#maelethan

[chawleedoodle]

(maelgwyn voice) if i had a lame ass boyfriend i would. i would. (sighhhh)

[charlieknighte]

un jour tu t’en voudras - part 1

[ao3 mirror]

Ethan Hitchcock/Maelgwyn

Modern AU - University AU - Fake/Pretend Relationship - Pining - Hurt/Comfort but like significantly more hurt than comfort - french people being terrible

13,060 words

content warnings: terminal illness, drunkenness and smoking, unhealthy family dynamics

For three hundred dollars, Ethan Hitchcock will attend your family's holiday event posing as your shitty art school boyfriend and do everything in his power to wreck the night. Maelgwyn's getting tired of Thanksgiving.

(Featuring art from my dear friend Matt Prairiecryptid!)

For once in his life, Maelgwyn is excited to see Thanksgiving go to shit. 

Nausea always creeps up on him as he moves towards a family gathering, but he’s distracting himself with schadenfreudian thoughts of how much of the night’s chaos and strife is going to be his responsibility this time. They’re going to hate the boy he’s bringing on his arm so goddamn much. Ethan has taken it upon himself to sound like even more of an egregious Quebecois douchebag than usual, like he's cramming a handful of extra vowels into every single word. It would bother Maelgwyn too if it wasn’t a result of an evening back home spent excitedly brainstorming ways to make him insufferable. It’s all Ethan can do to make himself as disheveled and douchey as possible. Maelgwyn’s paying a pretty penny for him to antagonize his parents, after all.

The Hitchcocks rarely advertise their services through anything but word of mouth anymore. Exam cheatsheets, less than legal party supplies, forged doctors’ notes, winning Roll Up The Rim cups—everyone around campus knows there’s not much they can’t get for you if you’re paying. Their acting services don’t come all that cheap, either, but once in a blue moon someone needs to make an ex jealous or fake a family emergency. Maelgwyn had come to them with his dilemma half expecting to be turned down, but they’d just nodded knowingly and named their prices as if they’d performed this particular service a dozen times before. 

So now Ethan’s here in Louisiana with him, blowing cotton candy-flavored clouds into the evening sky as they walk through pretty polished suburbs on their way to Maelgwyn’s grandfather’s house. He didn’t come cheap, even if they gave him a discount for a year of friendship and for the fact that they know how much shit his parents piled on him. Still, Maelgwyn is relieved he’s here. The thought of affronting his family again is much less dread-inducing with the knowledge that he’ll have backup. Ethan is a good friend to have—he’d endeared himself to Maelgwyn mostly by sleeping through the film classes they’d had together and later begging to study with him, then slyly turning their study sessions into outings with his friends. It was one of the reasons Maelgwyn had finally broken out of the lonely shell he’d hidden in through his first year at university.

He can work with him, he knows that much. He just wishes they’d had more time to prepare a plan for the night. Maelgwyn clears his throat. “So, we’re starting off on too good of a footing already. My parents are way too happy to hear I’m bringing home a boy.”

Ethan tucks away his vape and gives him a sideways look. “Aren’t you bi?”

“Yeah, well… I rode out making them think I was straight as long as I could. It pissed my dads off thinking I wouldn’t even consider experimenting.” Maelgwyn pulls a face. “Samot wanted to throw me a coming out party.”

Ethan snorts. “Too much acceptance is really an unusual complaint to have.”

“I know, I know.” Maelgwyn lets the matter slide. It’s a petty thing to bring up, and really the least of his worries when it comes to his parents. “Anyway, you’re also going to get brownie points with Samot right off the bat for being, y’know… good-looking.”

Ethan raises his eyebrows at him and gestures at himself. His Habs jersey and ripped jeans are wildly inappropriate for a dinner party, and he’d purposefully smudged his eyeliner at Maelgwyn’s request. His earrings are even mismatched. “Am I, though?” he says, skeptical.

“I mean your face. You’re not ugly.”

“Oh.” Ethan puts a fist under his chin and pouts at him. “Well, that’s all I get? I’m not ugly?”

Maelgwyn sighs good-humoredly. “Yeah, yeah, you’re pretty.”

Ethan splits into a grin, having gotten what he wanted out of him, and puts a spring into his step. Maelgwyn shoves his shoulder fondly. “Pretty fuckin’ annoying.”

“ Oh! ” Ethan stumbles and clutches his chest. “Is that any way to speak to your beloved? You wound me, mon cher .”

Maelgwyn laughs despite the strange feeling creeping into his chest. He really wishes they’d had a chance to rehearse. Hearing Ethan refer to him so affectionately is strange. Something occurs to him. “Oh, shit. Um, one more thing. My parents are pretty PDA, so we’ll probably have to… 

“Match their expectations so they don’t assume your relationship is crashing and burning?”

“Good way to put it.” Ethan really has done this before. Maelgwyn’s not sure how to feel about that.

Ethan’s hand hovers by his waist. “Can I, then?” 

“Sure.” Maelgwyn lets him put his arm around him and tries to adjust to being held as he walks. It’s not that foreign of a feeling. He’s had to endure the Hitchcocks’ drunken snuggling enough to not be fazed by them being touchy-feely when sober. Still, people don’t usually touch him here. He feels like he’s being flirted with by a spineless frat boy at a party. 

As they near the house, Maelgwyn finds himself nervously hoping he knows enough about Ethan for their false relationship to appear plausible. He knows that Ethan’s the cheery, personable one in relation to his brother, and that his general knowledge of the world is extremely hit or miss. He knows he’s kind enough to once have comforted Maelgwyn as he heaved his guts out in the bathroom of a frat party, and that he lacks enough common sense to have been found passed out in the bushes himself twenty minutes later. Maelgwyn doesn’t know shit about his life before university, but he figures Ethan will fill in the gaps if he needs to. He’s resourceful like that. Spirits buoyed again, he turns them onto the driveway leading up to the house.

Samol’s mansion is deceptively quaint, vines creeping over its two-story columns and cheerful flowerboxes and porch swings decorating the wrap-around deck. You would imagine it had been purchased for a pittance and passed down through generations. In reality, the house had been built as a wedding gift a few years before Maelgwyn was born, and the charming plant life and Victorian-era aesthetic was a result of careful curation. Maelgwyn still doesn’t know if he’s relieved or resentful over his parents giving it up. 

American Thanksgiving has always been Samol's domain, which Maelgwyn is constantly grateful for. He couldn't survive his parents' dinner party posturing again after having to endure it once in October. He doesn’t think Ethan could survive a polite evening in their mansion without snapping either, based on the three-room shithole apartment the Hitchcocks share. It might have inspired him to ask for more money too, which Maelgwyn couldn’t afford without going through the mortification of asking his parents. It’s much better to be here, where their wealth is plausibly deniable. Maelgwyn knocks on the door and braces himself.

There’s a distant hubbub deep within the house as his family politely argues over who’s going to answer. Ethan pops some gum and starts chewing obnoxiously, getting on Maelgwyn’s already frayed nerves—but he supposes that’s the point. Finally, a flash of blond hair approaches through the frosted glass on the door. Samot swings it open, flashing his campaign-trail grin. Maelgwyn’s excitement for his parents to balk at his disheveled, offensively casual boyfriend starts to wane a little as he tries to estimate how much Mayor Samot’s qipao of black silk and golden gilding must’ve cost the taxpayers of Toronto. His hair is in an elegant updo that he must’ve paid an equally opulent amount for.

“Maelgwyn!” Samot says, delighted as if he had no idea that his own son would be attending the family dinner he’s pressured into year after year. He steps out and wraps him up in a perfumey hug, earrings tinkling. Maelgwyn pats his back to participate without having to hug him back. “Oh, it’s so good to see you,” Samot effuses, stepping back. “Come in, come in. Everyone’s been asking after you, sweetheart.” 

Maelgwyn lets himself be shuffled into Samol’s nicely decorated if overly floral foyer. It’s pointless to fight Samot when he’s turned into an overwhelming cloud of energy and charm in his determination to do something. Ethan steps in after them, and Samot looks to him like an apex predator zeroing in on movement. His smile gets a little wider, showing more of his painfully white teeth. “You must be Ethan.”

“Yeah. Hi.” Ethan takes one hand out of his pocket and shakes his hand. Samot’s sharp smile dulls a little as he takes in his outfit. Still, the fact that it stays on his face instead of dropping away entirely means Maelgwyn was right to say Ethan would pass his standards for appearance. He feels a twinge of annoyance. 

An unfavorable twinge passes across Ethan’s face too as Samot’s deceptively slender fingers crush his hand. “Samot,” he says, smile back up to its maximum brightness. “Charmed, I’m sure.” Maelgwyn wishes his parents didn’t feel the need to establish authority over every single person they meet, but then again he wishes a lot of things about his parents. Every interaction with them is a fucked-up give and take exchange mired in the complicated politics of their family.

There are heavy steps behind him, and his heart sinks. He turns unwillingly. Samothes is making his way down the hall with a drink in one hand, as tall and stern and regal and terrifying as he was when Maelgwyn last saw him. That was some time ago. The golden embroidery down the chest of his sherwani matches the pattern on Samot’s qipao, and Maelgwyn has to resist rolling his eyes. He steps out to meet him, wanting to get it over with. “Hi, dad,” he says, and doesn’t deign to add anything else.

“Glad you could come,” Samothes says, hesitating for a nearly imperceptible moment before he pats Maelgwyn’s shoulder heavily. His gaze goes past him and visibly grows darker. He leans in and asks under his breath, “What is this?” As if Maelgwyn’s brought home a stray dog he doesn’t approve of.

“This is my boyfriend.” Maelgwyn turns so he doesn’t have to interact with him further and marches over to take Ethan’s arm firmly and interrupt whatever invasive questions Samot was trying to wheedle him into answering. Samot smiles innocently. Samothes comes to put an arm around his husband’s waist, frowning openly at Ethan. Maelgwyn can watch him doing Ethan’s job for him and making a dozen unfavorable assumptions about him already.

Ethan raises his chin at him in greeting and snaps his gum. “What’s good?” he asks. He’s discreetly wringing out his hand from Samot’s handshake.

“This is Ethan, dearest,” Samot says, leaning into his husband and drawing himself up to his full height to rest his head on his shoulder. His eyes are getting narrower and narrower as Ethan’s dreadfully inappropriate outfit and lack of manners already start to outweigh his pretty face.

“Ethan,” Samothes says, and doesn’t make any attempt to welcome him. Ethan puts out his hand, realizes there isn’t a handshake waiting, fumbles and puts it down. Maelgwyn can see him start to take on a tinge of genuine nervousness. He feels like he should’ve warned Ethan in some way, but there’s really not much more he could’ve done after telling him my parents are politicians. Samothes, who relishes in his position as senator of Ontario largely because of his lack of contact with the public, is really the worst one to have to impress.

Then again, Ethan isn’t really here to impress. “Um, Samothes, I guess?” he says like he’s only half-interested, getting even more insufferable about his gum-chewing.

“Mm,” Samothes grunts, still glaring at him. Maelgwyn imagines how terrifying his parents must seem from Ethan’s point of view, tall and beautiful and hostile in that courtly, dismissive manner of theirs. Making them hate him is going to be easier than he thought. 

“Let’s not keep everyone waiting, yes?” Samot says, nudging his husband and sweeping them back off to the foyer. He throws Maelgwyn a look that says they’re going to talk about Ethan’s outfit later. Maelgwyn can’t wait. 

He kicks off his shoes and shrugs off his coat, throwing it over the rungs of the staircase to the second floor for lack of available racks. “Well, that was hostile,” Ethan remarks, following Maelgwyn’s lead with noticeably less care. “They’re very—”

"Don't joke about how hot my parents are,” Maelgwyn snaps.

Ethan raises his eyebrows at him. "I didn't say anything."

"I know. I’m just saying. I didn’t want to tell you in advance and hear a million dumb jokes from you and Edmund."

"They made a good-looking kid. I didn't really need a warning."

"You can’t deflect from calling my parents hot by flirting with me. That just makes it worse . " Maelgwyn jabs a finger at him accusingly, and Ethan raises his hands.

"I didn't say anything ,” he insists.

