Just another man in the field [1/15]

[jeongbro]

It had been a little over a week since Henry had heard from Goodnight, and he had to admit, he was a little bit worried about that. They didn't need to talk every day; it was nothing like that. But he knew that holidays could be stressful for people--they were stressful for him--and New Years had been an event. He'd heard from Goodnight after that, but his last substantial conversation had been about a week ago, and Henry was worried he might have drunk himself into a stupor.

Or worse.

So he was trying not to think of worst case scenarios on his way over to Goodnight's apartment. Worst case scenarios didn't help anyone, and especially not someone with high stress levels like Goodnight Robicheaux.

Henry reached the apartment and knocked a couple time, knuckles sharp on the door. "Mr Goodnight? You alive in there?"

He heard nothing. He waited. He knocked again. "Mr Goodnight?" Maybe if he called him by surname Goodnight would come to the door faster. Henry knew what it was like to cringe every time someone mangled your name, and Goodnight's was even more complicated than Henry's was. He was preparing to knock a third time when he heard rustling inside the apartment, and the scuttle of dog nails on the flooring. Henry put on a bright smile in anticipation of the door opening.

And open it did, but that wasn't Goodnight Robicheaux. The man standing in the door was the same height as Henry--and Goodnight--wide in the shoulders and slim in the waist, with short, wispy facial hair and ink-black hair falling to his chin. He was colored, almost to a T, in ways that Henry was familiar with, because he had the exact same coloration. Henry's smile didn't falter.

This was Billy.

Henry was just opening his mouth to say something in greeting when Billy's face transformed from vague confusion to what could only be described as the picture-definition of pissed off. Henry had never seen someone's face change so quickly. And then Billy slammed the door in his face.

Inside the apartment, Billy left his hand on the door for a moment, then turned to shout toward the bedroom. "Lucien Eugene--why is there a young Korean boy at your door?!"

Comments

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"The first part of romance is a social situation," he pointed out.

He lingered close to Billy now, their bodies touching comfortably, familiarly. Not as intimate as they could be, but it felt nice to be that way in front of another person. "You've already said as much, all that talk of trying to sort out a date."

[assassinwithahairpin]

The closeness settled something in Billy's chest, something that he hadn't realized was piqued. Henry was discrete in being around them, seemed a smart boy; Goodnight was comfortable with him, and so Billy let himself relax.

He slid his hand on the counter, behind Goodnight's back. He could see the answer in Henry's eyes even before he asked the question, so he didn't phrase it as a question, "He's your first companion, this--Virginian."

Henry looked puzzled a moment, then flushed, and nodded.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight smiled when he realized Billy had relaxed, when he felt the slide of his arm behind him, closing the space between them. It felt good to be able to relax this way in front of someone else.

A smile tugged his mouth when Billy got right to the heart of the matter. He was good at that, and Henry's reaction proved his aim had been dead on. It almost always was.

"That makes the dance a little harder," he agreed. Billy was not the first man Goodnight had taken up with, but their relationship was easily the longest he'd ever had, and the happiest. "But you'll get it, Henry. Gansey seems just as unsure as you are." Even if his observations had been brief.

[jeongbro]

Henry watched them, soft and observant but trying to be unobtrusive about it; there was only so much you could do to be unobtrusive and still curious. The steady relaxation of the both of them was reassuring; the casualness of the conversation. They trusted him to see them like this.

What an honor.

"More," Henry finally observed, remembering that he was being spoken to. He poked at his phone a little bit, a comforting distraction from his constantly wandering thoughts. "He's only been with girls before. I've at least had...experiences with boys."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"I'm not sure the fundamentals of approach are that different," Goodnight said, though he had to consider that. Where he was from there were some intense differences, if only because he couldn't have ever courted a man with any kind of public knowledge. Those relationships were necessarily private, and he was beginning to trust the idea that here, that might not be the case. It was a habit - a protective instinct - that was hard to let go of. He'd always known that bad things could happen to him, and worse things could happen to Billy.

"I suppose discovering that feeling for the first time is always a bit startling," he admitted. "If he grew up anything like I did."

[jeongbro]

"His mother is a senator," Henry proclaimed, though he didn't get into the politics of it because he couldn't, really, remember the timeline of the American political shift. Saying she was a republican, he thought, would probably sound like a good thing--and, if Henry were honest, he'd looked over her fiscal responsibility platform and it did seem fairly strong. But Senator Gansey was also known to toe the party line, and that meant a lot of things that threatened people in Henry Cheng, and now her only son.

