gardens, to watch the koi swim past. As they stepped through the gates, Shaun reached to slip his hand into Nolan's. This was San Francisco, after all -- the gayest city in the country. They could hold hands wherever they wanted to.

Yesterday had been a lot, in every sense of the word. A lot of family, a lot of hustle and bustle, a lot of warmth, a lot of conversation, a lot of socialization in general. Nolan had known that he would have to push himself, during this stay, but he still hadn't expected how exhausted he felt by the end of the first day. It hadn't helped that he hadn't been able to curl up with Shaun and let his presence soothe him, last night, but at least he had gotten a long, mostly silent hug before going off to Shaun's room.

He'd spent a couple of hours working on his tablet before he'd begun to unwind a little. It had meant a short night, but he knew he would have had a hard time going to sleep without it.

So he was thankful when Shaun offered to show him some of San Francisco that afternoon, just the two of them. It was nothing against Shaun's family, but Nolan could use a little time with his boyfriend, one on one. The weather was still mild, and sunny enough to justify the sunglasses Nolan wore in the hopes of not being recognized. He really didn't want anyone barging in on their afternoon. He'd only packed fairly teenager-like clothes, for all that his hoodie cost a couple hundred bucks, so he didn't stand out the way he usually would have.

He smiled at Shaun when he slid his hand into his, and Nolan tangled their fingers together. San Francisco was as safe as it got in a number of ways; for queer kids, but also for mutants. He was looking forward to what Shaun would show him of it, starting with this park. "Did you use to come here a lot?"

Shaun had already decided that he would moderate himself today -- no sudden moves, no grandiose gestures. He had even chosen a scarf without a single sparkle in it, though it was a gorgeous deep teal color and coordinated beautifully with a navy blue light jacket against the sometimes cool breezes of a seaside city in November. His answers were quiet and private, as if they were the only two people here, even though that wasn't remotely the case. "More when I was a little older, like middle school? This might come as a shock, but I was kind of an energetic kid," he explained with a little smile. "I got really interested in Japanese stuff for a little while. Coming out here to the tea house with my grandparents seemed, like, super grown-up when I was eleven."

That seemed like such a long time ago, now. Before Gilmore's Glorious Goods, before mild Internet fame, before mutants and X-genes and Xavier's and the boys and Nolan. There was a time Shaun had been just an anonymous kid, and returning to this place reminded him of how much simpler that had been. He squeezed Nolan's fingers briefly.

Nolan smiled at the mention of Shaun being an energetic kid; how surprising, yes. As he had suspected, and hoped, actually being here, listening to Shaun reminisce, was a joy, pure and simple. Nolan was much too interested in everything to do with Shaun to feel differently about it. How cute he had imagined Shaun as a kid to be had only been proved right by the photo album he had been shown the previous day.

"How grown-up does it feel to bring your boyfriend for tea?" he asked, turning his small, slightly dry smile on Shaun.

"It feels like a dream come true, honestly," Shaun answered, wrapping his other hand around their clasped fingers as he returned Nolan's smile. "Though in my daydreams as a kid I didn't think he'd be quite this hot. Or that I'd love him this much."

He paused as they crossed a bridge over the water, drawing Nolan over to the rail so they could look over and watch the giant koi swimming beneath. As their reflections appeared in the water, the fish swarmed toward them, expecting food to follow. Shaun laughed softly, watching.

Nolan had never been a very nature-oriented person, save for his on-and-off obsession with whales, in all their glory. He watched the fish swarm, but then focused on Shaun's reflection beside him. He thought better of it, and straightened up to watch his boyfriend directly. "I love you," he told him, and squeezed his hand. "I'm glad I came. Thank you for inviting me."

He'd thanked Shaun's parents already, of course. But thanking Shaun was different. He would've thanked them no matter what. With Shaun, everything meant more.

Nolan's sunglasses were probably for the best, so Shaun couldn't stare dreamily into his eyes like the romantic sap he was. He had promised himself he wasn't going to go overboard today, but restraining himself wasn't easy. "Thank you for saying yes. You mean the world to me, you know. Every part of my life is just so much better when you're there." His smile tilted a bit crooked. "Even when the photo albums are involved."