Maelgwyn sighs and leads him through the dim foyer and into the bright, bustling living room. The adults are dressed as if they’re attending a formal gala. Adults—Malegwyn hates that he still calls them that unconsciously. They throw a few judgemental glances at Ethan out of their cloud of cocktail dresses and tailored suits. Ethan’s jersey had set him back a few hundred bucks, but no one here would find that an exorbitant sum. “Well,” says Ethan, insolently refusing to be intimidated, “should we make the rounds?”

“Yeah,” Maelgwyn says, though he’s reluctant. He can see his grandfather in his usual rocking chair, swimming in a stark white dress shirt that used to fit him perfectly. He’s laughing at something his sister is saying. Maelgwyn makes a beeline for him, pulling Ethan along by the arm.

Samol catches sight of him and eases himself up, smile so wide and genuine it crinkles the corners of his eyes. He holds out his arms for a hug, and Maelgwyn leans into him much more gladly than Samot. “Hey, grandpa.” He puts his arms around him and feels a moment of protectiveness at just how frail he is.

“It’s been far too long. I hope they’re treating you well up north.” Samol steps back and grins over his shoulder. “And this must be the famous Ethan.” 

“Yeah, hi,” says Ethan, putting out a hand. Samol ignores it and pulls him into a hug, too. Surprise quickly flashes across Ethan’s face, and then he hugs him back politely.

“Good to meet you. I have to say,” Samol says, pulling away, “we haven’t heard all that much about you, son. I’m looking forward to getting to know just who you are.” He smiles, easy and kind. Still, there’s an edge to the statement that Maelgwyn doesn’t quite understand.

“Um, you too,” Ethan says. He can’t bring himself to be rude to Samol, as most people can’t, but he looks slightly discomforted by the idea that people have been wondering about him. Maelgwyn doesn’t blame him when it’s these people.

Samol holds out a hand to the rest of his family. “This is my sister Severea. Her partner Galenica. My… brother of sorts, Tristero.” Severea and Galenica glitter as always, and Tristero’s in his signature jet black suit. They give Ethan smiles in varying shades of politeness as he shakes their hands in turn. 

"Pleasure," he says, greatly enjoying his aggressive Quebecois shtick. Tristero narrows his eyes. His handshake looks painful. 

"Likewise," he says, with his perfect Parisian lilt. Maelgwyn can see the exact moment Ethan stops enjoying himself. Tristero snatches away his hand like Ethan has the plague and turns to speak to Severea in mainland French, abruptly cutting him out of the social circle.

Ethan stands there for a moment, taking furious breaths, and then he turns around to round on Maelgwyn. "You didn't tell me you were French."

"All sorts,” says Maelgwyn. “I said we were all sorts."

Ethan puts his hands over his face and mutters a long string of curse words that contains tabarnak no less than four times. Some of Maelgwyn’s family members look at him strangely, but none of them really grasp what he’s saying. “We’re in Louisiana,” Maelgwyn reminds him. “What did you expect?”

Ethan puts his hands down, but he’s still sulking. “Your family has a hell of a grip,” he mumbles.

“Yeah, it’s from all the political grandstanding.” Maelgwyn puts an arm around his shoulders and turns him away from the adults’ corner of the room and its dozens of empty martini glasses. “You wanna meet my cousins?”

Ethan nods miserably and lets himself be led over to where the Tristé siblings are sprawling across the couches texting. Adelaide is draped across the length of one couch, head propped on her arm, and Angelo is aggressively manspreading at the other end to try to win back some space. They aren’t dressed extravagantly, but they still drip in brand names and good taste and organic locally-sourced handpicked vegan textiles. 

Angelo rolls off the couch and hops up to give Maelgwyn that shining grin that he shares with his father and hates so much. “Bro,” he says, pulling him into a hug and slapping his back, “where’ve you been? Tristero’s made me go on a humblebrag parade around the room, like, five times. It’s your turn, Oscars boy.”

“Oh, god, I hope not.” Angelo’s been out of the house much longer than Maelgwyn has, but Maelgwyn knows he resents his father treating him like a child at these gatherings as much as he does. He punches Angelo’s shoulder amicably. “Nice to see you.”

“This your boyfriend?” 

“Yeah—yeah. Uh, Ethan.”

Ethan jolts to attention and steps in to slap Angelo’s hand. “Hey,” he says, a shade more friendly than he was with most of the family. He seems relieved not to have to shake another hand. Trusting Angelo to be polite unsupervised, Maelgwyn turns his attention to the other Tristé sibling.

“Hey, Adie,” he says, leaning down to give her a one-armed hug. “You guys look great.”

Adelaide squeezes his shoulders. “And your boyfriend looks terrible. You’re trying to piss off Samot, aren’t you?” Maelgwyn gives her a pleading look, and she raises her hands. “My lips are sealed. Enjoy whichever game you’re playing.” 

Maelgwyn breathes a sigh of relief and drops onto the couch across from her. He appreciates that the Tristés consider him to be enough of an ally in the political landscape of their family that they’ll call him out on his shit instead of pretending to fall for it. He and Ethan chat with them during the long lull before Samol announces dinner is served. Maelgwyn mostly sticks to small talk and half-listens to Ethan enthusing about his fencing team with Angelo. It’s completely unsurprising that they get along well. He just wishes he hadn't given Ethan free license to exaggerate his accent. It's already getting grating. 

It’s not even halfway into the night, and Maelgwyn’s weary and itchy and uncomfortably warm. He wishes desperately he could be home, not for the first time and not for the last. At some point Ethan leans over and asks if he can put an arm around his waist again. It helps to have some time to parse the feeling of Ethan’s arm around him in a place he usually hesitates to let people touch. It’s not so bad once he gets used to it.

Finally, Samol comes back from checking on his food and announces that dinner is served. The slow shuffle to the dining room starts, and Maelgwyn endures nearly ten more minutes of laughter and milling about and seats being scraped back and forth. Ethan’s arm around him starts being less of a touch he’s tolerating and more of a grounding sensation. Finally, the seating arrangement is established, with Maelgwyn sitting as far from Samothes as he possibly can and ending up by Samol, who’s taken up the other head of the table. His grandfather smiles at him for a moment before they say grace, eyes merry and twinkling between wrinkled lids. Maelgwyn can’t help but smile back. 

Samothes settles himself in his seat with gravitas, looking gravely out over candlesticks and seasonal decorations and heaping plates of Louisiana home cooking. "Dear lord," he begins, projecting his booming voice. There’s a flutter as hands are clasped and eyes are closed. "Thank you for this food. Bless the hands that prepared it. Bless it to our use and us to your service—"

Ethan suddenly shoves back his chair with a loud noise, makes sure people are looking as he spits his gum into his hand, and gets up to throw it out in the kitchen. The table sits in stony silence until he returns. Maelgwyn desperately holds in laughter. When Ethan returns, Samothes says in a low, dangerous voice, "Would you like to finish our grace, Ethan?"

He freezes. "Me?"

"The lord seems to have moved your spirit." 

There's a nervous chuckle around the table. Ethan's squirms, waiting to see if it's a joke that will blow over. It isn't. He opens his mouth and hesitates. As if someone else is saying it for him, he mumbles distantly, "And help us to give you glory each day through Jesus Christ our lord."

An amen goes around the table, and dinner properly begins. Samothes looks grimly pleased. Ethan rips apart a dinner roll violently. Maelgwyn briefly worries that Samothes has genuinely upset him, but Ethan's anger seems to evaporate a moment too quickly. Or maybe he’s imagined it. It’s never easy to tell what Ethan’s thinking. Too many of his actions are the result of one facade or another.

Either way, Ethan eventually pulls himself up from his childish slouch to serve himself like everyone else. He goes for his dinner fork, hesitates and purposefully picks up his dessert fork instead. Samot goes to say something, seems to think better of it and just purses his lips. Maelgwyn has always noted that Ethan has strangely impeccable table manners when he wants to, and he’s thrilled that he’s deciding to use his knowledge of etiquette for evil. He picks up his own dinner fork, because to do otherwise would be a little too suspicious, and digs into his food enthusiastically. Samol’s jambalaya has often been the only thing getting him through this fucking holiday.

"So, Ethan," Samol begins, smiling warmly, "where do you spend your Thanksgivings when my grandson isn't dragging you out to my neck of the woods?"

Ethan gives him a small, polite smile. Samol is too hospitable for anyone to stay standoffish when speaking to him. "At friends', with my brother." To tell the truth, Maelgwyn is tremendously envious of the friendsgiving he’s constantly missing out on. For Thanksgiving to be a pleasant night and not a drawn-out affair of family drama and faux-politeness would be a dream.

"Not with family?" Samot asks from across the table, masking judgement with concerned curiosity.

Ethan snorts. “Wouldn't know where to find them for it, and wouldn’t care to see them." They have the opposite problem, really. Maelgwyn has too much family, and Ethan has next to none. Ethan has never seemed to give much of a shit about it, which Maelgwyn envies tremendously. He wishes with all his heart and soul that what his family was doing didn’t bother or affect him.

Samot takes a slow sip of wine. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” His eyes are intense over his glass as he watches Ethan rub at his eye, purposefully smearing his eyeliner a little further.

Ethan shrugs and shovels more shrimp in his mouth. Samothes gives him a narrow-eyed, skeptical look Maelgwyn’s learned to fear, but Ethan seems completely unfazed by it. “This is great,” he says as an aside to Samol, mouth is full of shrimp. Samol smiles brightly, and Samothes moves on, having recognized that Ethan is outplaying him by winning his father’s favor. The strain between them tightens a few fractions more. 

“ Puis-je avoir du sel? ” Tristero says, gesturing to the salt shaker at Ethan’s elbow. 

“ Ouais, ” says Ethan, leaning unnecessarily hard into the a to make it absurdly clear that he isn’t saying a proper oui. He reaches out and drops it into Tristero’s hand. Tristero’s eyes widen as if horribly offended, and he straightens his back self-righteously. Maelgwyn braces himself for one of his insufferable speeches on table etiquette.

“ Il ne faut pas passer le sel de la main à la main, ” says Tristero, growing steadily more hostile with each word. “It should be set down on the table in front of your neighbor so they can pick it up for themselves. I just thought I should let you know, seeing as they don’t seem to teach etiquette up in your country.”

“Oh,” Ethan says, reaching the point of hostility much faster. “I see. Well, let me put this in a way you’ll understand, since there seem to be so many cultural stumbling blocks between us. Je m'en fous.” 

The table quiets slightly, everyone finally able to understand Ethan’s profanity (except for Samothes, who keeps eating his rice in blissful ignorance). Maelgwyn and the Tristés try to suppress snickers and smiles. Samot goes to snap at Ethan, finds himself in the position of not wanting to discipline a stranger, and instead says in exasperation, “Maelgwyn!”

Maelgwyn tries to stop smiling and look appropriately serious, but is only halfway successful. “Ethan,” he says, touching his arm.

“He started it,” Ethan says sulkily.

“I know, babe.” Maelgwyn finds himself rubbing Ethan’s shoulder and feels foolish both for acting like his father and for using a term of endearment for the first time. He should’ve rehearsed it earlier, as Ethan had. He drops his arm and goes back to his food, hoping he isn’t red in the face. Samot looks disappointed in him for taking Ethan’s side, but he doesn’t instigate the matter further.

“Well, it was always said that passing salt de la main a la main would cause a quarrel,” says Samol good-humoredly. There’s some reluctant chuckling around the table. The matter having been smoothed out enough to ignore, they continue picking at their plates. Still, there’s a considerable strain underpinning the evening. Ethan and Tristero keep trading blows, though neither escalate as far as the spat over the saltshaker. A steady, dull pain grows in Maelgwyn’s chest, and he starts desperately avoiding speaking with his parents. He almost thinks he’s home free when Samothes abruptly clears his throat and asks, "How are your films going, Maelgwyn?"

Maelgwyn swallows. "We don't really put out anything till third year, dad." 

It’s not technically true, but he doesn't feel like explaining the intricacies of his projects to his father and watching his eyes glaze over. He waits for a followup question and gets none. Samot touches Samothes's arm, making it clear to Maelgwyn that he told him to ask, and then he speaks up instead. "What about you, Ethan? What do you study?"

