Chapter Text
“It was an easy one.”
“‘An easy one?’” Todd laughs, “Go screw yourself.”
“Eeh,” Dirk pulls a face as he leans his elbows on the counter, “everything is relative.”
“Oh, is that your new thing?”
This makes for a pretty good way to spend his lunch-break. Once upon a time, Todd never would have guessed he’d one day find himself completely at peace in a bath store filled with fashionable twenty-somethings and the peppy beats of what’s almost definitely One Direction blasting over the store radio, but here he is, quarrelling with his boyfriend at the counter over crossword puzzle app.
“Todd, darling, if you actually look at it, it’s obvious. Oh, also – 21 Across is ‘lush.’”
Todd checks 21 Across. Oh, dammit. “How are you so good at these? Your pop culture knowledge is … haphazard at best.”
Dirk shrugs, “I memorized it.”
“You … you memorized the crossword answers.”
“Yes.”
Todd looks down at the crossword on his phone, then back at Dirk. Usually it would be a romantic, sentimental thing to think, ‘we’ve been dating for nearly a year and you still find ways to surprise me,’ but for one thing eleven months isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things, and for another Dirk surprises him in really weird ways. Like ‘I have a large collection of novelty-print ties and when I get stressed out I find it soothing to hide under furniture’ weird.
“All of them?”
“Well, no, obviously not all of them, Todd,” Dirk says, as if that would be mad. “Just around … three-hundred and fourteen. Or so.”
“‘Or so?’ You memorized three-hundred and fourteen crossword answers?” There’s a beat, as Todd slowly – probably not slowly enough – wraps his head around this new Dirk Fun Fact. “… Why?”
Dirk’s eyes light up in a familiar way, “Well –”
“Oh no,” Todd cuts him off, “no, no, no – this is going to be one of your fucking stories, isn’t it? Something starting with there being no milk in the fridge and ending in a pub crawl where you win a rainbow jacket and a baby goat that you name Mr Grape …”
“There is a pub involved, well done!”
“Dirk, it’s my lunch break, I’m not –”
Dirk leans over the counter towards him with a smile, “You like my stories.”
Todd hums in a way that’s sort of ambiguous but mostly unimpressed, going back to his crossword. “Do I?”
“I know you do,” Dirk says in his sweetest, most coy voice. “You like me. I’ve been reliably informed.”
“Have you?” Todd says, holding back a smile.
“Mhmm,” Dirk says lowly, “very reliably informed. Very insistently and passionately informed, if memory serves me …”
Todd keeps his face deadpan, even as he sees, out of the corner of his eye, Dirk reaching for his free hand, which is resting on his edge of the counter. Todd has full plans to let him take it, of course, but Dirk never actually manages to get there before a heavily laden plastic basket lands pins him to the counter, and he snatches back his hand with a yelp.
“Oh no, Dirk,” says Panto with absolutely zero apology in his voice but a great deal of fondness, “do watch where you put your hands at work, won’t you? Health and safety, you know.”
“Oww-wuh,” whines Dirk, massaging his wounded hand and pulling exactly the kind of pouty face which reassures Todd that his boyfriend is perfectly fine. “Panto …”
“I have full confidence you’ll recover from the blow,” Panto says, “And once you do, that you’ll start ringing up these items? That young person in the perfumes is choosing between two, but they’ll be over here soon.”
Panto moves onto helping another customer, and Dirk ignores him in favor of displaying the faint red mark on his hand to Todd. “Todd, look at that! Did you see what he just did to me? This is workplace abuse –”
Todd takes Dirk’s hand and presses a light, quick kiss to the pathetic excuse for an injury, silencing him instantly.
“Do your job, Dirk,” Todd reminds him with a grin.
Dirk just smiles as Todd releases his hand, looking very pleased with himself, as well as slightly pink. Todd can easily guess that getting a kiss on the hand was Dirk’s main motive all along, but it’s also obvious that he’s genuinely surprised he actually got it. Dirk tends to be like that about affection, but if Todd thinks too hard about why that is, he starts feeling sad and angry, so it’s best to just enjoy Dirk’s smile. It’s one of Todd’s favorite smiles in the world, after all.