Nolan's small smile took on a different shade, then, and one Shaun knew well. "You were very cute," he told him, teasing.

"I was adorable," Shaun agreed, tilting his chin up with an impish grin. He actually sort of loved it when Nolan teased him, because he knew how few people got to see this side of Nolan. "I charmed adults into giving me quarters for lemonade all summer long. What about you?" Shaun kept his tone light and loving, not wanting to trip over any of Nolan's secrets. "Were you reprogramming people's phones when you were eight?"

"Not quite," Nolan replied with a shake of his head. The small smile on his lips was nothing but a remnant of the one he had just given Shaun, tainted with sadness. "I did spend as much time as I could behind one screen or another. Eight was the year my mother died," he added, unsurprised to realize that he had never even told Shaun that much. He never talked about either one of his parents very much, for wildly different reasons.

There was still so much that Shaun didn't know about Nolan's life before they had met. He wanted to know everything, and he wanted it quite intensely, but Nolan never seemed willing to discuss anything before Xavier's. For Shaun, who wore his heart on his sleeve and wanted to share everything about himself with those he loved, it was monstrously difficult not to pester him about it. He stroked his thumb over the back of Nolan's hand and said only, "You were so young." That way Nolan could say more, or not, as he chose.

Nolan leaned against Shaun, glad now to look down at the water, rather than hold his boyfriend's gaze, even through his shades. "I'd always been a reserved kid, but it got... worse, then." His mother had been the one to draw him out of his shell, more often than not. Looking back on it now, it had always been obvious that his father hadn't known what to do with his son. But it had only become painfully so after her death, in her absence.

Nolan was silent for a moment, and then he added, giving Shaun a brief, uneasy smile, "My dad didn't know what to do with me. I didn't have any friends. So... computers."

Shaun leaned his shoulder against Nolan in return. Had they not been in public, it would have been an embrace. He wished he could reach back through time to comfort the younger Nolan, but he was here now, and he could listen. "That sounds lonely," said Shaun, quiet, without assumption or judgement.

Lonely had been Nolan's lot for most of his life. Everything before his mother's death was fuzzy, and he clung to what memories he had of her, but other than her, he couldn't remember anyone willingly spending time with him. And after... Eventually, there had been Shinobi. But Nolan was by far a lot less lonely since he had manifested, and a big part of that was thanks to Shaun. His mutation might end up killing him, but at least he would have had this, first.

He looked over at Shaun by his side, and gave him a small smile, the real emotion in his eyes hidden behind the sunglasses, but the fact that he whispered the words was a dead giveaway. "I'm so grateful for you, Shaun."

Shaun only needed a moment to follow the silent mental path Nolan must have taken to reach that statement, those emotions obvious to someone who knew Nolan as well as Shaun did. He bent his head, resting against Nolan's hair for a minute. "Hey. You've got me. We have each other, and I'm so thankful that we do." Nolan knew what it meant to be lonely when alone, and Shaun knew what it was to be lonely even among others. Together, they filled in those empty parts of one another.

Nolan released Shaun's hand to wrap an arm around him, and shifted his head to press a kiss to Shaun's forehead. "Come on, you promised me tea."

God, he felt so warm inside when Nolan did little things like that. Shaun closed his eyes for just a second, his smile brilliant and full even if only his reflection and the koi could see it. "They have little cookies, too," he added helpfully.

"Tea and cookies," Nolan amended his earlier statement, pulling his arm back from around Shaun to hold his hand again.

The actual Tea House was mostly open-air, with a high counter and stools around the outside walls so they could sit and look out at the garden. Shaun made sure to choose seats a few places away from anyone else enjoying tea that day. The steaming green tea was nice and warm on a day that barely qualified as 'cool' in California, and it was served with a small selection of almond and sesame cookies. Shaun also ordered a couple of pieces of flavored sweet kuzumochi -- something like less sweet, less translucent Jell-O squares they could eat with their fingers. He had quite a taste for them, especially paired with the mild earthy flavor of the green tea.

"This," Shaun decided when they were settled, "is undeniably more grown-up, being here with you. Dede is great, don't get me wrong, but you are hella sexy."