“Performing arts,” Ethan says, sounding appropriately contemptuous and uninterested in regular human interaction for someone of his major. Maelgwyn can see Samothes’s face completely drain of hope that he had brought someone normal home. Samot progresses to rubbing his arm comfortingly. It’s awfully early in the evening for him to be doing that, which is a good sign.

“I see,” Samot says, “and do you know what you plan to do with your degree?”

“Perform art,” Ethan says flatly. There’s a chuckle around the table, mostly from the Tristé siblings and Samol. Ethan splits into a shitty grin. “I’m joking. You can’t do shit with an arts degree. It’s join the army or marry rich.” 

The table finds this less entertaining. Samot’s hand goes still on his husband’s arm, and Maelgwyn can see him digging in his nails. Ethan sips his drink peacefully like he was just making pleasant conversation and as if Samothes isn’t staring daggers at him less than a day into knowing him. Maelgwyn finds himself wishing he hadn’t been thrown under the bus by association, but he still has to respect the balls Ethan has to have to act so unbothered by his father’s ire.

Samot lets out a fake, tentative laugh, pretending this is a joke to give him an opportunity to backpedal. Maelgwyn realizes he might’ve had too much wine. “But you… do have goals other than that.”

“Well, marry rich. I already said that.”

“That’s not…” Samot sighs. “Maelgwyn’s going to make films. You haven’t considered acting in them?”

“Sure.” Ethan drops his cutlery and pushes back his chair with a harsh scraping noise. “I mean, in case you haven’t noticed, you seem to be doing well enough for yourselves to look down your noses at me. I’m sure you’ll bribe someone to give your son a few dozen mil, right?” Samot’s mouth drops open in indignation. Ethan sits back, gesturing around at the dining room in all its faux-antique charm. He’s smiling one of his most horrible smiles. “Hell, I’m sure some portion of all this is willed to Maelgwyn, and your tête de la famille will keel over soon enough, won’t he?”

If Ethan’s previous outburst had quieted the table, this one completely kills all activity around it, forks clattering still and jaws pausing mid-chew. The silence is murderous. Adelaide chokes on something politely and brings a hand to her mouth. Samot sits back with his wine, staring at Ethan with open, intense malice for the first time in the night.

Samothes holds his knife like he wants to slice Ethan open with it. “What did you say?” he says, voice low and dangerous. It’s redundant. Everyone knows what he said. Ethan blinks at him.

“I said you’re doing well enough for—”

“No, you know what I mean. How dare you?”

Ethan slides back down, looking less confused than pissed off now. Maelgwyn tries to say something, but all that comes out is a squeak. It’s still enough to get Samothes’s attention, and he fixes him with his awful stare instead of Ethan. “How do you manage to be with someone like this? How could you trust him enough to tell him?”

Maelgwyn wants to disappear. He can’t even slink down in his seat, he’s so frozen with fear. The table hovers in its silence, no one daring to breathe. Samothes’s directed malice fades to an aimless fury. “You didn’t tell him,” he says quietly. It’s more of an accusation than a question. Maelgwyn shakes his head wordlessly. He feels like he was just plunged under six feet of water. Samothes sighs and looks to Samot. “Tell your son—”

“ My son?” Samot snaps, sitting forward again and sloshing wine onto the tablecloth in his indignance. Maelgwyn stares down at his plate and pushes around some rice, chewing mechanically without tasting his food.

“Aw, don’t kick up such a fuss,” Samol tries to say, but he’s spoken over immediately.

“I’m sorry, what was I not told?” Ethan says, something hostile about his tone even though Maelgwyn silently begs him to stay soft. He might’ve been pushed too far. 

The table becomes abruptly quiet again. Samot and Samothes sit looking at each other, not knowing how to break the news. They’ve never known how to talk about it. It’s like the mere mention of it has plunged them back into grief as fresh as the day the news was first broken to them.

“It’s stage four,” Samol says softly. Ethan blinks at him, opens his mouth to ask a dumb question, and then understands and slowly melts into horror.

Samothes pushes his chair back with a horrible screech and gives Maelgwyn a look before leaving for the kitchen. The blame is shifted to him as always. Maelgwyn didn't do enough, didn’t behave properly enough, wasn't enough. He should’ve better informed Ethan about his family’s history, and yet he should never have brought it up—or brought him home—to begin with. Tristero stands up in a huff and completely leaves the room, slamming the door to the back porch. Angelo and Adelaide jump up to go after him, giving Maelgwyn looks of apology and pity. Severea regards her brother with a deep sadness, and she and her partner rise and follow them out more slowly. The festively decorated table suddenly seems ridiculous and inappropriate in the sober atmosphere. Maelgwyn feels like slinking under it, pressing his head into a corner and hiding for the rest of the night. He can hear Samothes washing dishes aggressively, trying to regain some sense of control over the world. The way he bangs each dish brings Maelgwyn back to the arguments that used to echo through this house in his childhood, and how badly he would flinch at every little noise.

Samot rises from the table, still fixing Ethan with an openly malicious look. He walks around the table slowly, scaring Maelgwyn more with each step. "You've got a little something," he says, and then hauls Ethan up by the scruff of his neck like a kitten and scrubs vigorously at the corner of his eye. He drops him just as quickly, looking furiously satisfied, and storms off to the kitchen after his husband. Ethan sits there, blinking and stunned. When he looks at Maelgwyn questioningly, he can see that Samot had wiped off the eyeliner he's been so insistently smudging towards his temple. 

It almost makes Maelgwyn laugh despite everything, and then the hissing whispered argument beginning in the kitchen reaches him and all mirth he could’ve summoned evacuates his body abruptly. He took this too far. He knows that. He sinks down in his chair, every harsh consonant he can hear hitting him in the stomach like a blow. There’s nothing he can do. There never has been.

He, Ethan and Samol are the only ones left at the table. "I'm sorry," Ethan says, soft and genuinely regretful.

"It's alright, son. You didn’t know." Samol gets up and claps him on the shoulder. Maelgwyn watches Ethan re-evaluate how frail he is, how much trouble he has getting himself upright. For a moment Maelgwyn wants to burst into tears and rest his head against his grandfather’s bony shoulder and tell him everything, lay out their whole horrible scheme and try to explain why he thought it was a good idea. 

He remembers confessing the fear and unease of his home life to Samol when he’d been a child in the midst of his parents’ impending separation, and the relief of Samol telling him he’d take care of it and letting him sit in his Marlboro-scented car as he walked into the house to chew his fathers out. Maelgwyn aches for the same sort of relief, but he still can’t bring himself to speak. He watches Samol make his way across to the door out to the back porch and rest his hand on the handle. “I’ll smooth things over,” he says in his effortlessly comforting manner, and steps out. 

Maelgwyn feels a fraction better, but only that much. Even though there's no one left at the table, he finishes his dinner silently. Ethan sits there for a few more moments, then follows suit. He seems unsure of what to say.

“I didn’t think it would come up,” Maelgwyn says when he can be verbal again. It feels like a woefully inadequate excuse. Ethan looks up at him from his dish. He doesn’t seem angry with him, for which Maelgwyn is awfully grateful.

“I guess it worked in our favor,” he says, but he sounds unsure. He pushes his food around a little and then looks up again, eyes anxious. “I am sorry.”

“Don’t—Don’t worry about it.” Maelgwyn doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. He stabs a piece of shrimp a little too hard. It’s quiet for a few minutes as they finish their food. The argument keeps gaining traction in the kitchen, growing more and more heated. Samol is coughing outside. Something about the harshness of the sound makes something in Maelgwyn snap. 

He gets up abruptly and slams open the door to the porch. It’s darker than he expected it to be, none of the porch lights on and the suburbs glittering in the moonlight in the distance. Samol is sitting on the edge of one of the porch swings, a lit cigarette between his fingers as he rests his hand on his knee. The Tristé siblings lounge on another of the benches, looking sullen. Their father leans against the railing at the edge of the deck. They all blink at Maelgwyn’s sudden, violent entrance.

"You're not supposed to smoke anymore,” Maelgwyn snaps at his grandfather.

"Maelgwyn," Tristero says warningly, but Samol waves at him and goes to stub out his cigarette.

"Naw, he's right. C’mon, Tristé, ain’t there been enough unpleasantness tonight?” Tristero glowers at Maelgwyn, but relents. He shoots an even dirtier look over Maelgwyn’s shoulder as the door opens. Ethan steps up beside Maelgwyn and puts a hand on the small of his back. Maelgwyn isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be a comforting touch or just a part of the act, but it makes him feel better to have someone at his back. 

Tristero takes a step towards the staircase that leads down to the backyard as if Ethan’s very presence disgusts him. Ethan takes bold steps out to meet him, hand outstretched. "It's was good to meet you.” Tristero regards him with a moment of wary disdain, trying to figure out what he's playing at, before he clasps it.

"Have a good rest of your night," he says, enunciating his accent pointedly. The moment he lets go and steps away, Ethan jams his hand in his pocket like he wants to get rid of the feeling of touching him. Maelgwyn appreciates his dedication to his job, even if the rivalry he’s trying to embroil himself in might be a little bigger than his paygrade. 

Tristero descends the stairs and walks off across the lawn into the dark. Galenica and Severea wait for him by a streetlight. Samol stays behind, rocking back and forth on his porch swing quietly. Maelgwyn wonders if he hates the family falling apart because of him as much as he does. “Where’s everyone going?” he asks Samol. All the venom has gone out of his voice, and he sounds small and tired.

“Just to take a breather,” Samol says evenly. Maelgwyn wouldn’t be surprised if he was lying to spare his nerves. His grandfather’s guitar is leaning against one of his rocking chairs, and Samol hobbles across to sit in it and pick up a quiet tune. Even if it doesn’t quite match the situation, it’s soothing. Maelgwyn crawls onto the porch swing he just vacated and sways back and forth miserably. 

(Read part 2 here)

[charlieknighte]

little crimes

[ao3 mirror]

Ethan Hitchcock/Maelgwyn

Modern AU - University AU - Fake/Pretend Relationship - Pining - Getting together (kinda) - Family Drama - Silly hockey rivalries

13,060 words

A gift for Matt Prairiecryptid in the Secret Samol fandome exchange <3

content warnings: unhealthy family dynamics

If Maelgwyn has to bear another holiday with his family, he may as well have his shitty boyfriend-for-hire at his back—but things aren't so simple when it feels like his stupid little crush could toe any number of the lines that box in his life.

Despite all of the faults of the horrid little basement suite that the Six call their hideout, Maelgwyn feels his shoulders relax the moment he slips inside. It’s a glorified boiler room in nearly all respects, with its bare cement floor covered in cheap faux-Persian rugs and its walls lined in Ikea bookshelves—and yet he’s spent more time here than his own apartment in the past year, huddling around the space heater on beanbag chairs or the shitty futon, passing around beer and joints with his friends. It’s more of a home than anyplace he’s ever lived.

The smell of clove cigarettes hits him immediately—one of the Hitchcocks has been smoking with one of the tiny metal-rimmed windows open, unsuccessfully venting the smoke. It hovers somewhere above eye level, filling the L-shaped apartment. Maelgwyn tries not to cough, eyes watering. “ Bonsoir ,” says the Hitchcock, in an exaggerated Quebecois accent that’s pushing reality even for him. “To whom do I owe ze pleasure?” He waves a hand at Maelgwyn over his computer setup. The back of his monitor faces the door, his desk—along with his brother’s—creating a divider along a corner of the room, doing a poor job of hiding their beds from prying eyes. Maelgwyn’s chest flutters despite himself. He sternly tells it to be quiet. He can’t even be sure which twin this is yet.

“It’s me. Cut that out,” he says, picking his way through the various books and beanbags and articles of clothing littering the floor. The moment he rounds the corner of the desk, the Hitchcock tugs out his earbuds, leaning back in his godawful gaming chair and folding his hands over his stomach. He has a beanie crammed low over his eyes, curls escaping on all sides, and he’s inexplicably wearing jeans in the comfort of his own home. Maelgwyn had expected the need to linger, scrutinizing the planes of his face and the details of his nervous habits to distinguish who he’s dealing with, but in the end he doesn’t have to. Hitchcock breaks out into a stupid grin at the sight of him—a grin that draws him in closer, inviting him to laugh at an inside joke with him. God forbid Edmund would look at him like that. Maelgwyn has to tell his chest to be quiet again.

