Cold Fusion: Twelve Days, Ch 7
A short chapter this time so that it could end at the right place! The name "Mr. Meanscary" is not mine, it is from an absolutely delightful comic called Wondermark and if anyone from there wishes me to change this, just ask and I'll change it.
Next chapter will hopefully be up soon, now that finals are winding down. My goal is to post the actual Christmas part of this fic on or near the holiday-we'll see if that works out!
Cheers, my dears. As always, you are beautiful and special to me, and I love you. I can't believe we've come this far, but here we are!
I own nothing but Drew.
Chapter 7
Watching Linda, Drew, and Roxanne prepare dinner, Megamind is struck by how very similar they all really are-it's his first opportunity to really observe human familial resemblance close up, and he's fascinated. Linda's eyes are a different color and her nose is broader than her daughter's, but the square shape of the face is the same. Drew, on the other hand, has blue eyes like Roxanne's, but his face is more rectangular than square and he towers over his mother and sister despite his slouching. His nose was probably broken at some point and healed crooked, but even so, Megamind can tell that he doesn't get his nose from Linda and it looks nothing like Roxanne's, either. All three of them have the same hands.
Both Roxanne and Drew treat their mother with deference, and all three operate more or less as one unit-the whole affair revolves around Linda, with Roxanne and Drew preparing ingredients and passing her things when she asks for them, the routine as neat and coordinated as a surgery. When Megamind asks if he can help, they chorus "No, you're fine," so disconcertingly in unison that it's clear they've been asked this many times before.
So he sits at the kitchen island and watches them work, instead. He listens to the in-jokes and catalogues them for possible future use in conversation, all the time paying close attention to the group dynamic. It's not what he had expected at all. From what Roxanne has told him of her mother, he had been expecting a scowling, suspicious woman with a sharp temper. Linda is stern and has a no-nonsense air about her, but she's quick to smile.
"You're awfully quiet, Pavel," she says out of the blue, and Megamind jumps. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"None of you have the same nose," he blurts, then colors. Drew turns a snort into a hasty cough. "I mean-I was just noticing the family resemblance, that's all."
"Yes, well." Linda dices peppers with the surety of a master, heel of one hand on the point of the knife to keep it on her cutting board while chop-chop-chopping with her other hand almost too quickly to see. "Drew takes after his grandfather-my father-height-wise, and he gets his nose from my husband. We aren't sure where Roxanne's is from. Could you pass me the whisk-it's in the top drawer on your left."
Whisk? He opens the drawer, hoping it will contain only a whisk, but of course it's full of cooking utensils. He recognizes spatulas, but that's about it.
Linda glances up, sees him staring, frozen, into the drawer. "Wire thing shaped like a weather balloon."
Drew chimes in. "Or an s-orbital, take your pick."
"Ah!" He brightens immediately and hands it to her with a relieved smile. "Thank you, I'm not very good with…with kitchen impell-ments."
"I take it you don't cook much?"
"I am a danger to myself and those around me," he tells her. "And believe me, I've tried. My cooking capabilities are pretty much limited to sandwiches, toaster waffles, and canned soup." He frowns and pulls something else out of the drawer. "What is this? It-isn't a Tesla coil, is it?"
Drew sends a cursory glance in his direction. "Another whisk."
Megamind looks at what Linda is doing with the first whisk, then at the one he's holding. "This one would be good for things in…pots, right?" he says slowly. "Because it's flat and can reach into edges?"
"Fast learner," Linda says to Roxanne, who grins.
"He is."
There's a rattling noise as Pavel puts the second whisk back and takes something else out. "And this thing is a…handheld…heating coil?" He sounds highly dubious. "Without a plug?"
Linda looks up and has to stifle a laugh - the dark-haired young man is brandishing a potato masher as if it were a sword.
"For branding meat?" he murmurs, changing his grip and making a stabbing motion with it, tilting his head. "You can do that, right? That's something cooks do, burn designs into, what…steaks? But I thought grill marks were supposed to be straight."