And Todd is smiling back at him, something he only realizes when they’re interrupted by the arrival of Dirk’s customer, and Dirk is startled into action on the various goods in the plastic basket. Todd shoots him one more grin and sidles off out of the way.
He settles instead into the corner of the face creams section to wait for Dirk to finish with the customer. He’s staring down at his crossword and trying to think of an eleven-letter word for ‘give encouragement,’ when he hears someone close by grumbling, “Aw, fuck …”
The speaker is in their late teens, a kid with a bad red dye-job in his spiky hair, wearing the sort of shitty band merch that used to make up a majority of Todd’s teenage wardrobe. He’s standing in front of the towering shelves of various creams and masks with a daunted, fed-up look that Todd recognizes.
“Hey, you need a hand with anything?”
The kid looks up, twitchily, “Huh?”
“It’s cool if you’re just browsing, I just thought if there was something I could help with …”
“Oh, um. Nah, man, it’s cool. Just browsing,” he mumbles, the tips of his ears turning the same color as his hair.
“Okay.” Todd goes back to his crossword and waits.
Ten minutes of shuffling and muttering later, the teen says hesitantly, “Hey, uh … These bar things, what’s the difference between them and the moisturizers? Like are they just solid, or …”
“The solid serums? Sorta. They’re kind of like moisturizers, just like … more intense, basically. They work the same, you massage them into your skin, but they’re more like a specialized treatment to balance things out.” Todd puts his phone away, moving to see exactly what the kid is looking at. “Do you get dry skin a lot?”
“Oh, it’s not for me, it’s for my dad,” the kid says, then immediately turns a deeper shade of red, as if this is somehow the most embarrassing thing he could have possibly said.
Todd knows enough about how that feels not to try and comfort him, so he just says, “Okay, cool. What kind of skin does he have?”
For the expression on the kid’s face, Todd may as well have asked him a complicated algebraic question. “Um …”
“Like really dry skin, or acne, maybe redness …?”
“He’s got pretty red skin? And like … Um …” The kid winces, fidgeting with the pockets of his ripped jeans. “I was actually looking for like … like something that could help with scarring? Like on the face …?”
“Oh yeah, easy,” Todd says, reaching for a couple of toners. “A ton of these help with that, you just have to look for words like ‘brightening’ and ‘toning.’ They vary with how much they can help, though, and the more intense the scars the harder it is to shift them; you basically just have to be patient and help it fade gently over time. This one’s pretty good, but it can be kinda harsh, so if he’s got ruddiness …”
Todd talks the teenager through a handful of different masks, toners, and creams for the next ten minutes, and the kid begins to relax slowly, especially after Todd manages to shoehorn in a reference to the Sound of Nothing Music Festival when he recognizes a badge on the kid’s bag. Soon Todd is being treated to a update on the semi-underground post-post-punk scene in Western Montana, which leads into the kid complaining about how overrated the DJ scene is in Seattle, which in turn leads to him admitting that the whole reason he came into the bath store was to get something nice from the city to take home for his dad. By the time they’re interrupted the kid has introduced himself as Scott and he and Todd are deep in a friendly debate over the merits of Scarlett brand interfaces vs PreSonus.
“The Focusrites just look cooler, trust me,” Todd is arguing, “the PreSonus actually comes with software if you get the right bundle –”
“No one uses Studio One,” protests Scott.
“Maybe not anyone who cares more about being cool than working smart, yeah,” Todd snorts. “Seriously, if you actually check out the latest update you can see it’s only getting more and more user-friendly; with that price you get way more for your money than if you get separate software and interface, and if you’re just starting out you’re better off putting that money into a decent MIDI keyboard –”
“Uh oh, got him talking about MIDI keyboards, huh?” Amanda, dressed in full uniform plus glitter-covered black apron, slings an arm around Todd’s shoulders, greeting him with a sentimental, “Hey, loser.”
“Oh hey, I didn’t know you had a shift today.”
“Eh, Panto called, said he wanted his best casual in,” she says, “and I wanted out of the house – and yes, the bus was fine, before you fuss.”
Todd shrugs off her arm with a half-smile, “Wasn’t going to, promise.”