“Ethan,” Maelgwyn says carefully. He leans against the desk, trying not to stare too contemptuously at the game of Fortnite that he had so generously paused for him. “Christmas is coming up.”

The Six will be enveloped into Aubrey’s extended family for Christmas, as always. Maelgwyn desperately wishes he could just stay and enjoy a dinner with friends and keep fostering his stupid little crush in peace, but failing to go home risks a downright nuclear response from his parents. Ethan steeples his fingers and swivels his chair back and forth. "Mm. I see" He gets right to the point—the element of surprise did fuck-all for Maelgwyn. "Are you paying me? I did say I charge extra for the good boyfriend act."

“My parents will pay for plane tickets and feed us. Plus a hundred bucks.” It’s all Maelgwyn has until his next paycheque. He’s sticking it out, knowing that the price of telling his parents he’s out of money is far too dear to pay. He hopes to god Ethan doesn’t press for more.

Ethan makes a face like this is a less than generous offer. He spins around in his chair and looks at the ceiling, considering it. “I thought you said you'd do it for free last time," Maelgwyn presses.

Ethan pouts at him. "I said I'd do it for donuts. And you only bought me two ."

Maelgwyn had taken a sizable bite out of one, too. At the time, Ethan had only laughed and helped wipe powdered sugar off his chin. Maelgwyn knows he's being facetious now. "I'll buy you the dozen I promised," he says, and then softens his voice. "Please?"

Ethan stops spinning and lolls his head over to look at him. “I’ll do it for you,” he says, “but don’t let word get around that you fucked me over. Right?”

Maelgwyn could kiss him. He tries not to think about that too hard. “Thank you.”

“Don’t say I never did anything for you. Are you staying? Edmund has Composition 401. I’m lonely.” He droops into his chair dramatically.

“Tough shit. I have work.”

“Ugh. You really dropped by just to ask something from me? Typical politician’s son.” Ethan busies himself—or possibly just pretends to busy himself—with his computer again, untangling his earbuds to plug them back into his ears.

“Hey,” says Maelgwyn, walking backwards through the apartment and then thinking better of it when he nearly trips over a beanbag chair. “Watch it. You’re going to be dating a politician’s son in a couple weeks.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re not paying me to pretend to enjoy it.” Ethan leans around his computer to give him a shitty grin. Maelgwyn flips him off, one hand on the doorknob. When his head has disappeared back behind his computer, Maelgwyn reluctantly lets himself back out.

He didn’t realize how much he’d acclimatized to the basement in the few short minutes he’d been inside, but the air feels cold and damp in comparison, albeit free from secondhand smoke. Maelgwyn sighs, hiking the steep stairs back up and feeling his knees twinge. He’s not looking forward to his closing shift.  

As he begins to pick his way across campus towards the Starbucks where he toils and suffers for a bit of extra allowance, his thoughts stubbornly drift towards Ethan no matter how many times he tries to slap them away. This crush of his, it’s—it’s silly, not to mention a betrayal of a friend’s trust and a possible danger to the group dynamic. And more than a danger to the group—god, imagine having to explain this to his parents . They may have accepted Maelgwyn dating him, but being in a relationship with him, a serious one, would be unthinkable. He thinks that, and then hates himself for thinking of it so strategically, the way a politician would. Is it even realistic to think that it could be a danger? That would be presuming that Ethan would ever reciprocate it. At the end of the day, it’s better for everyone that Ethan doesn’t see Maelgwyn in that way—never will. 

Maelgwyn is surprised at how much he hurts himself with that firm conclusion. He jams his hands in his pockets, buries his head in his jacket, and speeds up his pace. 

---

"A gated community?" Ethan whistles, twiddling his vape thoughtfully. "It's a wonder that your parents let you out of their sights long enough to go for a piss, mon cher . I mean, someone might kidnap you off the toilet bowl."

"Stop it. I didn't grow up here," Mael says, but he winces. The luxuries of his upbringing had faded into the background of the stress of being shuffled from place to place, from parents' to cousins' to grandfathers', and then back with one parent and not the other—but anytime his friends bring up their derision for his parents' oft-flaunted wealth, he feels like those problems are frivolous and luxurious. 

Lugging their carry-on suitcases behind them, he and Ethan walk through a row of perfectly even cookie-cutter mini-mansions with manicured but plain lawns, their siding ranging from white to beige to an adventurous taupe in a lame attempt at breaking up the visual monotony. Maelgwyn would hardly be able to recognize Samot's house if it weren't for Samothes's obnoxiously shiny black BMW parked in the driveway.

Maelgwyn can hardly muster the feeling of coming home at all, despite Samot's insistence that there's a bedroom ready for him whenever he wants it. This house had been carelessly bought during Samot's brief separation with Samothes, and though it now serves as a neutral base of operations for Samot's mayorly aspirations, Maelgwyn has never gotten over the feeling of this as a transitory space, like a disturbingly neat vacation home that he doesn't feel comfortable using the full facilities of. Lost in thought, he gets halfway up the driveway before realizing that Ethan isn't trailing after him. He turns to see him still at the curb, gagging on his own smoke. “You okay?” Maelgwyn asks as he doubles over, coughing out clouds. Ethan slowly straightens up, pointing a hateful, trembling finger over Maelgwyn's head. Maelgwyn twists to see a Leafs flag halfheartedly hung over Samot’s garage door.

"You—you're—you can't make me go in there." Ethan spits at him, as if Maelgwyn personally put it up to spite him. “You’re insulting my French-Canadian heritage.”

“Ethan, you’re more brown than me," Maelgwyn says, half-laughing.

"I can't believe I didn't ask for more money," Ethan says petulantly, changing tack to stubbornly look away from the flag, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the sight. "One hundred isn't nearly enough for me to pretend to be dating the son of a Leafs fan."

"Oh, c'mon." Maelgwyn walks back down the driveway, conscious that eyes may be at his back, and takes Ethan's hand. Though he still scowls, Ethan's fingers fold between his willingly. “You can tear it down and piss on it or something,” Maelgwyn says lightly. 

Ethan tucks his vape away and takes his suitcase again. “Thought you wanted me to run the good boyfriend routine this time.” He tugs at Maelgwyn’s hand, leading him up the driveway before he can see his expression. Maelgwyn hurries after him, swallowing. 

“Um, well—we didn’t really agree on that, did we?” He follows Ethan up the stairs, their carryons clacking awkwardly up the steps. By the time Maelgwyn stumbles up to the landing, Ethan has assumed a blank, placid standard Hitchcock expression that Maelgwyn can’t even imagine trying to read. Maelgwyn takes his hand away and starts fumbling with his keys. “Maybe we should just… play it by ear.”

He rifles through his bulk of spare keys to his dozen homes that aren’t really homes and finally finds the right one. He fits it into the lock and takes a breath, dread settling heavily into the bottom of his lungs. “Fair enough,” Ethan finally says. He steps up beside Maelgwyn, bumping him with his hip gently. Maelgwyn’s shoulders release a fraction of their tension, but it all returns when he turns the key. It prickles up his spine and tightens his shoulders, like the hair raising on the back of a cat.

He steps into the foyer. Nothing immediately terrible happens. He’s not sure if the living room has gotten even more clinically white and beige since the last time he was here, or if he’d just forgotten how much it looked like a car dealership’s waiting room. The Tristé siblings are sprawled irreverently over the long, uncomfortably rectangular sectional couch. Maelgwyn takes another step, emboldened by the sight of possible allies—and knocks his head on a comically large sprig of mistletoe hung on the entryway of the living room. 

Angelo’s head whips up. “ Hey ! No entry without paying the cringe tax.” He points up to the mistletoe gleefully. Adelaide raises her eyes from her phone, twinkling with mischief. Maelgwyn hears Ethan’s footsteps stop beside him. His blood rushes so loudly in his ears that he stops being able to process sound. 

It all happens very fast. The Tristés yell and jeer, and Ethan turns to Maelgwyn with a perfect easy smile on his face. "Want to?" he asks.

"Sure," says Maelgwyn, amazed that he manages to get it out without choking, and Ethan steps forward and kisses him as if they'd practiced it. It's just a little kiss, but it’s good. Not as awkward as he expected. Maelgwyn hasn't been kissed in a long time—not since he and Castille decided that something about their fumbling affections was decidedly not right and called it off, at this point over a year ago. Maelgwyn had spent a lot of time since then huddling under his weighted blanket and trying to convince himself that he didn’t wish it was a real, warm human weight. It disappoints him how quickly that lie evaporates when Ethan’s face presses against his, warm and soft. Wanting to be touched—it feels like yet another luxury problem that Maelgwyn can barely afford, but goddamn it, it’s a problem nonetheless. 

Ethan steps away just as fast as he’d leaned in and smiles at him, arm still looped around his waist. Maelgwyn steadies himself against his suitcase and hopes desperately that the Tristés don't ask why he looks so dazed. 

Angelo and Adelaide heckle them for a few moments more, and then settle down. Adelaide’s jeers sound particularly loud and sharp, and Maelgwyn winces internally. She’ll be hard to win over if they go the good boyfriend route after all. “You’re so funny,” he says. “Did dad put these up?”

“Oh, you know it,” Angelo says. He holds two fingers up to his mouth and makes a loud retching noise. Adelaide shakes her head, back to her phone. 

“ Baobei ?” Samot calls from the kitchen. “Is that you?” Maelgwyn didn’t think his stomach could have gotten any heavier, but it’s as if lead is pinning him to the ground. 

“Just a second, dad,” he calls back, grip tightening on the handle of his suitcase to ground himself. 

“Come say hi to your father!” 

His father—so that means Samothes is here. Maelgwyn toes off his shoes, grimacing to the side so that his cousins won’t see it. “One second! ” 

“Oh,” says Ethan behind him. “Before we go.” Glad for any sort of delay, Maelgwyn turns to see him taking something from his pocket and takes a moment to identify it as Tristero’s stolen watch. Any relief gone, he fights the urge to tackle Ethan to the ground as if he’s about to be targeted by snipers, and instead watches helplessly as Ethan dangles it between two fingers and offers it to Adelaide. "Merry Christmas."

Angelo whistles. Maelgwyn clenches his teeth, but surprisingly, Ethan’s fingers aren’t immediately bitten off. Adelaide slowly reaches out to take the other end of the watch, regarding him with narrow-eyed curiosity. She slips the watch into the purse at her feet and folds her hands in her lap. "Nicely done,” she says, cautiously diplomatic. “My father doesn’t fly in until this afternoon. I figure this means you'll be sticking around?"

"As long as you'll have me," Ethan says, grinning easily and putting his hands back in his pockets.

"Well, at least you know how to pick your battles, because let me tell you—you might think you've won with his parents, but you're only getting started."

“ Baobei! ”

Maelgwyn gives her a harried smile—which she doesn’t return—and grabs Ethan’s sleeve to drag him to the kitchen before Samot has a conniption.

He’s just in time to catch Samothes ducking in from the dining room to kiss his husband under another overstuffed bunch of mistletoe. Maelgwyn yelps in dismay, shielding his eyes too late. “ Dad! ” He’s not sure how much of his disgust is real and how much of it is a spiteful use of familial teasing to express the frustration that being around Samot usually makes impossible to vocalize.

Samot steps back, laughing brightly. “What? It far from the first time you’ve seen that, Maelgwyn.”

“And it was just as embarrassing the other billion times.” 

Samothes raises a hand to Ethan and Maelgwyn and silently retreats to the dining room, his glasses on and his laptop under his arm. Maelgwyn figures that Samot lost tonight’s argument about work during family time. At the very least, that’s one variable mostly out of play for the evening. Samot smiles and moves through the pointlessly large kitchen to come fold him into a hug, which Maelgwyn is too jet-lagged to resist. His hair is in a carefully messy bun that Maelgwyn is sure took twenty minutes to artfully arrange, and he’s wearing a gauzy tank top that probably cost more than Maelgwyn’s term tuition. “I’m so glad you could make it,” he effuse. As if not making it would cause anything less than a family-wide witch hunt. 