"It's for mashing potatoes, hon," Roxanne tells him, struggling to keep a straight face. Pavel looks at her, totally astonished and not bothering to hide it.
"It's for what? How?"
"You boil potatoes until they're soft, then put them in a bowl with some milk and butter and stuff, and you smash them," Drew says, miming. Pavel's whole face lights up.
"That sounds like fun," he declares, staring at the masher with shining eyes, and Linda honestly doesn't think he's joking.
"Well, if you want to try it, I'd be happy to teach you," she says, lips twitching, and darned if Pavel doesn't look like Christmas has come early.
"Really?" he says, somehow managing to look and sound even more enthusiastically delighted than before. "You would? Really?"
"Sure," Linda says, and Pavel hunches into a happy little ball for a moment, grinning so hard his smile looks like it might leap right off his face. He puts the masher back in the drawer.
"That would be fantastic," he tells her, folding his hands carefully in front of him. Roxanne hadn't been kidding when she'd said he was an open book-he talks with his whole body. He looks so happy. Linda is very sure she's never seen anyone look so pleased at the prospect of learning how to mash potatoes. "I will try not to set anything on fire," he adds quickly, his whole expression turning to one of startled worry. "The last time I tried anything with ovens, well-we never did get the scorch marks out of the ceiling."
"Is that how those got there?" Roxanne exclaims. Pavel nods, chagrined.
"It's why Min-nnn." His eyes go very wide and he freezes for a moment, and then his body spasms and he bursts into a fit of coughing. Roxanne rolls her eyes and passes him a glass of water, which he accepts gratefully and downs in one go. "Minnie," he says as soon as he can breathe again. His voice is rough, and he clears it. "It's why Minnie never lets me try new recipes."
Linda blinks at him, but he looks like he's all right now, so she doesn't ask. "Who's Minnie?"
"Pavel's housemate," Roxanne answers. "He works from home and he doesn't make much money, so they've worked out a system where Pavel pays for the house and takes care of the bills and Minnie is in charge of the chores and the cooking."
Linda turns to Pavel, her expression curious and a little bit wary. "Do you think that's fair? You don't think you're getting the short end of the stick?" She would never have allowed such an arrangement-one person paying for both his own living expenses and his friend's, and the friend just doing the chores? It's not even close to a fair trade. And if Pavel's relationship with Roxanne ends up being long-term, and she were to move in with him, would Minnie continue to live with them and sponge off of them both? It's a red flag.
Pavel doesn't seem to understand what she means. "How so?"
"Well, if all the stress of paying the bills for two people is on you, and this Minnie person is only keeping house-I hardly think that's even."
Pavel's eyes narrow and he frowns a little bit, trying to understand. "You feel the reciprocity is unequal? That the scale of financial reciprocation Roxanne described outweighs that of the services being rendered?"
Not exactly the way I would have said it, but all right. "That's correct."
He looks relieved. "Mrs. Ritchi, I apologize if I gave you the wrong impression. I'm more than capable of taking care of both of us. I've made a few, ah, strategic investments, shall we say?" He fidgets a little, studies his nails, spreads his hands flat on the counter and drums his fingers. "I'm also more than capable of taking care of three, if that were to happen…" He sends a questioning look in Roxanne's direction, asking with his face, and she nods. He turns back to Linda. "Roxanne and I have already discussed things, and we've decided to share expenses somewhat."
"Actually, Mom, we've been sharing them," Roxanne adds quietly, before Linda can respond. "For about a month, now. It's been working out really well."
Linda raises her eyebrows. "So you've already moved in together? And there's space for the three of you? Roxanne and Minnie get along okay?"
"Minnie is family," Pavel explains, and Roxanne nods her agreement.
"He's great, he really is. He and Pavel grew up together - they've sort of been taking care of each other all their lives. And there's definitely enough space," she says, and Pavel's lips twitch.