“A likely story.” Turning to Scott she says, “Hey dude, sorry about our store gnome here. He’s not bothering you, is he? We’ve tried to get him to leave but one of the guys keeps feeding him bread.”
Scott looks confused, “Uh, he was helping me with …”
“Again, Todd? You know you don’t actually work here.”
“You don’t?” Scott turns his surprise, mingling now with faint wariness, on Todd.
“I don’t, sorry,” he admits, “I just know a lot about the products, and you looked kind of lost. I remember the first time I came here it was all pretty overwhelming. The products and the staff,” he adds with a wry look at Amanda. “What was that thing you told a customer once about a bath bomb? ‘Goth night-dream fuel?’”
“Hey, any bath bomb that spits out black jelly that turns into black glittery water and smells like a magic potion was always gonna be my fave.”
“Black jelly?” echoes Scott, with an enthusiasm Todd sees him quickly try to hide the moment it slips out of him.
Amanda spies the enthusiasm and leaps on it straightaway. “Dude, you haven’t seen it? I’ve got to show you, it’s the shit – the jelly’s all like, squishy too – come on, I’ll do a demo and you can touch it. Todd, you’ll help, right –”
Todd’s phone alarm goes off in his pocket. “Ah, shit. No, I’m gonna have to leave you to it. Got to get back to campus, I’ve got Zimmerfield next and he’s always really weird about late walk-ins.”
“Zimmerfield. Isn’t that the one who held you back after class and lowkey interrogated you about your ‘whereabouts?’”
“That’s the guy.” Todd hits snooze on the alarm and turns to go. “It was cool talking, Scott. I should probably get back to Bergsberg one of these days, if Sound of Nothing has gotten that diverse. Last time I was there was like …” He shakes that memory out of his head before it can take root. “Anyway. Don’t let my sister make you buy any shit you don’t want – save for the PreSonus.”
“Dude, I’m not getting the PreSonus, the Focusrite is –”
“Is this what you’re gonna be like to all your students?” Amanda says at the same time. “Worst music teacher ever, just one big PreSonus shill. Disgusting to see what capitalism has done to you, Toddy.”
“Good-bye, Amanda.” Todd waves to Scott, and dodges Amanda’s parting punch to his arm.
“Worst teacher ever!” Amanda calls after him proudly.
Up at the counter Dirk is bidding a different customer goodbye with a bagful of bath bombs, just in time for Todd to step behind the counter and pull him aside, mostly into the backroom and mostly out of sight of the store proper.
“I’m heading back, I’ll meet you here later?”
“Oh, yes, yes,” Dirk says, glancing out towards the counter for any more customers, and probably for Panto, before leaning in to give Todd a quick kiss. “Oh, and Bart texted. Classically ominous. Says she wants ‘the goods,’ whatever that means.”
Todd rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll drop by on my way to the parking lot. And, Dirk?”
“Yes?”
Todd pulls him further into the doorway, until the slightly dimmer backroom lights fall over them both. “We’re …? We’re still on for tonight, right? Because if you’ve changed your mind –”
Dirk cuts him off with another kiss, less quick this time. When he draws back, his smile glows shyly. “I haven’t.”
And, as always, Todd feels himself reflect the same light back. “Okay.” He pulls Dirk in for a third kiss, this one the opposite of quick. It lasts until Dirk’s hand brushes against Todd’s hip, and Todd’s alarm buzzes again, and Dirk pulls away with an equally alarmed squeak.
“You dork, it’s just my phone.”
Dirk laughs in relief, “Oh my god … Honestly, my brain thought it was some kind of security alarm – the Universe just doesn’t want me to touch you today …”
“I dunno,” Todd smiles, “the day’s not over yet, is it?”
Dirk stops laughing and goes quiet, his face easing back into that glowing smile. Todd takes Dirk’s hand, kissing it once more and grinning at the pink flushing over Dirk’s cheeks. Eleven months, and Dirk still reacts the way he did the first time Todd flirted with him, if Todd manages to take him even a little by surprise.
“Love you,” Todd says.
“Love you too,” Dirk smiles.
Five minutes later Todd is hurrying across the mall, power-walking his way to Bart’s key-cutting stand.
“Hiya, Todd,” she drawls as he approaches. She’s sharpening a decent-sized peasant knife against a strip of leather, grinning at him the whole time.