"Virginia's still fairly conservative," he continued after a thought. "Though the university cities in the valleys aren't such bad places. Outside those, though. I think Gansey jut grew up with the ideas of what proper is."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

The title certainly meant something, regardless of the political leanings behind new party lines. "I imagine the children of politicians rarely live much of their own lives. One has to make sure the family is beyond the reach of scandal."

And if this Gansey was the son of a senator, whatever party she represented, Goodnight imagined that no one would take it well that she had a son that might like other boys. "Given that we fought an entire war hellbent on not changing, I imagine the majority of the south has remained fairly conservative." He would be shocked if he was wrong. He was still, tentatively, catching up on the history he'd missed.

[jeongbro]

"Major cities tend to lean more liberally," Henry stated, a quiet fact. But it was the sort of liberal lean that was mostly inexplicable, when surrounded by conservatism. "Henrietta was near a lot of old coal mines; even being so near some of the college towns, most people were conservative because they thought it might be better for job prospects."

Henry wasn't really sure how to explain the modern political climate, not only in terms of explaining it to two people that had lived in a time that, historically, was viewed as being more close-minded, but to someone specifically that had fought in the Civil War.

So he laughed a little and flapped a hand. "I'm a Korean-Chinese who lived in Canada before this. I don't really know very much about it."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"I am catching up on my history, son. You don't need to try to explain the intricacies of modern politics. That cities might be more liberal leaning than more rural crowds does not surprise me for a moment. And I imagine certain attitudes below the Mason Dixon have not changed all that radically."

Goodnight sounded vaguely ashamed of that last point, but from what he was gleaning from history books it was a fact. Places still taking pride in the battle flag, flying it like they'd never lost the war. Ridiculous.

He lifted an eyebrow when Henry tried to get dismissive. "I'm not sure I beileve that, but I won't press you. I have time and I have books."

[assassinwithahairpin]

"Good, you can fill us both in on what we've missed," Billy said, quiet, toward his coffee cup more than it was specifically out loud.

Henry seemed to think this little statement was particularly amusing; it was probably the delivery more than anything else. But he laughed, just a momentary outburst of joy, before he meekly lowered his head. But Billy could see he was still smiling.

Easily slipping into Korean, Billy teased Henry for finding the joke funny. Henry teased him back for making a dad joke. It got a chuckle out of Billy at least.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight rolled his eyes and nudged against Billy. He heard that.

"Oh I don't like this at all," he declared once the two of them were going at it in Korean. "Gonna need to start taking lessons so I'll know when the pair of you are talking about me."

[jeongbro]

Henry smiled, bright but apologetic. Billy didn't look apologetic at all. Between the two of them, Goodnight was at least smiling, and Henry supposed that made it alright to tease and joke. So he gestured at Billy a little, and said, "His accent's different than mine. I don't know if you'd be able to follow the both of us."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"Mm, I should learn his, then, so I know what you're grumbling about me." Goodnight looked at Billy fondly, certain that their love was no secret to Henry. If Billy answering the door nearly naked hadn't been enough to suggest it, the way they'd been behaving was enough. It felt good not to hide it.

Henry was a well-educated young man. A well-educated young man that had gone to schools in Canada and Virginia. He wondered...

Goodnight kept his eyes on Billy when he said, in proper European French, "Mon cher, il est impoli de me taquiner quand je suis debout ici."

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy was, for a moment, frustrated with the very act of pulling out a language that, even after all this time, he only knew a word or two in, concretely. Even if he'd just done the same.

Henry seemed to understand what Goodnight had said, though. He sputtered into his coffee a little.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight just grinned and he couldn't help it; he couldn't stop himself. He kissed Billy then, full on the mouth (or as much as he could while he was smiling). "Mon cher," he repeated softly, warmly. "I won't gossip about you with Henry."

But it was entirely evident Henry had understood him. That was good to know. "Besides, you'd both be entirely lost if I went off in whatever version of French we learned at home." That was the one Billy heard the most out of him when they were on the road together.

[jeongbro]

They kissed. Henry sat, and watched them, just for a moment, before he looked away. There was no scandal here, no upset or distress or distaste for it. But it was a private moment, and Henry felt he was intruding. He didn't like that.

He got up from the kitchen stool he was sitting on, and polished off his coffee. "I believe, now that I have assure you have not drunk yourself into a ditch, that I ought to leave you two to your own devices."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight smiled. "Thank you for checking on me. It's nice knowing you would should anything actually happen." He didn't insist that Henry stay because he didn't think he would, and he was more than happy to disappear into the back of the apartment with Billy again, if he was honest with himself.

So instead he walked Henry to the door. "I'll call you this week," he promised. "I think I owe you some outing or another." Coffee, a drink, whatever Henry wanted. "I've missed enough gossip as it is."