Linda looks at him. "I thought you did research for a living? How are you able to pay for three people?"
"Unscrupulous use of grant monies," he deadpans, then laughs and shakes his head. "Kidding, kidding." Then, when he sees that Linda isn't going to stop asking, he sighs and deflates a little. "Mrs. Ritchi, I was…I got mixed up in some bad business when I was younger. I made a lot of poor choices that could have gone horribly wrong, and as hard as I've fought to fix all that…I still count myself extremely lucky that my life has turned out as well as it has. Roxanne knows what I'm talking about-I would never try to hide something like that from her-but I'd really rather leave it at that for now."
Linda nods and tells herself not to jump to the worst possible conclusions. She was young once, herself. "May I have an example, please, before I let this matter drop?"
Pavel opens his mouth, then hesitates and glances at Roxanne, and they hold eye contact for a long couple of seconds. A quick glance at her daughter speaks volumes: Roxanne is equally unsure how to respond.
He licks his lips and returns his attention to the older woman, offering up a tiny smile. Linda is expecting something along the lines of drug dealing, and when the young man with the soft-looking hair and eager eyes says, very quietly, "Arms trafficking in El Salvador," she can't quite keep from gaping at him for a minute. His smile this time is more of a wince; he must know how this sounds. "Arms dealing in Russia. Two instances of federal tax fraud-I've paid the fines for those, by the way. Extortion. Strategic destruction of property. One instance of human trafficking which involved the illegal creation of immigration papers."
"Forgery, you mean."
"I do not mean forgery," Pavel says, looking at her with a clearer expression now. "Forgery implies that the documents themselves are fraudulent in some way or were made to appear genuine without actually being so. These were illegally obtained, but they are the real deal. I am nothing if not thorough."
Linda nods, determined to give nothing away. "Anything else?"
He thinks for a moment, then shakes his head.
"Really?" she asks. "No mob connections?" She's only half-joking.
The smile he gives her is sharp and doesn't quite reach his eyes. "None in the USA."
That one makes Roxanne pause and blink, and he amends, "Well, Lancaster and York don't really count."
"I know York would love to hear you say that," she mumbles.
Megamind remembers something, snaps his fingers, speaks without thinking. "Oh, I forgot to tell you! Lank says to say hello. I think he feels bad about that episode with Sundown."
"Which one?" Roxanne asks sharply, her tone suddenly and unexpectedly acidic. "The one where he shot and killed my attackers or the one where he dropped my ex off a roof and sent me his heart in a box?"
The ringing silence that follows her terse query is really amazingly awkward. Or, no, awkward isn't the word for it. Stunned, that's it.
"Um," Megamind says in a small voice. What the heck? Where did that come from? "Both? I think?"
"I'll tell you which it is," she snaps, "it's only the second. I'd put money on it. I bet Lancaster doesn't even know about the first time. Something is going on, and you know it."
She's tried to bring this up before but he'd thought they were done with it. Apparently not. He swallows and glances at Linda, who has gone back to chopping vegetables but looks entirely too nonchalant for what she's hearing. Why, he thinks, why is Roxanne bringing this up now? "W-well, what do you expect me to do? Ask? I've tried to look into it, you know I have." He scowls a little, lets a little irritation bleed into his tone. "You know I have, the same as you know he blocks me every time. Roxanne, I just don't know what you want me to do."
She drops a mushroom and catches it before it hits the sink. Drew stands frozen by the refrigerator, his calculating brown gaze darting from Megamind to Roxanne to Linda and back again. "You're part of it, whatever it is! I don't like him dancing around you like that. Figure something out. Thought you were a genius."
"I am," Megamind says, "which is why I'm not foolish enough to go poking my nose in Sundown's business. Especially not when he refuses to make death threats! Whatever's going on is bound to come to a head eventually, and we'll meet it when it does." He folds his arms over his chest, spins back and forth on the bar stool. "Right now I'm working on guaranteeing your safety; we both know I can handle myself."