“Merry Christmas, dad,” Maelgwyn mumbles.

“Merry Christmas, p’tit loup .” Samot sounds slightly absent. Maelgwyn remembers in a painfully self-conscious pang that Ethan is standing right behind him. Samot graciously releases him, his sights trained on a new prize. “Ethan. It’s so wonderful to see you.” He says wonderful how one might joke that a pile of puke smells like a rose.

This time, at least, Ethan is trying. He’s wearing a neat pink button-up and earrings that match, but he's left his awful mustache grow back in and waxed the ends. It's hard enough for Maelgwyn to read Samot, especially when he's in a grandstanding mood like this, but his once-over of Ethan seems markedly less negative than his first reception of him. “Hey,” Ethan says, giving him a breezy wave in place of a handshake—he seems to have learned his lesson last time. “Same to you, and all.”

They're still playing the backwards game of underhanded politeness that Maelgwyn's family is hopelessly embroiled in, but more cards are on the table this time. It’s sharply clear to Maelgwyn that this is Ethan's second chance to introduce himself as an upstanding member of the family—and, watching Samot smile at Ethan with a touch of satisfaction, as if he’d personally put Ethan back in his place—he finds that he quietly, selfishly doesn’t want him to. He wants to be able to know that Ethan is truly on his side, not just presenting the face that others want to see. He wants to keep Ethan for himself. 

His head spins slightly from the weight of that admission. Samot circles the island in the middle of the kitchen, piled high with takeout boxes. Maelgwyn sees pork belly, jaozi, and spring rolls. Despite himself, his stomach rumbles. They’d interrupted Samot in the midst of plating each box to look like he’d cooked it himself, artfully smearing sauces and sprinkling herbs, adding beds of vegetables and small porcelain sauce containers. Maelgwyn could probably count the number of times Samot has actually used this kitchen on half of one hand. “Wine?” Samot asks, proferring a bottle of white that he’d already begun to enjoy.

“I’m okay,” says Maelgwyn, at the same time that Ethan says, “Sure.” Maelgwyn winces, knowing that a glass of wine will stretch this encounter out from a few spare minutes to a lengthy, prying ordeal.

“ Wonderful, ” Samot says again, showing his artificially white teeth. Maelgwyn slinks into one of the stools at the counter, trying to make himself small and less of a target. Luckily, Samot’s eyes are glued to Ethan as he fetches them a pair of stemless glasses and pours them each a generous dose. Maelgwyn feels instantly awful for having considered himself lucky—he’s throwing Ethan to the wolves here.

“Thanks,” Ethan says, accepting his glass. He slides into the stool next to Maelgwyn, his knee pressing into his. He and Samot each take their first sip, and Samot looks expectantly at him over the rim of his glass. Maelgwyn knows that he’s poised to critique whatever pedestrian opinion Ethan has of his choice—a frequently used and frankly irritating power move—but instead Ethan drains half of his glass, smacks his lips, and doesn’t deign to comment. He puts the glass down and idly traces the rim. He’s looking back at Samot with a directness that makes Maelgwyn feel like he isn’t even part of the conversation. “So,” he says, casual but with an undertone that Maelgwyn doesn’t like. “A Leafs household, huh?”

Maelgwyn should have expected this—but he didn’t think such a small and obvious dig would ruffle someone like Ethan Hitchcock. He glances at him and finds a strange tension in his shoulders, one that he’s never seen in him before. He doesn’t see Samot’s face, but he can hear the smugness in his voice when he says, “Of course. Who wouldn’t be, after their last season? I think that this year, they could even go all the way.”

Maelgwyn knows for a fact that Samot wasn’t even remotely interested in their last season, or any season prior. Again, he thinks that Ethan should be able to see through this, but instead he scoffs loudly, bristling and on the offensive. “Last year was a fluke. With the restructure they just had–-and anyway, they’re cursed. They’re not going any further than the first round.” 

“Oh? And the Canadiens are?”

Maelgwyn should never have let him wear that jersey. He should’ve warned him that Samot would do this—nitpick at a little detail of his life until he found a substantial thread that he could pull at. He stares down at the counter, watching Ethan’s knuckles go white as he clenches the edge of his seat. “They’re going in with a good group this year,” he says through his teeth. “Caulfield, Gallagher, Suzuki, Price—”

“I think Price is a little overrated,” Samot says, cocking his head at him in the way he does when he knows he’s got someone outmaneuvered. “Don’t you?”

Ethan is silent in shock, and then he splutters, and then he bursts out, “How can you say that? Price is a pillar of the franchise! He’s—he—they’d be nowhere without him!”

Maelgwyn hears Samot sip his wine and gently set it back down, not worked up in the slightest. "I just think he gets more credit than he deserves." A satisfied air emanates from him, even if Maelgwyn can’t bear to look at him. Ethan stammers in rage beside him. Maelgwyn reaches out and grabs his hand, squeezing to a degree that’s more painful than comforting. 

“Ethan,” he says, quiet and sharp. “It doesn’t matter.” He knows this an admission of weakness, a display to Samot that he can’t bear to watch Ethan lose this battle—but he doesn’t care. He wants this to stop before it can snowball out of control, before the family gets word that his boyfriend shouted during Christmas , at his father no less. Ethan cuts off whatever he was about to say, letting out a furious breath. He drains another third of his wineglass, setting it down carelessly. 

“We were just having a conversation,” Samot says lightly. Maelgwyn feels fury curl in his chest, but he holds it there until it cools. The kitchen is uncomfortably silent. He can hear the patter of Samothes typing in the other room. Maelgwyn feels the quiet in the marrow of his bones and in his molars, unsettling him to his core. "So, Maelgwyn," Samot says abruptly, "are you staying the week?"

Maelgwyn can't even reply before nausea overwhelms him. He can’t bear seven more days of this. He opens his mouth, not even knowing what he’s about to say—but Ethan squeezing his hand brings him to a confused halt. With a piteous touch to his voice, Ethan says, "Actually, I was hoping he could come to meet my mother with me."

Maelgwyn tries not to let his gaze shoot up to him too obviously. He’s finally brave enough to look at his father instead: blinking and open-mouthed, wineglass frozen below his lips. The silence, this time, feels oddly in Maelgwyn’s favor. "I thought you weren't in touch with your mother,” Samot finally says, his triumph fading to the back of his voice. 

"Yeah, well… We’d been looking, you know? And it turned out she’d been looking, too.” Ethan lets go of Maelgwyn’s hand and fishes his phone out of his pocket, flipping through his image gallery. He pulls up a picture of him and Edmund with their arms around a tall woman, all of them laughing, pointing at each other in disbelief. She does look strikingly like them—self-assured, curly-haired, merry-eyed. Maelgwyn bends in to get a closer look, but Ethan is turning the phone to show it to Samot. “This is the first time we ever met—just about a month ago. She’s waiting to celebrate Christmas once I get back home,” Ethan says, the pitiful note in his voice becoming an overtone. “I thought it would be a good time to introduce her to Maelgwyn. If you wouldn’t mind, that is.” 

All of this is new to Maelgwyn—and it’s bullshit, all of it. He feels it. As Samot stares at the image, his wineglass still hovering in the air, Maelgwyn knows that he feels it too. There’s a small furrow in his brow, a dent in his armor. Slowly, he smiles, far too stretched and thin to be real. His eyes are bright, but not with anything that Maelgwyn could describe positively. "Is that so," he says, nearly through clenched teeth. “Well. Isn’t that wonderful. Of course Maelgwyn can go.” He turns his wide-eyed look on Maelgwyn, almost accusatory—but Maelgwyn finds himself unable to be hurt by it. Of course it’s bullshit. Of course, and they all know it, but Samot can’t say it, not after he’d cooked up that crock of shit to get on Ethan’s nerves. Maelgwyn almost wants to laugh, but he settles for squeezing Ethan’s knee to work out his euphoria.

“Thanks, dad,” he says in a rush. “It means a lot.” 

“Of course,” Samot says stiffly. He takes a breath to steady himself and downs the rest of his wine in one gulp. Ethan finishes his own glass in small, serene sips. There are a few beats of silence again, and Maelgwyn hastily readies fake answers to any questions Samot might have—but in the end Samot just sighs and goes back to his plating, plucking dumplings from a box to arrange them inside of a bamboo steamer. “Well. Your room is ready if you’d like to settle in, Maelgwyn . ”

“Thanks, dad.” Maelgwyn slides out of his seat, trying not to be visibly relieved at the merciful dismissal. Ethan slips his hand into his again as he follows him to the door. Maelgwyn’s chest thrills—at the contact, at the success of their on-the-fly plan, at the assuredness of having someone on his side. 

“Oh,” Samot says. “I nearly forgot. Ethan will sleep on the couch."

Ethan nearly tumbles into Maelgwyn as they halt at the doorway. He blinks at Samot disbelievingly. For a moment Maelgwyn thinks he's going to burst out, but instead he politely says, "There's not enough rooms?"

Samot glances up at them over his array of dishes. For the first time in the night, his gaze is openly cold. “Well, the Tristés are taking the guest room, and—pardon me—I don’t feel quite comfortable having you lodge with my son yet.”

“ Dad ,” Maelgwyn says, mortified, that ribbon of anger beginning to wind its way back into his chest. He hates being called my son , like a toddler who has to be protected from his own decisions. “Seriously?”

The look Samot gives him is less frigid, but only just. “I don’t mean to embarrass you, sweetheart, but don’t you think it’s improper?”

You do mean to embarrass me, Maelgwyn thinks, but he clenches his teeth shut against the accusation. “Fine. Whatever,” he manages, which is the best he can do—but still not enough. Samot tilts his head at him, mouth wrinkling disapprovingly. Maelgwyn knows he’ll hear about it later, but for now he needs out of this fucking kitchen, this conversation. He grips Ethan’s hand and pulls him back into the living room. 

He marches them past the Tristés, who barely have time to lift their heads from their phones before they pass. He hears Angelo say something to Adelaide, voice lilting jovially, and his anger grows into his head, warming him to the tips of his ears. Ethan stumbles behind him, pausing in the door to the foyer as Maelgwyn lets him go to fumble with his suitcase. After a moment, he follows suit, pressing down the handle to his carry-on and hoisting it up, following Maelgwyn as he stomps up the staircase to the side of the door. 

“Mael,” he hisses as he follows him up. Maelgwyn doesn’t answer, too afraid of the Tristés hearing him snap something he’ll regret. That’s what his anger feels like when its blistering heat dissipates—fear. He waits until they’re safely up in the corridor to the bedrooms before he collapses, throwing his suitcase down on the carpet and leaning heavily against a wall. “Maelgwyn,” Ethan says again, stepping up beside him, a hand hovering over his shoulder. “ Esti de calice. Are you okay?” Maelgwyn usually hates being seen like this, but for once something pushes him closer to another person rather than away. Stumbling upright, he mushes his face into Ethan’s shoulder and lets him put his arms around him. 

“I fucking hate it here,” he mumbles into his shirt. "I want to go home."

"I don't blame you, cherie ." Ethan strokes his hair, smoothing his hand down to the small of his back and pulling him close so their hips bump. They stay there for a moment, Maelgwyn gripping Ethan’s sleeve and breathing in his shitty cologne, slowly working the agonizing mix of feelings in his chest into something more manageable and compartmentalized. It’s the best he can do while he’s still here. Ethan leans in to murmur into his curls, "I was going to keep it a surprise, but I talked Aubrey into saving dinner for the night we get back.”

Mael is startled into raising his head. “You didn’t.” 

Ethan could deflect, but instead he gives him that a gentle, half-nervous real smile of his. “If this goes anything like it did last time… I thought you might need it after we got back.”

I love you , Maelgwyn thinks, startling himself with it. He doesn’t know if it’s true, but it had come to mind so fast . "I could kiss you," he says instead, because the thought is beginning to recur and become hard to ignore. Ethan gives him a crooked little smile, much more like his usual expression, and glances upward pointedly. Maelgwyn looks up to see another bunch of mistletoe, pinned above the top of the stairs. He’s sure Ethan is trying to be obnoxious, but all it does is set his heart thumping and render him incapable of a comeback other than a nervous laugh. "Alright," he says, and puts his arms around Ethan's neck in anticipation.