A year ago, he would have been very nervous about this behavior. Now, he barely glances at it, digging in his bag.
“Hey, so, Bart,” he says as he empties half his bag on her counter, looking for the ‘goods.’ “I appreciate it. I get how it is. But you’ve got to stop finding excuses to give me weird shovel-talks.”
Bart makes a show of a particularly long sweep of the knife against the leather.
“And I know that’s just Silas’ whittling knife, I saw it on Instagram last week. Next to that … was it meant to be a moon? Moon with a face … thing?”
Bart puts down the knife with an only slightly sullen grunt. “Yeah.” She looks down at it, eyeballing the edge. “Kinda hoping he’s gonna give up the whole carvin’ thing soon. S’worse than the knitting.”
“He’s a stupidly rich trophy husband, he needs something to do besides stopping his mom from nagging Panto about respectable hair. Anyway, I thought you liked sharpening knives.”
“Yeah, but it just gets sad after a while, ya’ know? Like … seein’ him treat ‘em like this.” She shakes her head at the peasant knife. “Dude’s shit with knives, he just keeps wreckin’ ‘em.” She peers into Todd’s bag, suddenly distressed. “Hey, you didn’t forget it, did ya’?”
“No, got it.” Todd pulls out the wrapped sandwich, slightly squashed from being pinned under his notebook and water bottle. “Sorry, it’s kinda –”
Bart snatches it out of his hand and starts trying to rip off the clingfilm with her teeth.
“O-kay … Yeah, maybe don’t …”
Before Todd can properly intervene, she’s got enough open to sink her teeth into the sandwich properly, the pasta filling making an unpleasant squishing noise as she does so.
“Jesus. Okay, I’m going to class.”
Bart waves him goodbye by miming a cheerful throat-slitting motion with the knife, her cheeks bulging with pasta sandwich.
Todd manages to get to class just before Zimmerfield shuts the door, slipping past him with a sheepish grin and getting a flat look of exasperation in reply. Once he’s inside, though, it’s difficult to focus as class begins, and Bart squeezing in one more ‘hurt my brother and they’ll never find your body’ moment didn’t exactly help. He knows Bart and Mona both like him, in their own ways, but they’re also both capable of being terrifying, in their own ways. And he’s terrified about this enough without Bart sharpening knives at him, or Mona cornering him in the backroom and telling him in disconcerting detail about the book on snake-venom poisons she was reading.
It’s hard, even these days, for Todd to stop himself from getting caught up in the feeling that everything he’s worked for, everything he’s built since he met Dirk, is going to fall away underneath him if he makes one wrong move. And tonight is a big move. A really big move. So Todd worries his way through class, tapping his pen against his paper until the student next to him shoots him an irritated look. Beneath the drone of Zimmerfield and the rest of the class, Todd’s mind is full of anxious voices.
What if it’s too fast?
It’s way too fast. This is crazy. I’m crazy.
Dirk is crazy and it’s sort of my favorite thing about him.
But what if I’m just pushing him to do this? Like what if it’s just for me, and he’s doing it just to please me, and eventually it’s all too much for him and I’m not worth the effort anymore and –
Todd stops the whirlpool in its tracks. He takes a deep breathe. He repeats the key phrases he’s been telling himself over and over in the past few weeks.
This is me and Dirk. He wants this move too. We’ve thought about it. We’ve talked about it. And we love each other.
It’ll be okay, and even if it isn’t okay, we’ll handle that together.
Todd tries to put the anxious parts of the nerves aside and focus on the nicer part – the excitement. The energy in his bouncing leg, the little houses he doodles where he should be writing notes, the way his stomach is full of those happy butterflies he’s been feeling more times in the nineteen months since he met Dirk than in the last ten years put together.
Todd is still a little nauseous, and he’s definitely distracted, and if he manages to participate in the class discussion at all he doesn’t remember it, but he’s only terrified in the slightly delightful ways. He’s looking forward to it.
And when the class winds to a close and the first of his fellow students start filtering out of the room, Todd finds out that he wasn’t alone in feeling too much anticipation to sit still. He doesn’t even get a chance to pack up his stuff before he’s suddenly enveloped from the side in a very forceful hug.