Roxanne turns and blinks at that and immediately backs down, leaving Drew to ask the obvious question: "Sorry-refuses to make death threats?"
Roxanne and Megamind both open their mouths, but incredibly, it's Linda who answers. "Sundown is like some other people I could name but won't. He never promises anything he can't deliver." She shoves the mushrooms off the cutting board and into the slowly-filling bowl. "If he's refusing to threaten Pavel but won't let him in on the plot, then odds are Pavel is somehow integral to his plans. The trouble with that is, he's not the sort of creature that ordinarily plans for the long term and he certainly isn't the sort to trust whatever plan he might develop to someone else's shoulders." Her knife is flashing faster and faster as she speaks, the chopping growing increasingly harried though her tone never changes. "So what you're saying is that you know something's going on but you're not going to do anything about it, because forcing Sundown's hand is what you do when you don't want anyone to find or be able to identify your body. Which is entirely reasonable, you know; even I won't dispute that.
"All the same, it makes me very," chop, "nervous," slice, "that you feature in some strange, misguided, probably deadly plan that could get you and Roxanne both killed. Or worse."
Roxanne struggles past her shock at her mother's apparent intimate knowledge of how Sundown operates and manages, "Worse?" only to have Pavel quietly assure her that, "There are worse things."
"Spoken like a guy who knows," Linda mutters. "Oh, well, that's certainly reassuring. Dear me, I seem to have run out of mushrooms."
Drew swoops past, brushing his hand over hers as he swings by on his way to the sink. "Aaaaand I'm taking this, thanks Ma."
Linda blinks at her empty hand, then the chef's knife Drew is diligently rinsing off. "Hey!"
He glances back over his shoulder, goofy grin firmly in place as he singsongs, "Love youuu!"
She glares at him, then chuckles and sighs, goes to the stove and flicks on a burner. "Okay, okay. My son the charmer. Annie, dear, how are things in Metro City? Your new cameraman working out okay?"
"Yeah, he's great. Do you need me to grab you something to sit on, or…"
"Oh, heavens no, my knees are fine. The surgery was months ago."
Drew winks, then turns around to attend to the dishes while Roxanne wipes down the counters and Linda pulls out a wok, both of them chatting amiably, as though the previous conversation had never happened.
His back is to his mother and sister, but Megamind has a very clear view of the way the older man's face falls from sunny to exhausted in about two seconds flat. Uncertain, Megamind blinks at him, and a moment later Drew catches his eye.
His shoulders fall slightly and he shakes his head and shutters his eyes. Not much. Just enough. Megamind, who is used to reading minute changes in posture and facial expression-not being able to interpret body language will get you killed in prison-knows immediately what he's saying. It isn't words, nothing as coherent as that: just a combination of can't/tired/resignation.
The tiny shrug and twisting mouth are very clear, though, as is the split-second eye contact just before he swings, laughing, to pluck the dish towel off the handle on the oven door. Wit's end. Please.
Watching him, sparkling now for everyone and not just his family, Megamind starts to piece together what he's seen so far of the dynamic in this house. There are undercurrents that he knows nothing about, but he suspects that would be true in any household-he hasn't seen any altercations yet, but the conversation has been too light for any of those thus far.
The rest of the facts speak for themselves: Roxanne hasn't been home to visit her family in years. The Ritchis bounced back and forth between Michigan and California for nearly all of her childhood, sending down roots in both places but unable to truly develop and flourish in either. That lake in Nebraska was one of the few places she knew her family would all be together; her father was rarely home while she was growing up. She and her brother are very close, but she's eternally at odds with her equally stubborn mother and with nobody else around to help, Drew probably gets caught in the middle every time. He is the peacekeeper in this house, and for all his strange beard and mismatched face, of course he would radiate charisma and devil-may-care attitude. He has to, just to be able to get along with his mother and sister without totally losing his cool.