Nolan, it turned out, had more of an affinity for the cookies than the kuzumochi, and he nibbled happily on one of the sesame ones, sunglasses set down beside his cup. There were also fortune cookies, but he was glad to leave those until later. He chuckled at Shaun's conclusion. "I'm glad you noticed," he dryly answered, eyes shining happily as they met his boyfriend's. Then his expression softened, and he added, "I'm glad you brought me here today."

"Me too," Shaun agreed, in a gentler tone, his usual rolling cadence softened into sincerity. He hooked his little finger around Nolan's for a moment, adding, "You're absolutely precious to me, you know. I want to pull out everything in my life and show it to you, and share it with you." Shaun quirked a little smile around a sip of tea. "And I guess I want to do the same to you, so, sometimes I get nosy about your life before I met you." It was a way of acknowledging the difficulty of his earlier questions, but not apologizing for them.

Nolan unhooked his finger from Shaun's, but only to cover his hand with his, and give his fingers a soft squeeze. "I don't resent you for wanting to know more. I want to know everything about you, too. I... want to tell you everything. It's just... hard. To break the habit." Of keeping quiet, of dancing around the topic, even in his own mind. The less time he spent thinking about his father, the better.

Really, they needed to go to more places where Nolan could be relatively anonymous, because this entire touching-in-public thing was going to be slightly addictive for Shaun. "Well, I'm not a reporter. Anything you want to tell me goes no further than my incredibly adorable ears," Shaun promised. No matter how much anyone pries, he added mentally, thinking of some of his more curious friends. "I know you don't talk to your dad and I can't imagine the story there is something you want to discuss, but... do you have any other family? Aunts and uncles?"

"Aunt Carole never married," Nolan replied, wondering to himself when the last time he'd e-mailed her was. He ought to add it to his to-do list, but he didn't want to interrupt the flow of the conversation, or relinquish Shaun's hand. "She took me in after my father kicked me out," weird, how he was busy looking at his cup of tea to pick it up when he said that, instead of holding Shaun's gaze, "before I was emancipated. She moved to Italy last year, though." He took a sip of tea, and looked back at Shaun to add, very pragmatically, and just a hint of dry, "It was the queer thing." What else could it have been?

That stung more than it ought, partly because Shaun's own family had been so accepting of his coming out, and because he'd known it had to be the reason all along. It was so awful, and so short-sighted, to abandon your own family over something they couldn't help and couldn't change. Especially awful because it was Nolan, so beautiful and determined and practically starving to be loved and to love someone else. Shaun kept firm hold of his hand, and didn't shy away from this confirmation. "He shouldn't have done that to you," said Shaun softly. "I know it's a trite thing to say, but he's the one missing out. On knowing you, on knowing how incredible you are."

It was a trite thing to say, and it did nothing to undo the knot of tension in Nolan's chest. (He wasn't sure anything could have.) He squeezed Shaun's hand with a brief smile, then pulled his back, and wrapped it around his cup as he took another sip, giving himself time to figure out what to answer. "His loss, yes," he echoed. "Fortunately, Aunt Carole was there, and Shinobi." And Shinobi's father's lawyers.

Shaun winced internally. Nolan had lost, too -- lost out on a lot, and been pushed toward an early adulthood that he might not have chosen for himself. Still, Shaun couldn't imagine that Nolan would have been much happier with a father who would do something so cruel to his own kid. Knowing the truth really only strengthened Shaun's resolve to love him all the more. "Remind me to send Shinobi a fruit basket," he commented quietly. "Of grapes. Grapes made into wine."

Nolan chuckled, and happily accepted the change in subject. "Might I suggest corn? Corn made into vodka." By far, Shinobi's liquor of choice, although Nolan doubted that he would turn his nose up on good wine.

It was a moot point, since Shaun wasn't old enough to buy alcohol anyway, let alone know what made a good bottle of wine or a bottle of vodka. "He's been very generous in sharing you with me, and I should make him a present," he decided, looking thoughtful. "Something just a touch ostentatious, so as not to compete with the rest of his wardrobe."