“Dirk!” Todd wraps an arm around his waist in surprise. “Dirk, oh my god, are you okay?”
“Yes! Yes, I’m fine, sorry,” Dirk chatters, “I just couldn’t wait for you to get back to the store and Panto let me off early; I think he saw me vibrating in the soap section, or maybe it was the intermittent grinning – But how are you? Are you okay? I’m not hugging you too hard?”
Todd laughs and responds by hugging Dirk back, even harder.
“Todd,” comes a dry voice from the front of the room, “if you don’t mind?”
Todd looks around Dirk to see that the classroom is empty but for the two of them, and a faintly annoyed Zimmerfield, who is still sitting at one of the desks.
“It’s very sweet, but if you could have this rendezvous somewhere else?” Zimmerfield indicates his open laptop, from which is emanating the Skype video chat ringtone. “I have a long-distance student now.”
“Right, yeah – ‘course, sorry …” Todd disentangles himself and both he and Dirk scramble to collect his stuff. There’s a small scuffle over his notebook when Dirk takes it into his head to carry it for Todd in lieu of any other books.
In the background Zimmerfield’s call starts up, though, and Todd can’t help overhearing that instead of recapping the lecture, Zimmerfield and his ‘student’ just start gossiping. Something about social hierarchy in small town law enforcement, or possibly something to do with an office spat. Either way, Todd definitely feels less guilty by the time he’s leading Dirk out of the room, passing Zimmerfield’s desk on the way.
“Have a good weekend, then,” Todd says, a little pointedly.
Zimmerfield waves his petty dissention away without looking at him, only pausing to say, “Shut the door behind you, Brotzman. Estevez, have you considered just talking about this with Ms Black? It may be possible that she didn’t mean to slight you on the Boreton case last Spring – Well, no, I don’t really think a shooting range would be the best place to bring it up …”
Dirk pulls a silent ‘yikes’ face at Todd. Todd snorts and tugs him out of the room, the door falling shut behind them. The moment they’re in the hall, they both burst into badly muffled laughter.
“Excuse me, Mr Brotzman,” says Dirk in a mockingly bland drawl, “please. The classroom isn’t the place for romance, or cuddling. Can’t you see I have my important side-job as an Agony Aunt to attend to?”
“Stop it,” Todd laughs, pushing him in the side as they start down the hall, “we were being that couple, no wonder he got –”
“But I love being ‘that couple’ with you,” Dirk smiles.
Todd feels a thrill of utter joy, so bright it bursts out of him in a grin, “Me too.”
They keep laughing and giggling as they walk, and Dirk keeps stumbling slightly, even more so with Todd tugging him closer by the hand to press quick kisses to his cheek. It’s late afternoon, and the hallway is mostly deserted; they only pass two people on the way to the stairwell, and once they’re inside their voices echo alone against the concrete stairs and walls. Todd barely waits for the door to swing shut before he pulls Dirk into more kisses.
“You’re a nerd,” Todd mumbles as a sweet nothing against Dirk’s mouth.
“Should be a possessive pronoun in there somewhere, I think,” Dirk replies smartly. “You should know this, darling, you’re going to be a teacher.” He kisses Todd again, then takes the lead, rushing them both down the stairs at a half-run.
Todd is giddy with happiness and with just trying to keep his footing as Dirk pulls him by the hand down two flights of stairs, and his unrestrained laughter echoes so loudly it’s probably a wonder that neither an attack nor an overload takes place. Some days they get lucky, though, and today the excitement of the moment carries them through to the parking lot.
“God, we’re really doing this, aren’t we?” Todd says as they reach his car, both slightly breathless.
“I mean, I’d hope so. What with all the preparation, at this point I’d feel very foolish if things didn’t go ahead.”
“But is this crazy?” Todd opens the driver’s side and gets in. “Like, are we crazy?”
“Crazy? Nooo! No, we are … two …” Dirk slides in next to him, wearing one of his more thoughtful, if slightly goofy expressions. “Two super chill … normal guys.”
“Totally chill!”
“Oh, extremely chill.”
“Really normal. Almost boring, even,” Todd suggests.
“Exactly, just two boring, sane guys,” Dirk agrees, “taking a step that … feels right to us.”