He's right, Megamind thinks. I'm sitting on a time bomb.
And he isn't sure that Linda won't stab me if she sees the opportunity, he realizes. That's what that bit with the knife was. She'd been getting into her stride and Drew had cut her off so smoothly that she hadn't even noticed.
He swallows. He had wanted to find out how Linda knows so much about Sundown but perhaps it's safer not to ask. Not just yet.
This is not going to be a good week. He's been on edge about this for what feels like months and he'd been hoping to feel better once he finally got here, but all he feels is a horrible knot of tension gathering in his shoulders and upper back. It isn't the family dynamic that bothers him; prison was full of strange, sometimes dangerous dynamics. This is a week in a house with a woman who actively hates him. She doesn't know who he is yet, but as soon as she finds out-
"You okay, Pavel?"
He looks around, startled, and realizes that he'd totally zoned out for a minute. "Oh, yes, I'm fine. Sorry. I was just thinking."
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
They get through dinner without any more strange conversations like that. Conversation is easy. Light. Dancing from topic to topic, skirting dangerous subjects like supervillains and heroes, although at one point Megamind suspects Linda is trying to bring the conversation around to the Scott family. He isn't sure, so he just steers them well clear by telling several raunchy jokes, one of which sends Drew into a hiccupping fit and leaves Roxanne and Linda blinking at one another. He'd managed to deflect questions about family, about religions, about political leanings and where he'd grown up and where he'd gone to school.
He's had easier conversations with ex-KGB officers.
But dinner ends with no explosions, and Megamind volunteers to rinse the dishes and load the dishwasher since he hadn't helped cook at all. Linda appears behind him as he's checking over the washer to make sure everything is in the most efficient arrangement possible, making him jump, but she just raises an impressed eyebrow and nods at him before heading out to her usual armchair in the living room. Drew is sprawled all over the loveseat, and Megamind shrugs and sits cross-legged on the end of the sofa, his laptop open in front of him, text-chatting frantically with Minion.
All things considered, it's a rather pleasant evening. The dishwasher is humming away in the background. Roxanne has her book. Drew is buried in some sort of peer-reviewed thing. Linda is engrossed in a crossword puzzle. Everyone is in their pajamas, because apparently the thing to do in this house is change into lounge clothes as soon as dinner is over and the washing-up complete. Megamind's pajamas, for this trip, consist of a fairly plain tee-shirt and sweat pants. He isn't too happy about his neck being exposed, but the disguise generator works best if the overlay more or less matches what's under it, and he isn't taking any chances.
Roxanne sits sideways on the couch, her legs over the arm, leaning back against her boyfriend. She has her chin hooked over his arm, which he has slipped around her neck, resting high on her chest so he can reach the keyboard with both hands. It's a surprisingly comfortable way to sit, for all he's so bony. After a while, he shifts and resettles, and she slings an arm over his knee and squirms a bit, then subsides.
When he starts to slide his legs out from under him, she twists her hand and catches him by the toes. He starts, then smiles and glances at her out of the corner of his eye. "…That's my foot."
"Yes." Suddenly she makes a noise and sits up. He watches her. "Let me see your cut," she tells him. "I just want to make sure it's not infected or anything."
He holds out his arm, glad that he had remembered to incorporate both the small wound and the messy bandage into Pavel's overlay. "You know, I can take care of myself," he protests.
She just clucks her tongue and inspects the scarlet line on his arm which, true to his word, has already closed and begun to heal. After a moment, she holds his arm in the air. "Keep this straight for me," she says. "Thanks." She takes his hand and pushes back on the tips of his fingers, flexing his hand up and down and watching how the movement pulls on the cut, then brings his hand level and turns it, rotating his wrist.
He watches her in silence for a moment, turning his hand in hers, double-checking that he's okay even though it's been three days and he really is fine. Where have you been all my life? he wonders, and doesn't realize he's spoken aloud until she glances up and smiles.