"I'm sure he'd protest the notion," Nolan dryly answered. Of being generous, or of being in a position to share Nolan, that was left to Shaun's interpretation.

"You can't tell me he'd protest a present, though," said Shaun knowingly.

"Never," Nolan confirmed without missing a beat.

Shaun looked pleased; of course there was no question, and he'd have to craft something very unique for Shinobi. He cupped his hands around his tea bowl, looking out at the garden before them, and leaned his shoulder gently against Nolan's. After a few moments of comfortable silence, Shaun said fondly, "Even when I mess up and say the wrong thing, you still love me. Thank you."

Nolan shifted so he could put a hand on Shaun's back, and stayed quiet for a beat. "You never really mess up," he pointed out, quietly. Certainly not like Nolan did, on occasion, and remorselessly. Lil was gone from school, but was it fair to keep from Shaun the sort of person Nolan was? Given the way she had reacted, this was something a lot bigger for regular people than Nolan could grasp. And while the thought that Shaun might look at him as Lil had made Nolan's heart clench painfully tight, he probably should have told him before Shaun welcomed him into his family.

"You never asked," he eventually said. "What happened with Lil."

Nolan was about to make the exact same mistake he had made with Lil, and it felt as if his heart was in his throat now. The stakes were so much higher this time. But he couldn't imagine not telling Shaun. He wanted Shaun to love him, all of him, and how could Shaun do that when Nolan kept so much of himself hidden? Telling him the basics about his father was a start, but Shaun had to know the darker sides of Nolan, too.

He pulled his hand back and fiddled with his cup of tea, a small frown on his brow, his gaze on it as he went on. "We'd just started seeing each other, and she said... she said something that made me think she might have been a bully. I couldn't leave it alone and I hacked her old school records."

There were plenty of things Shaun had never asked Nolan about, and the subject of Lil was one he'd wanted especially to avoid. He had always felt a little guilty that he'd never been able to like her, or even tolerate her, after how she'd treated Nolan and Warren. She'd seemed like someone more interested in her own judgements over what anyone else needed. Probably not a terrible definition of a bully, in some ways.

But what Nolan was saying now was nothing that Shaun had imagined (when he'd let himself think about it at all). He tilted his head to turn and look at Nolan, perplexed and concerned. Nolan tended to boil things down to the bare minimum of what he thought of as the facts; Shaun knew this well from their time together. Drawing out the details was Shaun's job. "Why?" he asked, not understanding but not judging either.

It had been Lil's first question, too, and Nolan ignored the twist of fear in his stomach. He even looked up from his cup of tea to meet Shaun's gaze, and try to gauge more about his reaction. "I didn't trust her to tell me the truth, if I asked. And I... I didn't want to ask her, honestly." Hacking her had been much easier, and he hadn't done anything that wouldn't be done for a thorough background check. This was the world he lived in now, but it wasn't the regular world. It wasn't normal, to other people, and here he was, telling Shaun and expecting him to accept that. Why had he just done that?

“Talking to her was like walking blind through a mine field, so yeah, I feel you there,” Shaun said under his breath. While he didn’t want to excuse what Nolan had done, he could see what might lead him to that choice. He watched Nolan, confused, trying to align the generous and giving man he knew with this admitted invasion of privacy. Nolan wasn’t saying this because of what it said about Lil; he was saying it because of what it said about Nolan. So before Shaun formed his own opinion he needed to know about Nolan’s motivation. “So you... felt like you needed to know? Like you deserved to know?”

Nolan glanced away, instinctively, but then looked back at Shaun immediately. He had chosen to do this, and he would see it through until the end. He stifled the urge to defend Lil, and focused on what mattered, here and now. What Shaun asked him. He nodded, a small gesture, and added, "I couldn't date a bully. Or a... former bully, as the case might have been." Would he have to say it? Shaun was smart in more ways than Nolan (that was, also emotionally, and socially); surely he would connect the dots.

Shaun didn't need any special insight to understand what Nolan was saying. He had a fairly clear picture of Nolan as a kid; he knew what sort of attention a quiet, brilliant, lonely kid would have drawn. Shaun couldn't help but think that Nolan deserved so much better than what the world had dealt him early in life. Still, reasons weren't an excuse. "I'm going to guess she wasn't real excited to date someone who hacked into her past, either," he suggested in a soft voice.