Ethan kisses him, and fuck him, it isn't chaste this time. While Maelgwyn recovers from the urge to make a truly embarrassing noise, he steps away like nothing happened, like he didn't just slip him some tongue in his father’s house. Maelgwyn catches his breath and leans against him to murmur in his ear, "Fuck you." Ethan just smiles serenely in response, his cheek rounding against Maelgwyn’s. Maelgwyn sighs and butts their heads together. He brushes his lips against his ear and murmurs, "Good kisser."

"You would know."

They both ignore the fact that there's no one around to see this, and there was no point in doing it at all.

“Really, though,” Ethan murmurs. “You okay?” 

Maelgwyn finally steps back, feeling cold where he was once pressed against Ethan. He shrugs, managing to put a casual face back on for the sake of his sanity. “I am now. C’mon.” 

It begins to occur to him as they walk to his room that Samot might raise hell if anyone spotted Ethan here with him, but he’s too tired to care. Samot will be busy fussing over ‘his’ dinner until the guests arrive, and Maelgwyn is looking forward to getting a goddamn break until then. He finds his door and leads Ethan in, and for the first time he looks at ‘his’ room through someone else’s eyes. It’s as clinical as the rest of the house, indistinguishable from a guest room, the dressers bare and the furniture unbearably chic. His sheets are crisply folded, tucked in like a hotel bed. Ethan pauses at the door, taking the emptiness in. “It’s so moving to be in your childhood room, Mael.”

Maelgwyn snorts, shoving him with his forearm. "Shut up ."

“So many memories made here. I can feel it."

“You’re such a dick.” Maelgwyn doesn’t want to unpack and settle into this room—not ever, but especially when he’ll be racing to make a speedy exit as soon as possible. He flops his suitcase over at the foot of his bed and unzips it, tosses a few necessities onto the chest of drawers, and runs out of things he’s willing to do. He flops down flat on the bed, closing his eyes and taking a steadying breath in. The smell of rosy laundry detergent itches at his nose. Ethan eases down beside him, the mattress dipping under his weight. Maelgwyn opens his eyes to see him looking at him, and his stomach does something funny. He can see the beginning of stubble growing back in on Ethan’s jaw. “Hey,” he says. “Hey yourself.”

Maelgwyn hums thoughtfully, trying to distract himself. “So. Was that really your mom?”

Ethan snorts. “Yeah. She's never celebrated Christmas in her life, but she'd be game to take pictures if you need. She gave me permission to pull the family reunion card.”

Despite their earlier successful con, Maelgwyn's stomach flips again at the implication of actually meeting Ethan's mother. "Oh," he says lightly, "so your whole family's like this?"

"It's congenital." 

Mael laughs softly. “When did you get into contact with her?"

Ethan scrunches up his face thoughtfully "Five years ago?” Maelgwyn snorts, shaking his head. He should’ve expected nothing less from Hitchcock. He rolls into Ethan, resting his head on his shoulder again. It’s becoming a familiar comfort. They lay there in companionable silence, the sounds of people moving and talking downstairs muffled by layers of flooring. Maelgwyn knows this solace will be fleeting, but until then, he luxuriates in this little bubble of comfort they’ve created. 

The two of them, comfortable together. It’s quite a concept. 

Maelgwyn realizes that in all of his strategizing and stressing about what his parents and friends would think, he had never quite stopped to wonder how he felt about the prospect of Ethan reciprocating his stupid little crush. Outwardly, Ethan is a slightly sinister mess—but the more time Maelgwyn spends with him, the more he’s starting to get to see beneath that, to a boy who cares deeply for his tightly knit circle despite his general disregard for the world at large. He makes Maelgwyn feel like he has someone on his side and at his back, like he’s someone worth spending time with and listening to. He’s spent so much of his life carefully considering someone else’s opinions, after all, weaving Edmund’s needs into his own so tightly that they couldn’t be extricated from his own. Maelgwyn might never describe him as kind, but he is, in his own way, loving.

If Maelgwyn stops to ask himself how he would feel about truly presenting Ethan as his boyfriend, the answer comes to the surface with surprising speed.

Maelgwyn raises his head and reaches up to touch his cheek. Ethan blinks at him and gives him that soft, real smile again, and Maelgwyn can't help it anymore. He leans in to kiss him.

He makes out with him like he's starving, hands running up his sides, mouth insistent and roaming. Ethan makes a noise of surprise and breathes in, and then all together he melts into Maelgwyn and pulls him in by the waist. This is new ground for Maelgwyn—he’s hardly ever been the one to initiate these things, and has spent so much time going without them entirely—but treading it together doesn’t feel as terrifying as it should. He sinks into soft contentment, his perception of the world around him dulled, all of his attention narrowed onto Ethan.

There's a burst of shocked laughter at the side of the room, and they jump apart, Maelgwyn's heart bursting with terror. Angelo is leaning in the doorway, smiling obnoxiously but politely looking at the floor. "Sorry to interrupt, lovebirds."

Maelgwyn puts a hand over his mouth as if he can hide the evidence of what he was just doing. Ethan struggles to his elbows and tries to fix his curls, clearing his throat. He’s breathing as if he was just running. “Just wanted to tell you Tristero’s here,” Angelo says, already beginning to retreat. “Dinner’s in ten.” 

“Oh,” Maelgwyn says, voice mortifyingly rough. “Okay.” 

They wait in stunned silence as Angelo retreats to the hallway and down the stairs. When they hear him muffling a laugh on the way down, they can’t help it. They burst into giggles themselves, Maelgwyn reaching out to squeeze Ethan’s arm. “We’re never fucking living that down,” he manages to say between wheezes. 

Ethan wordlessly presses his forehead to his shoulder, riding out the last of his giggles. When he raises his head, Maelgwyn unconsciously leans in a fraction, wanting to be kissed again. Ethan puts a hand on Maelgwyn's shoulder to interrupt, but the corner of his lips turn up reassuringly. "Later." He reaches out to tuck Maelgwyn’s hair back into place, tracing his fingertips down his cheek. “Okay.”

Maelgwyn nods, squeezing his wrist. A tiny flicker of hope lands in his chest, and he shields it like the first spark of a flame. “Okay.”

---

Later never comes. Maelgwyn is mad with longing all through the evening, but Samol insists they play board games and the Tristés bicker over a dozen different movies to watch, and bit by bit the time trickles away fruitlessly. By the time midnight rolls around, Ethan seems more interested in dozing on his shoulder than being kissed. Maelgwyn rests his head against his and feels so frustrated that he could cry. 

It’s always been difficult for him to admit to wanting something of his own, and even more difficult to believe that he could have it. By the time that they separate at night so that Maelgwyn can go sleep in ‘his’ bedroom, he’s thoroughly convinced himself that he whole thing had been a fluke, an imagined romance he’d created to distract and soothe himself. He falls asleep exhausted, and he wakes up miserable. 

All that Ethan does in the morning is cram down youtiao and bitch about his back hurting, and after breakfast their day is a rush to pack and hustle to the airport. Ethan is quiet and thoughtful as they move through the airport, unusually reticent to strike up conversation with the staff. As they loiter at their their gate, Ethan leaning up against a wall and trying not to fall asleep, Maelgwyn excuses himself and finds an ATM. When he returns, he holds out two fifty-dollar bills, feeling strangely defeated about it.

Ethan perks right up. “Thank you very much,” he says, snapping them up and jamming his hands in the pockets of his stoner hoodie. Maelgwyn grunts affirmatively and comes to stand beside him, folding his arms behind his back and scanning the crowd idly. Ethan bumps his shoulder with his, and he startles, having almost catastrophized himself into thinking that Ethan didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. “Hey,” Ethan says.

“Hey yourself.” Maelgwyn gives him a cautious look.

“So. Dinner for two, plus a few drinks. Maybe a box of donuts for good measure. Tends to come out to a hundred-dollar bill in this economy, no?”

Maelgwyn blinks at him, not quite following. “Yeah. Sure does.”

“ Maudit baptême, Mael. ” Ethan huffs out a laugh, snapping his gum. “I meant you and me. Dinner. Sounds good?”

Maelgwyn just keeps blinking at him, knowing he’s taking too long to answer but puzzling through what that could possibly mean. He’d really thought that at some point the politician’s blood in him would take hold and make these snap judgements easier. Ethan smiles at him patiently. “What? I can’t ask my fake boyfriend on a real date? Not after I’ve played tonsil hockey with him? Three times?”

The promise that Ethan had made to him—the one he’d buried under layers of self-sabotage—comes bubbling back up to the surface, shining bright. “Well,” Maelgwyn says, finding it in him to smile again, “when you put it like that, I guess it wouldn’t be fair to turn you down.”

He doesn’t quite know how to handle this wordless, rollicking transition between facade and truth, but if there’s anyone who seems happy to play in gray areas, it’s Ethan Hitchcock—and Maelgwyn doesn’t so much mind the idea of following him. When he drops his hand to find Ethan’s, he finds that it had already been there waiting for him.

[charlieknighte]

un jour tu t’en voudrais - part 2

(Read part 1 here)

content warnings: terminal illness, drunkenness and smoking, unhealthy family dynamics

Ethan flops down beside him, to all appearances casual and unbothered. Maelgwyn takes a moment to be amazed at that. He’s nothing like Maelgwyn or even Edmund, who shrivel under the anger of those around them. It just seems to glance right off of him. “I don’t really blame them for needing a break. That was a shitshow,” he says, hand hovering above Maelgwyn’s as a question. When Maelgwyn nods, he takes his arm and twines their fingers together. He strokes the back of Maelgwyn's hand with his thumb, which is a nice detail. It really does soothe him a little. 

“Yeah.” Maelgwyn lays his head on his shoulder and feels their act fall apart for a moment. He needs a moment’s worth of real comfort. It's easy to get it from Ethan. He touches him so casually that it doesn't feel strange. Like his hands are supposed to be here. Maelgwyn closes his eyes.

Ethan rests his cheek on his hair. "Leaving me a good Yelp review later?" he murmurs under the music.

Maelgwyn has to smile a little. "You have a Yelp?"

" Hitchcock and Hitchcock, Limited. Look us up."

"Why are you limited? Do you have shareholders?"

"Aubrey lent us a hundred bucks."

"For what? "

"Supplies. Business expenses."

"Weed."

Ethan shifts guilty. "Well—"

Maelgwyn snorts and buries his face in his neck. "You're so fuckin' dumb." Ethan smells like the shitty clove cigarettes he only smokes when he’s in one of his art major moods and some expensive cologne he more than likely shoplifted. It reminds Maelgwyn of the half-trashy, half-pretentious book and cigarette (and weed) smell of the basement he and his friends haunt. He takes a shaky breath in. He wants to be home so badly. Ethan goes quiet and reaches up to smooth Maelgwyn’s hair off his forehead. For a minute they lean together, and Maelgwyn takes comfort in having a fraction of home here with him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Maelgwyn murmurs. “I’d be freaking out if you weren’t acting so unbothered by everything.”

“Happy to be moral support. Glad you didn’t hire Edmund?”

He is. Edmund wouldn’t still be grinning like an asshole and joking around after inspiring such wrath towards himself. And anyway, something about Edmund—the prissiness or the slipperiness, one or both—had made Maelgwyn worry that he might end up getting along just a bit too well with some of his family members. The thought of getting abandoned to fend for himself had exhausted him. "Edmund's holiday rates were higher anyway," he says, trying to be light. 

"Right, for the crying." Ethan sighs against his hair. "Wish he was here anyway. We could've gotten up to some trouble ."

"I think it's going bad enough.”

Before Ethan can say anything, the door to the porch opens. Samothes steps out, looking grave, and Maelgwyn’s heart sinks. He says, “Can I speak to Ethan for a moment?”

“Me?” says Ethan. He lifts his head and exchanges a glance with Maelgwyn warily. Samothes nods and motions for him to step inside. Ethan slinks off of the porch swing unwillingly, like a child being sent to the principals’ office. He shoots Maelgwyn a theatrically wide-eyed look before stepping inside, and then he’s gone, swallowed up by the house. The cold of the evening hits Maelgwyn hard where Ethan used to be touching him. He curls up tighter and puts his arms around himself.