She opens her mouth and pauses, looking like she's about to laugh, then shakes her head and returns her attention to cutting the gauze and tying it down.
"What?" he asks, amused.
She looks up again, her eyes dancing, and lets his hand rest in her lap. "You aren't the only one who recites poetry," she says sheepishly. "I was a child and he was a child, in this kingdom by the sea, and we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee." She stops, chuckling a little, feeling foolish, but he finishes for her:
"With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me." He darts his head forward and kisses her briefly and she freezes, surprised, then smiles, turns, and relaxes back against him as he drops his arm back down around her shoulders.
"My girlfriend quotes Poe," he says. "I win so hard."
"Oh my frickin' gawd," Drew mutters, "you two are disgusting." But his thumbs are moving over his phone, and he sends a quick text that makes Linda's phone buzz on the arm of her chair.
She looks at it-Are you hearing this?-and then at Drew, who is smirking at her, triumphant. She glances at the man on the sofa, who has gone back to his laptop and is now typing rapidly with only one hand. Roxanne is stretched out sideways again, leaning back against his side as though he were a bony pillow, reading contentedly.
She scowls at Drew, puts the phone down, and returns pointedly to her puzzle.
It doesn't matter; he knows she's seeing it. Roxanne is never like this, she doesn't cuddle like this. Not in front of other people, anyway; not relaxed. She doesn't recite poetry off the cuff as though it were an actual conversation. She and Pavel wear little matching unconscious smiles as she turns a page and his hand flickers across his keyboard.
She clears her throat and does something with her elbow, and he glances down at her without moving his head. "Careful," she tells him, and Drew can't for the life of him figure out why. Or what the hum that he hadn't noticed until it cut off just now had been. Or why Pavel suddenly looks guilty.
Roxanne looks up at him, cocking her head at a crazy angle to meet his eye, biting her lip to keep from laughing. "You are a freak," she says under her breath, and Pavel's teeth blaze white in a laughing smile.
"So, uh, am I allowed to ask, where'd you get that cut?"
Pavel glances at it. "Oh-it was a knife."
Drew frowns. "Kind of a strange place to cut yourself with a knife."
"I didn't cut myself. I got cut."
There's a few seconds of silence while Drew thinks about this. "Okay, so-you were stabbed? You fell on a knife?"
Pavel snorts and holds up his arm, pointing at the red mark. "This is not a puncture wound. No. We-what?" He glances down at Roxanne, confused. "It's a good story. We got attacked at a gas station in Nebraska," he tells Drew.
His eyes nearly fall out of his head. "What? Are you serious? Some guy attacked you with a knife?"
"Only one of them had a weapon that I saw," he shrugs. "The other ones went down pretty easy, considering."
"How many were there?" Linda asks quietly.
Pavel glances over at her. "Three. Not all at once, though."
"And where did you learn how to take down three assailants while protecting someone else?"
He shrugs. "I told you, I made some bad decisions. You think I've never done time?"
Her expression doesn't change. "It was the 'protecting someone else' bit I was interested in."
His voice gets just a little bit chilly. "I like to learn-I think that's obvious. I meet people. They teach me things."
"What kinds of 'things'?"
"All kinds of things," he says in a level tone, then blinks, snorts, laughs, and totally ruins the serious mood. "Oh, oh no, that sounded-that came out wrong. Scratch that. Just…okay, there was this one guy in for a couple years, we called him Mr. Meanscary because oh sure he knew all kinds of mixed martial arts but they got him for insurance fraud, and you know, that's about the least mean and scary thing out there? Anyway…"
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
The house has two upstairs bedrooms and one downstairs master bedroom because Linda doesn't do well with stairs. Which is good, in Megamind's opinion, because he's fairly certain that if he ever ran into Roxanne's mother in the middle of the night, he would die right then and there.