"To say the least," Nolan confirmed, looking away for good, now. He resumed turning the cup of tea between his hands. "She..." No, there was a limit to what Nolan would share, and that was too painful, still, even now. "We said we'd try to be friends, but I'm terrible with people, and I was terrible with her." His social skills were peculiar enough when things weren't as strained as they had been between Lil and him, with the major issues this entire mess had raised for both of them. "So we just... stopped."

Shaun nodded, so Nolan knew he was listening, but he hovered over his tea for a few moments while collecting what to say. He could see Nolan's laser-focused logic, but he could see Lil's betrayal, too. "I know you know it was wrong to go snooping," he finally said, because that was obvious in the way Nolan tensed and couldn't look at him. "And you said yourself that you couldn't trust her. Couldn't talk to her. Some part of you felt threatened, and... you did something wrong, to protect yourself."

"You're trying to... You're making me sound better than I am," Nolan replied, ignoring how tight his throat felt. He wanted to let Shaun believe that, but then what would have been the point of telling him? "I know it was wrong, by most people's standards." But he was a hacker, and a businessman, (and a bullied kid,) and he would do it again. "It might have been different if I'd known her better, but I didn't." He was sticking with 'might', because he honestly wasn't sure Lil and he had ever had much of a future, regardless of her past, and his betrayal.

He turned the cup in his hands again, then added, "But I didn't realize how much she trusted me. I don't understand trusting people you barely know." So he hadn't expected it to be a betrayal. Betrayal required trust. Why would she have trusted him?

Shaun wasn't trying to do anything but understand, but Nolan needed to speak and Shaun needed to let him. Instead, he rested his hand, warmed from the tea cup, on Nolan's wrist gently. He was still there, still listening, and not pulling away. "I'm not excusing you. I mean, you hurt someone because you decided that your right to know about them was more important than their right to privacy." And that was hard to swallow, almost impossible to reconcile with the Nolan he knew, and if Shaun was being completely honest, hurt him a little bit to learn.

"But... trust... doesn't really exist if it doesn't go both ways," he added, speaking slowly. "You didn't feel safe. However much she said she trusted you, she wasn't giving you much reason to return it." Not like us, were the words that went unsaid. Not like me.

Nolan stilled when Shaun touched him, not the freezing that had to do with fear, or shutting down, and away, but the stillness that came with focusing on Shaun's touch, and what it meant. Cup left alone, Nolan took a deep breath, and let it out quietly. This was nothing like any of his conversation with Lil, for so many reasons, not least of which the fact that Nolan did trust Shaun. That he was telling him all this because he trusted him.

"I barely knew her," Nolan replied, hearing blame for Lil in Shaun's last words. "There was nothing she could have done. It takes me - a while - to trust people." It had taken him much too long, embarrassingly long, to come to the conclusion that their different relationships with trust, and their misunderstanding of each other on that topic, had been the reason behind this entire mess, more than anything else. Much too long to even try to salvage any friendship between them. He was not much of a genius when it came to people.

He looked up at Shaun then, turning his forearm over so he could brush his fingers against Shaun's, tentatively. I trust you, the look in his eyes said, but Nolan was reluctant to say it out loud, when Shaun might need to spend more time on the topic of Lil and Nolan.

At the response from Nolan, Shaun curled his fingers around Nolan's, and met his gaze again. No anger, no rejection, just a kind of thoughtful sorrow in his dark eyes. He wouldn't push Nolan away for this mistake, made before they'd even met, but he also couldn't deny it was a serious one... and probably something that Nolan didn't entirely see as a mistake. In his life, Shaun tried to do the right thing, but that didn't make him righteous. He loved Nolan too much to give him up over this.

Still, it was hard to know what to say after learning such a secret. Being unsure of his words was a rare happening for Shaun Gilmore. Finally, he took a breath. "That's... a lot. But I'm glad you told me. All of it."