“Right,” Todd grins, and starts up the car.
“Right,” Dirk grins back, reaching for radio.
Todd slaps his hand away out of habit.
The community college campus isn’t far from Todd’s apartment building. When they pull into the usual parking spot, the magic hour is just beginning to fall – and, quietly, Todd thinks that that’s appropriate. It feels right, in a gentle, settling kind of way that picks out tiny everyday details of the afternoon and highlights them in golden bands of sunlight. Dirk’s hair catching the breeze and the light, stray strands turning red. The cardboard box he pulls from the trunk, placed there earlier when Todd picked him up for work that morning. The crispness of Winter to the air, and the way it makes Dirk huddle up against Todd like he always does in the cold. Todd wraps an arm around Dirk to keep him warm, and they cross the road to the Ridgely together.
There isn’t much ceremony beyond that contented, easy quiet. As soon as they get inside Dirk swears at how freezing it is and dumps his box on the bed, and Todd laughs as Dirk scurries around the room cursing the cold and turning on the space heaters. Todd lets him get them running, then catches him by the wrist.
“Hey,” Todd says softly, and takes something from the bookcase closest to the door. He offers it to Dirk with a smile. “Welcome home.”
Dirk stares down at the ring of keys that Todd is holding out, his face flitting through different expressions almost faster than the speed of light.
Todd hadn’t mentioned the keys, but he’d assumed they’d be okay. After all, if Dirk is going to live here now, he’ll need his own keys, right?
Todd swallows his nerves, and keeps the keys extended. “I know it’s just … Like, we said, it’s just a formality, really. I mean, you’ve practically been living here since we got together, and I know we said it would help with rent while I’m still doing my course –”
Dirk throws himself into a kiss with so little warning that he knocks Todd back and they sprawl onto the bed. A head injury is only narrowly avoided, but Dirk is showering Todd with kisses, and clasping Todd’s hand around the keys, and Todd is laughing again. Groaning a little, too, because Dirk’s cardboard box is jutting into his side.
“Okay – Dirk, hold – Hang on, love, your box is …” Todd struggles to sit up, even though Dirk is still half on top of him and peppering the side of his face with more kisses.
“I love you, I love you, I love you …” he’s saying happily, with a sweetness that disarms Todd until it’s cut short by Dirk snatching the keys out of his hand, victoriously. “My keys, haha! Good luck throwing me out now, Todd!”
“They’re … I got them cut for you!” Todd points out, deciding not to tell Dirk yet exactly how long ago he got them cut, and sending up a silent prayer that Bart doesn’t choose to tell Dirk on one of her more ambivalently destructive whims.
“Yes, and now you’ve made the mistake of giving them to me.” Dirk admires the keys as if they’re made of something far more precious than brass, holding them up to the orange-golden sunlight cutting through the opening in the curtains. “And now you’ll never be rid of me.”
“That's the plan, yeah,” Todd mutters, biting back a smile. He glances down at the box, which is labelled – erroneously, he can only hope – ‘SHARK.’ “Why did you bring this up? I thought we were doing the actual move tomorrow and Sunday?”
“Yes, but this is symbolic, silly.”
“Symbolic, of course. Should have known that, my bad.”
“Don’t worry, I know you do your best to keep up.”
“I’m sorry, ‘my best?’”
“And it has important things in it.”
Todd narrows his eyes. Dirk’s ideas of ‘important things’ can range from endearing all the way to concerning. “Like what?”
“I’m very glad you asked that, Todd!” Dirk flips open the box with the same showmanship he uses to unveil limited edition bath bombs.
Inside is … a random collection of goods and belongings. Nothing strictly necessary. Dirk already keeps a stash of clothes and pajamas here, and he’s had his own toothbrush and other assorted overnight products at Todd’s apartment for a very long time; (Todd’s bathroom cabinet is just about full to bursting with hair products).