“So, your boy,” Angelo gets out before Maelgwyn gives him a scathing glare and shuts him up. There’s a time and a place for making fun of Ethan, but after he was just doing his best to comfort him, Maelgwyn isn’t in the mood.

“I don’t want to talk,” Maelgwyn says, not specifying to who. 

"Your dad's gonna eat him alive and spit out his bones," Adelaide says regardless. 

“Not gonna say he deserves it,” Angelo says, cautious, “but shit. Even ignoring what he didn’t know, that was out of line. He’s really got a chip on his shoulder, huh?”

“How much does he know about your parents if he already hates them that badly?” Adelaide asks quietly. Samol’s guitar stops for a moment, and then picks up again.

Maelgwyn unfolds himself and gets up. “Who gives a fuck? Almost all of us hate each other to some degree anyway. I shouldn't have thought he’d be any different.” He crosses to the door back inside with quick, angry steps. 

" Maelgwyn ," says Adelaide, but she can't get anything out in time before he slams the door behind him. He makes his way through the family room and into the dark space between the foyer and the stairs, where he paces back and forth with his hands in his hair. He doesn’t remember what convoluted series of backward, troubled thoughts led him to think all this would be a good idea. That seeing his parents terse and upset and shouting again would make up for all the times he was forced to sit through it as a child. That drawing back the curtain of familial tolerance that masks their disappointment in him would reveal something new and not just break his heart again. Instead, it all just makes him want to scream.

“Maelgwyn?” He turns to see Samot’s silhouette in the doorway to the kitchen, wavering. Maelgwyn’s heart drops, and his hot anger settles into a cool despair. His father takes a step towards him, balancing himself against the railway of the staircase. His hair is out of its updo, and it falls over his face, untamed. “Sweetheart, he says, voice trembling from more than just wine, “I’m sorry you had to see that.” That’s what he always says. It doesn’t matter, because Maelgwyn keeps seeing it anyway.

“It’s fine, dad,” he says, more to avoid a scene than because it’s actually fine. Samot comes closer, taking him by the shoulders. His face is streaked with tears, mascara smudged around his eyes. Maelgwyn is jarringly reminded of one of his Christmases as a child, when he’d cried from the overwhelming stimulation of his scratchy clothes and his loud relatives and the overly warm living room and Samot had dragged him out to the hallway. He had taken Maelgwyn by the shoulders and shaken him and hissed at him to be normal , as if he was such a disappointment that that was all he could try to ask of him anymore. Maelgwyn had been confused and afraid, and it only frightened him more when Samot came to his room after the party and sat on his bed and apologized through tears of his own. He’s never known how to deal with his father crying, and nothing’s changed since the last time it happened.

“It isn't fine,” Samot says, shaking his head. “It wasn’t fair of us to react like we did. I know you’ve been having a hard time, what with your grandfather. We shouldn’t be so hard on you.” Maelgwyn hates when they say that. When he was a kid, any of his attempts to act out were explained away by his fathers’ brief separation, and now his grandfather’s impending death has become the scapegoat. As if he hasn’t been struggling with it his entire life. As if his entire existence isn’t an expression of his family’s grief, more a channel for their hopes and frustrations than a child. He grits his teeth and stays silent. Samot breathes a long, trembling sigh. "I think I was… harsh, to judge Ethan so much. Maybe he isn't well-mannered, or—or studious, or ambitious, but I'm sure he has a—a good heart. Yes?"

"Yeah," Maelgwyn lies, not wanting to let him down right now. He can only imagine the conversation that went on in the kitchen while he was outside. He wonders if they see this as a purposeful act of rebellion against them or a misguided decision by their stunted, naive son. He wonders if he wants to know.

“Your father said he’d talk to to him, but… we don’t expect him to change all that much. As long as he’s good to you and you’re happy, we’re happy. Even if we can’t stand him.” He pulls Maelgwyn into a hug, sniffling. " Mon p’tit loup . We just want what’s best for you."

On the one hand, Maelgwyn wishes it wasn't necessary for him to constantly be making apologies in varying states of sobriety. On the other, it's far easier to bear Samot’s short-lived anger than Samothes being oppressively silent and banging doors and plates for days when he's upset with him. He tries not to think about the implications of what’s best for him and hugs his father lightly. It’s unpleasant and stilted for him—it always is nowadays—but not as severely as usual.

Just as quickly as he pulled him close, Samot lets go of him again, wiping at his nose with the back of his hand. “I’m going to lie down for a little while.” He puts a hand on Maelgwyn’s shoulder and makes his way past him with some effort. 

“Do you need help, dad?” Maelgwyn asks. Samot waves a hand at him. He climbs the stairs in a way that looks laborious but not dangerous. Maelgwyn watches him until he’s gone, then sits down on the floor to put his head on his knees and try not to sob.

It's not enough to be himself, to be alive and do what he thinks is best. He has to be something his family can take comfort and pride in. He had no sway in choosing them, but still they watch over his shoulders no matter where he goes and criticize him with a harshness they claim to have earned by the sheer virtue of being blood relations. He didn't ask to be born, but they act like it was his best work and nothing he's done has lived up to it since. If his parents really think he's dating Ethan, then they must really have given up on him.

He raises his head at that thought, brought out of his misery by the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. He paid Ethan to act like a shithead, and he was so good at it that it made his family implode in on itself. And after everything, somehow it brought them to magnanimously extend the olive branch of accepting his shortcomings for once. It’s not ideal, but it’s something. He rests his head back against the wall and remembers a breathing exercise, does his best to keep track of the counts until he’s calm. 

He’s never seriously considered the prospect of dating a Hitchcock, he realized. They're bitchy and prissy and altogether a little uncanny. It had been hard to separate them in his mind when they were always sitting together, heads tilted and eyes narrowed in the exact same glare. They'd Snapchat each other while they were in the same room or sit off in their own corner painting each others' nails and loudly chatting shit about everyone they knew. Sometimes they make you feel awfully unwelcome, like three is a crowd. Maelgwyn liked them, but he'd never taken the time to take a shine to a particular twin. Let alone the loud-mouthed one who snored obnoxiously through their film classes and grabs any elongated object to wield as a sword the moment he's drunk. 

All Maelgwyn had thought about when he chose him was trying to find someone who could piss his parents off and wasn't Snitch Nightly.  Now, he thinks about all the times Ethan’s made him feel like they were two against the world tonight, how far he was willing to go to piss off his parents for him, how he’s always asking to touch him and being gentle with his hands. Maelgwyn’s been having trouble breathing for much of the night, but now he really does worry that his lungs are going to burst. He doesn’t know what to do with this new feeling. It just spins around with the rest of them, making him dizzy.

He stumbles upright and makes his way back out to the back porch, throwing open the door. The Tristés blink at him. "Where's Ethan?" he asks. He doesn’t know why, but he needs to see him.

Adelaide furrows her eyebrows in thought, and then puts down her phone with some concern. “I don’t know.”

"Oh, shit," says Angelo, "your dad might've actually killed and eaten him." Maelgwyn scrambles out of the door and down the stairs, out around the corner of the house and to the garage. He did hire Ethan to do this, but he shouldn’t just have tossed him into the deep end to fend for himself. He can’t imagine the lecture he’s having to field right now. He winces at the thought of the volume Samothes must be affecting.

The side door to the garage is open, spilling a rectangle of yellow light onto their fence and flower bushes. “I’m not stupid, Ethan,” Samothes is saying, muffled. “I know you want me to dislike you. I just need us to level with each other for a moment.” Maelgwyn walks faster, almost anticipating seeing Samothes with a crowbar or a heavy wrench in his hand. Instead he sees Ethan only a few feet away from the entrance, leaning back against one of the workshop benches. He’s holding his hands in front of him and nodding politely. 

"I think you're a good kid," Samothes is saying, to Maelgwyn’s complete disbelief. “I know this delinquent shtick isn’t you. Or at least not all you are. And I know… that you must’ve heard enough from Maelgwyn to hate me.” He sighs. “I’m not going to argue with what he’s told you. I wasn’t the father he needed.”

Maelgwyn stands there, still and quiet. Of course his father would blame himself like this. He can’t stop seeing people as tools, evaluating them in terms of what purposes they can fulfill and nothing else. In failing to perform the role of a perfect family man, the grandiose expectations Samothes holds for himself must’ve taken a shattering blow. He’s never moved past the perfectionistic frame of mind he impressed upon Maelgwyn as a child. Maelgwyn thinks about screaming.

“I only want to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Samothes says, uncharacteristically soft-spoken and humble. “God knows Maelgwyn had to sit through enough of his family falling apart. He shouldn’t have to see it again. If you care about him, I think you should feel the same.”

Ethan opens his mouth and hesitates as if deliberating how much to reveal, although Maelgwyn figures he’s really figuring out what to pull out of his ass. “I do,” he says softly. “I care about him very much. I thought I could come here and defend him, so he wouldn’t have to be alone with...” He stops and blinks like he’s feeling stupid. He’s either an incredibly good actor, or some of that was real. Maelgwyn hasn’t been able to breathe properly since he stepped out here.

Samothes doesn’t protest. He looks, in fact, like he agrees that Maelgwyn needed it. “I don’t need you to forgive me. That’s for Maelgwyn to do, if he decides to. I just want us to get along for his sake.”

Ethan nods, lips tight. “I can do that.”

“You know when to quit and save face. That’s good.” Samothes finally puts a hand out for him to shake. “You ever thought about being a politician?”

Ethan laughs nervously. It’s a common joke among his friends that he’s wasting his potential as a business or law major. “I have been complimented on my filibuster from time to time.” He shakes Samothes’s hand, wincing from the strength again. Samothes pats him on the shoulder. “You should get back to the house. Maelgwyn’s probably looking for you.”

Ethan looks out of the door to see Maelgwyn already standing there, wallowing in devastation. His eyes widen just a little, but he gives no other indication that he saw anything. “Yeah,” he says, turning back to Samothes. “He probably is. I’ll see you back in the house?”

“Of course. I just need some time.” Samothes walks deeper into the garage. Ethan slips out the door and closes it behind him gingerly. He leans back against it and fidgets with his hands. He looks guilty, as if he was caught saying something sordid. 

Maelgwyn grabs his hand and walks him away from the garage, skirting the house and pulling him around a corner. He doesn’t want Samothes to hear what he’s going to say, but then he realizes he doesn’t even know what he will say. He keeps himself from slipping into a fresh wave of panic by grounding himself with Ethan’s grip on his hand.

Ethan chews on his lip. Eventually he says, “How long were you been standing there?”

“Since he asked you to level with him.”

“Oh. You missed the argument, then.” Ethan might be blushing, but it’s hard to tell in the dim yard. “Look, Maelgwyn… we all worried about you when you went to your folks’ for holidays. You’d come back so tired. Like it took something out of you. I thought…” He gestures helplessly. So some of that was real.

“Yeah, you can see why.” Maelgwyn leans against the wall behind him and rubs his face, weary. He breathes out in a rush. “Ethan, I’m… I’m glad you’re here. I wish I hadn’t paid you for it.” He barely knows what he means by that. That it was a lot of money, that what he asked Ethan to do only ended up making him feel worse, that he wishes Ethan could be here in a different capacity. It occurs to him that they’re still holding hands, but Ethan isn’t trying to wiggle out of his grasp. His hand is warm and his grip is steady.

“It wasn’t really about the cash, Mael.” Ethan looks down at their hands like he’s thinking the same thing. “I would’ve done this for you even if you weren’t paying. You’re... you . But you came offering to pay up front.” He makes a sheepish little face. “What was I gonna do, turn down money? Student loans, y’know.”

Maelgwyn stands there and lets it sink in that the Hitchcocks played him for a fool, as he should’ve expected them to. He starts laughing incredulously, and then actually laughing, because this is pretty funny when all things are considered. Ethan chuckles too, even though he’s trying to keep it down. “Fuck you,” Maelgwyn says, fond and still laughing. 