"So?" Roxanne says as they crawl under the covers. "What do you think?"
He bites his lip. "I think-okay, honestly?"
She nods.
"I'm scared out of my wits and I don't even know what I'm afraid of." He laughs shortly. "I don't know what I'm doing. There's nothing tangible-I guess I'm still afraid your family will hate me, but that's stupid," he complains, "I know your brother, at least, is good people. Your mom will definitely not be okay with me, but I'm used to people hating me! I don't know what's wrong with me!"
"There's nothing wrong with you," Roxanne tells him. "I'd feel the same way in your position! God, if I had to meet Mitch or Guduza? I'd be shaking!"
"That's understandable," he mutters. "They're kind of large and convicted."
She smiles and touches his hand. "That's not what I mean and you know it."
He sighs. "I know. I just…I don't want to hide anymore, but every time I think about taking off the watch my stomach goes all funny." He wriggles a little bit, cuddling down into his pillow. "Also, I wish the door to your room would lock."
"Who's going to come in? Mom can't handle the stairs. Drew? He and I have an understanding." When Megamind cocks an eyebrow, she clarifies, "We don't go in each other's rooms. Ever. His room is a horrific wonderland of confusion."
He doesn't say anything for a while. Eventually Roxanne speaks up. "Do you think…maybe your reluctance about the watch is because of what happened last time? In the restaurant?"
"That's possible," he admits. "But I think more likely is that I know both our lives are going to go to absolute hell this time, instead of just mine. Our lives and Minion's life. This is the calm before the storm, but I'm too nervous to enjoy it."
She reaches out and touches his cheek, closing her eyes. He's wearing the disguise, as they'd agreed, but if she keeps her eyes closed she can picture him blue. She can't feel his goatee, though. "You should grow a mustache," she murmurs absently.
"What? You think I'd look better with one?" For some reason, he sounds a little bit stung by this.
"No. I just think it would be hilariously funny."
"Oh," he says. "Okay. Good."
She opens her eyes and blinks at him. "Why is that good?"
He smiles a little. "I can't believe you haven't noticed yet. When have you ever seen me shave?"
She blinks again, then grins all over her face. "Wait, seriously? Your hair just grows naturally like that?" Her eyes widen and she suddenly cups his jaw. "That's why your whole face is so damn soft! You've never shaved!"
"Well, I do trim it. But it seems I am simply not destined to bear the distinguished goatee of my father-unless that comes later, I'm never sure about what my body does." He frowns a little. "Frankly I'm not even sure I'm fully physically mature."
"Puberty must have been hell for you," she says, trying not to smile.
"You have no idea." He throws his voice up the octave. "Uncle Mitch, what are these funny spots on my stomach?" Then he tries to imitate a grumpy bass voice. "Hell if I know, kid. Go bother Guduza, I'm trying to sleep."
Roxanne has to turn her face into her pillow to muffle her giggles. "I wish," she finally sighs, "I really wish I could show you just exactly how much I enjoy you."
He smiles. "You make this bearable, you know. I know you'll be there."
"Just you try and get rid of me," she murmurs, and kisses him softly before nudging him to roll over and snuggling up to his back.
Last year, a week before Christmas, he'd been spiraling down. He usually always does, this time of the year. It's a month of family togetherness slapping him repeatedly in the face, and that's just a little bit disheartening, both for him and Minion. But this year?
This year when he leans back, someone is there. Someone whose arms tighten around him and pull him just a little bit closer, someone whose breath is warm and reassuring on his shoulders. Someone he can roll over and hold while he falls asleep. Someone to laugh and talk with in the dark. Someone who will love him even in the mornings when there are shadows under his eyes and creases on his face and a drool stain on his pillow and his eyebrows are rumpled.
And when he wakes up in the morning and lifts onto one elbow and says, "Morning, beautiful," someone swats him bonelessly in the mouth, rolls over, mumbles a vague obscenity, and goes right back to sleep.
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