But Todd recognizes almost everything in the box, and he feels his heart swell at the sight of them. The little bear he’d gotten Dirk as a very late Valentine’s present, only a week after their first date. The cheap jade stone ring he’d given Dirk for his birthday last year, which Dirk wore until it turned his finger green and everyone they knew had begged him to stop wearing it. A broken wristwatch they’d dug out of the sand on a trip to the beach. Childhood marbles that Todd had passed onto Dirk because Dirk had said he ‘loved the tiny universes’ inside, and the Mexican Funeral shirt he’d put aside for Dirk before they’d even started dating. Two animal masks from the zoo, a medieval hat purchased during Silas’ Ren Faire phase, and a magician’s lightbulb. Many other bits and pieces asides, which Todd doesn’t immediately recognize but can guess the origins of; paper cocktail umbrellas, a ripped lotto ticket from 2016, a little plastic bag of confetti, a miniature toy car, a bent spoon …
“These are …”
“They’re all the things I kept in my room,” Dirk says. “To keep you close. For when I had to go to sleep in a bed that didn’t have you in it. I suppose I don’t really need them for that anymore, but …” He runs his fingers over the soft cotton of Todd’s old band shirt, in a hallowed way that makes Todd shiver, as if Dirk is brushing his hand against Todd’s heart. “I thought I could use a few. For decorations.”
Todd leans forward, meaning to move the box out of the way – because decorating is suddenly the last thing on his mind – but Dirk stops him.
“No, really, Todd.” He pushes the shirt aside, and pulls something out from behind it – a piece of card framed on a deep blue background.
A bell in Todd’s mind rings at the jagged, ripped shape of the card, but it’s not until he sees his own handwriting, his number, and the bunch of wonky buttercups drawn on one side that he really recognizes what it is.
“I …” Dirk takes a breath. “I’d really like to put this one up now. It’s my favorite.”
Todd smiles. “I’ll get a hook.”
They choose a spot for it by the door, and Todd, confident by now in his ability to spackle up holes better than his landlord ever could, finds a nail to hammer into the wall. Dirk stands back and directs while Todd tries to get the angle right, even though that’s difficult when Dirk’s version of ‘a little to the left’ has a fifty-fifty chance of actually meaning ‘a little to the right.’ When Dirk declares it perfect and Todd backs up next to him, the last of the afternoon sun casts their shadows high and long on the wall on either side of the framed card, merging into one shape when Todd moves in closer, and Dirk winds his arm around Todd’s shoulders.
Todd is dimly aware that for most people, moving in with his boyfriend of less-than-a-year probably rates as a stupidly crazy idea. Or if not crazy, then at least stupidly naïve, or stupidly hopeful. Todd finds it a little hard to feels like he’s being stupidly hopeful though, considering how hard he's worked - how hard he still works every day, to be the person standing here next to Dirk, in an apartment that is now theirs.
And I like him, says the voice in Todd’s mind, the one which sometimes still feels small, but always feels true on his most clear-headed days. I really like him. And I have this feeling –
“I … know I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,” Dirk says slowly. “It’s probably not very … chill or – or boring and sane of me. But I just get this feeling that …”
Todd starts to smile, but he doesn’t turn his head, still looking at the card framed on the wall.
“That you’re … Well, that you might be – er … That you’re probably going to be …”
He can hear the blush in Dirk’s voice.
“My … My person.”
Todd has to force himself not to start, or begin to laugh – just from happiness, and love, and all this feeling in his heart and his throat, and all the voices in his head that sing ‘this is right, this feels so right.’
“I can say that, can’t I?” Dirk rambles on. “That’s not too much? Just – my person. Yes. Let’s say that. My person.”
Todd meets his eyes, trying to let Dirk see him as fully as possible. “I know.”
Todd knows he’s in real danger of crying, but he’s not going to let himself look away – and it’s a good thing he doesn’t, because otherwise he would have missed seeing that Dirk’s eyes are bright too. Bright and happy, and slightly terrified in all the best ways.
“My person,” Todd says quietly, reaching up to Dirk’s cheek at the same second that Dirk drops his head just enough to rest their foreheads together.
They stand like that for a long moment, as the setting sun begins to turn their apartment hazy pink around them. Then Todd shifts, and his gaze lands on the bowl on the kitchen countertop, which is full of whole and unbroken bath bombs, some still in their packages, some home-made.
A grin steals across Todd’s face. “Hey, Dirk. Want to have a bath?”
Dirk laughs, pulling him closer. “Oh, sir. I thought you’d never ask.”