Nolan nodded minutely, glad that Shaun wasn't letting go of his hand. "I'm sorry if I ruined our afternoon." Why had he had to tell him now? Except Shaun had been talking about messing up, but he truly never did, never had. It had been a long time coming, in the end. This had just been when Nolan acknowledged his desire to share this, to share himself, with Shaun, no matter how terrifying. Trust made it possible. And Shaun was still holding his hand. "We were talking, and... it's easy, finding reasons not to speak up. I didn't want to do that anymore."

"You haven't ruined a thing. You couldn't," Shaun told him, without hesitation. "I've felt for a long time there were things you didn't tell me, and I've wished you would, but I knew I couldn't push you into it." Shaun rushed and tumbled with words like the stream they could see not far from their seat in the open-air tea house, where Nolan was thoughtful and deliberate as the well-designed paths leading through the gardens. It made some cosmic sense that Shaun might learn to be quiet, here, and give Nolan space to speak. "I'm so happy that you did. I wouldn't care where or when it happened. You trust me and that's all I care about."

Nolan looked down abruptly, when he felt tears prick at the back of his eyes. He blinked a few times, making sure they were under control, then looked up at Shaun, emotion still shining in his eyes. "Thank you," he said, and it meant I love you, and it meant I trust you. He leaned in, but stopped himself immediately. It wasn't about anyone potentially seeing them (and knowing who he was), so he didn't pull back. It was about not being sure that a kiss would be welcome, and that uncertainty shone in his eyes, too.

Shaun leaned in, too, and his only hesitation came from a longing to kiss Nolan longer and more deeply than he could here. When he did kiss Nolan, it was soft, but short, accompanied by a warm tightening of their fingers wrapped together. "I love you," he promised quietly. That hadn't changed, and Shaun doubted there was anything Nolan could tell him that would change that very simple, but so very complicated, fact.

Nolan closed his eyes when Shaun crossed the rest of the way, and focused on the warm relief of that kiss, and the warmer relief of Shaun's words in its wake. His eyes were still closed as he took them in, but he opened them next, meeting Shaun's gaze with the truth shining in his own. "I love you so much." A whisper, and Nolan wasn't sure he could ever put better words on the expanding feelings in his chest. He didn't know any words that felt like enough.

"So much," Shaun echoed, barely a breath. So much lay between them, so much that was strong and certain, and so much that was still fragile and tender. Shaun felt like they both needed a minute to breathe, but that wasn't something they'd get back at his house. Even if they did crash out on the sofa, Mom and Dad would still be wandering through the background, and Nolan would still be wary and alert. Instead, he suggested with a faintly crooked smile, "Why don't we go spend too much money on a stupid movie, somewhere with the fancy seats so I can cuddle you proper."

So very, very much. That offer only solidified the feelings in Nolan's chest further. Shaun was so thoughtful, and that was a perfect plan. "Yes, please," he confirmed, and squeezed Shaun's hand before reluctantly releasing it. Tea to drink, and movie tickets to book. Nolan pulled out his phone to do the latter. "Or not so stupid a movie. Would you like to see Bohemian Rhapsody again?"

"I will watch it as many times as you want to buy tickets for it." Shaun had already waxed, well, rhapsodic about the film, and he hadn't tired of it yet. Seeing it again with Nolan, cozied up in the back row of a theater like a couple of totally normal teenagers, seemed both oddly quaint and utterly divine. Shaun popped his last mochi into his mouth, watching Nolan with a warmth in his gaze akin to adoration. He was going to remember this day for a long time.

Nolan quickly found a decent enough theater, and booked the tickets for them before putting his phone away again. "Showing's in an hour." His gaze met Shaun's, and he had to wonder what made the other boy look at him quite like that. He wasn't going to ask, of course, for fear that it would break the spell. No, he would just enjoy it.

"Then finish your tea so I can hold your hand for the next hour," Shaun suggested gently, doing the same himself. The escape to the relative privacy of the movie theater would do them both some good. Nolan might need time to be quiet, but Shaun needed some time to settle in with all the new things Nolan had revealed. If they could do so to the strains of operatic rock and Freddie Mercury's journey of self-acceptance, well, so much the better.