“Sorry,” Ethan says, giving him one of his rare genuine smiles. It’s half-wonky and shy and beautiful. Maelgwyn wonders when he meant when he said that he’s him. If he meant that he was happy to waive his fees or happy to play his boyfriend. Maelgwyn’s having a strange night, and his emotions have been jumbled around in his chest like a bag of toys strewn across the floor. His feelings are crossing in strange ways. “I’ll take you out to eat when we’re home,” Ethan says, looking at the ground bashfully and kicking at the grass. “Many, many times. We’ll make it even.”

Maelgwyn smiles at him, chest still light from laughter. Ethan leans against the wall beside him, and they look out at the yard, to the streets beyond, up to the stars. The fall air cools Maelgwyn’s cheeks, and the sounds of the night begin to creep in to fill the quiet. “Are you okay?” Ethan asks softly.

“I don’t know.”

“Maelgwyn…” Ethan takes a step out to stand in front of him. He cups his face with the hand that isn't still in his. “If this isn’t working out the way you wanted it to, just say the word and we’ll do something different. I’m here for you.” He strokes his thumb down his cheek and drops his hand. “Get your money’s worth, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Maelgwyn’s in a complete daze from having witnessed a true moment of sincerity from a Hitchcock. They’re rare enough to qualify as legends to be hotly debated by academics. Not to mention all the mental calculus he’s going to have to do to rationalize the touch he can still feel on his cheek. Ethan gives him a reassuring little smile and nods towards the back porch, and Maelgwyn lurches back to something resembling reality and starts to lead him back. When they walk up the stairs Samol is gone, probably back inside, and the Tristés are stretched out on the porch swings browsing their phones. Angelo shuts his off when he sees them and jumps up to stretch. “Thought you were dead meat for a while there.”

Ethan blinks up at him, confused and overwhelmed all over again. "I think I just got the dad talk." 

Angelo bursts into obnoxious laughter. Adelaide puts a hand over her mouth, trying to be a little more subtle. "They're really lowering their standards for you, bro," says Angelo, heaving himself up off his swing to slap Maelgwyn's shoulder hard. "No offense, Ethan. You seem like a great guy, just—" 

"I stole your dad's watch," Ethan says immediately, as if being called a great guy is an affront somehow. Angelo stops being a bright bouncing asshole and stares at him.

“What?”

Ethan takes a Rolex out of his pocket and holds it up. Maelgwyn stands there with the Tristés in silence, imagining that they too are replaying his terse handshake with Tristero in their heads in search for the moment it had left his wrist. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” says Adelaide at the same time as Angelo starts laughing again.

“Holy shit, Ethan,” is all Maelgwyn can say. Ethan looks pleased with himself, as if he’d completely forgotten about the whole affair and this was a nice surprise. He snaps the watch on his wrist, and Adelaide stands up, agitated. 

“Take that off ,” she snaps, authoritative.

“Finders keepers,” Ethan says, childish. 

They tumble into an argument, and Maelgwyn can’t bring himself to follow even a word of it. He leans against the railing of the deck and watches Ethan defend his point, back straight and indignant, hands animated, curls slipping out of his purposefully sloppy hairstyling and falling over his face. Maelgwyn has to admit, admiring in a backwards way, that he has some balls. Angelo leans behind him, grinning. “Thats so fuckin’ funny. Tristero’s gonna lose his shit when he gets back.” He nudges Maelgwyn’s shoulder. “Good game, Maelgwyn.”

“It’s been a wild night,” Maelgwyn says, voice small. Angelo nudges his shoulder harder as if to say buck up. Maelgwyn clears his throat and stands up, interrupting the argument in what he imagines is a lull. He hadn’t really kept track that closely. “Ethan, can I talk to you?”

Adelaide swivels her acidic glare to him. Ethan raises his eyebrows, but he says, “Sure.” 

Maelgwyn grabs his hand again. The amount of times he’s done this is starting to feel overly self-indulgent, but he needs something to steady him. Ethan follows him back in to the dinner table, where all of this went to shit. The dishes have been cleared away and the candles extinguished. There’s a quiet, dejected conversation taking place in the kitchen, a far cry from the earlier argument. Maelgwyn leans against the edge of the table, noting the sour looks Adelaide is giving them through the window as she fends off the jabs a smiling Angelo must be throwing at her. “I’m gonna take you up on that offer,” Maelgwyn says, chewing his lip. “Things went too far. I didn’t want it to play out like this.”

“I thought so.” Ethan casts a quick glance over his shoulder and turns back calmly, having seen the Tristés too. He puts a hand on Maelgwyn’s hip and leans in just a little. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t really know. Just… do what you do. Make them love you.” He gives Ethan a wide-eyed, imploring look. “Y’know.”

“Alright, alright. But...” Ethan slips his arm around his waist and pulls him against him. “I charge extra for the good boyfriend act,” he says, voice low. He’s giving him his most stupid, smarmy grin, eyes half-lidded.

Maelgwyn scoffs lightly and wrinkles his nose at him, staying light to ignore the uptick of his heart rate. “You’re not grifting any more money out of me.”

“Just fifty bucks.”

“No.”

“Twenty. Friends and family discount.”

“ No .”

“Timmies on the way back.”

Maelgwyn can’t help a little laugh. He puts his arms around Ethan’s neck and leans in. “You can have a small coffee and one donut.”

“ Crisse de câlice , you’re cheap.”

“You know I asked you to go heavy on the Joual because I think it sounds stupid, right? It isn’t cute.”

“ Va chier .” Ethan kisses his cheek, smiling. Maelgwyn realizes that to bystanders it’s a natural escalation of the situation, but he still didn’t expect it. Ethan pats his back and lets him go. “Alright.” He takes a breath and straightens up, going into the crisis resolution mode Maelgwyn has seen him in once or twice before. He remembers to tug his sleeve over Tristero’s watch, fortunately.

Maelgwyn hadn’t realized just how badly his heart was hammering until Ethan let him go. He trails after him, half dazed and wondering if that really was only for show. The kitchen quiets as they walk in. Tristero, Severea and Galenica are back, and they regard Ethan with suspicion even as Samothes gives them a stern look. Samol, at least, smiles at their approach. Ethan seems smaller somehow, and he looks more regretful than Maelgwyn ever imagined he could. “I just want to apologize,” he says, voice perfectly reflecting his demeanor. 

Tristero scoffs exaggeratedly and receives a glare from Samothes that drips with even more disapproval. When he turns back, Samothes nods at Ethan encouragingly. Maelgwyn can tell he’s not fooled one bit, but he’s still exactly where Ethan wants him. Ethan takes a slightly shaky breath and says, “I came here completely pissed off at all of you. Maelgwyn… I know he didn’t have an easy time when he was younger, but I didn’t know the specifics, so… I was angry with all of you. I shouldn’t have been so antagonistic. You’re all under enough stress, what with…” His eyes dart to Samol, who nods to him in concession. Maelgwyn has a feeling he knows what’s going on, too. Maybe they all do. He prays they follow Samothes’s example and take Ethan at his word.

Ethan sniffles. “And, y’know… my father took us away from our mother when I was young. And then he left us pretty soon after that. So I’ve never had a real thanksgiving. Being here made me remember, and I got so…” He trails off and sighs again. He’s really pulling out all the stops, his voice getting thick and melancholy as if he’s nearing tears. Tristero still looks sour, but faces are starting to soften, and this last admission gets some soft coos of pity.

Holy shit, Maelgwyn thinks as he watches him. He has no way of knowing if any of this is real with Hitchcock, but it feels like one of those good lies that contains an element of the truth. He’s doing an incredible job of using his family’s proclivity to blame misbehavior on one terrible incident against them. Edmund’s ability to cry on the spot might have come in handy right now, but Maelgwyn still feels secure in his choice of Hitchcock. He leans against the wall and watches Ethan work. It’s admirable from a filmmaker’s perspective. It’s appreciated from his own.

Ethan delicately wipes his eyes. He really is crying a little now. Maelgwyn puts a hand on his shoulder, half to play the concerned boyfriend and half to steady him through his performance. “I was just so upset, but… I know the way I behaved didn’t fix anything. I just want Maelgwyn to have a family that he wants to be around. That’s not going to happen if I keep causing problems for you. I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Aw, it’s alright, son,” says Samol, pushing himself off the counter to give Ethan a hug. Ethan clings to him, sniffling pitifully. Samol pats his back. He might be getting old, but his word still carries weight. No one would dare speak out against Ethan now that he’s won Samol’s support. Samothes is right—Ethan would make a good politician. 

Samol steps back and says, loud and light, “Now, what do we say to a second supper around the TV?” It’s not really a question so much as it is a firm signal for everyone to settle down.

“Sounds like a Thanksgiving,” Samothes says. He nods at Ethan approvingly, smiling despite himself. Ethan wipes off the remainder of his tears and puts a tremor into his smile. He’s just too much.

They trail out to the living room, and Tristero steps out to fetch his children from the deck. Angelo is trying extremely hard to keep a straight face, and Adelaide gives Ethan a chilly look every time her father isn’t looking, but they don’t mention a word about the watch. As everyone mills about, Ethan flops down on a recliner and rubs at his face. Maelgwyn squeezes in to sit beside him. “You okay?” he murmurs.

Ethan tries to look at him like he doesn’t understand what he means, but he overacts it by a smidgen. “Yeah,” he says lightly. His eyeliner had ended up smudged again from his waterworks. Maelgwyn reaches out and fixes it as best he can, turning it into something closer to a smokey eye. Ethan wrinkles up his nose but still obligingly closes his eyes for him. “What, I’m not pretty enough for you?”

“You will be once you’re cleaned up.” Maelgwyn realizes how gentle and familiar his tone was and feels a smidgen self-conscious. He lets his hand drop, brushing Ethan’s cheek as it goes. The usual sharp edges of Ethan’s expression have been rounded away. He smiles at Maelgwyn softly, head leaning against the couch. Maelgwyn finds himself with a thousand untowards thoughts that come on so fast they leave him breathless.

He’s glad he chose Ethan, for his own sake. He really is. But he’s starting to realize there are downsides to asking a handsome boy to dinner at his parents’ house and giving him free license to be affectionate. The implication was that everything would go back to normal when they left the house, but after Ethan’s seen him come nearly to his breaking point and Maelgwyn’s felt his lips on his cheek and the warmth of the crook of his neck, it feels like that’s never going to be possible. He’s thrust a great amount of intimacy on Ethan tonight. He almost feels the need to apologize. 

True to form, Ethan doesn’t seem bothered. He slips an arm around Maelgwyn's waist and snuggles up against him, turning his attention back to the rest of the living room. “Is there even such a thing as a Thanksgiving movie?” he asks, voice bubbling with laughter, and Maelgwyn realizes that the discussion had wandered that way as he’d been distracted.

“Home For the Holidays,” Samothes suggests. The Tristés start to shout him down immediately.

“Addams Family Values!” Adelaide yells. Angelo and Maelgwyn chorus in support, and Samol laughs. Samothes puts his hands up in defeat and shuffles around in the DVD cabinet again. As always, it takes ten or more minutes for the family to arrange themselves around the television. Lights are switched off, drinks and leftovers are fetched from the kitchen, spots are bickered over and cushions are pulled onto the floor. Finally, blessedly, the movie starts.

Ethan's arm stays around Maelgwyn the whole evening, snug and secure. Maelgwyn wallows in the remnants of his various emotional breakdowns, oscillating between feeling foolish for arranging all this in the first place and marveling at how smoothly Ethan took care of things and comforted him to boot. Eventually Ethan’s hand drifts to Maelgwyn’s hair and absentmindedly plays with his curls, and he melts into a confused but generally positive puddle. He’s still drifting between worries, but they’re fewer and further between now. 

He dozes through half of the movie, having seen it a dozen times before during playdates with Adelaide and Angelo in the past. Once he wakes up and sees that Samothes has fetched Samot, who looks sleepy but a little more sober. He gives Maelgwyn a tired but true smile, head lolling on Samothes’s shoulder. There’s a warmth in Maelgwyn’s chest that he usually never feels when his parents are around. He finds himself smiling when he wakes up a couple of times, and feels almost regretful when the movie ends.

The lights are flicked back on, to several people’s complaints, and everyone begins to stretch and shuffle around picking up plates. Maelgwyn stays resting on Ethan’s chest, sleepy and warm and content. Nobody bothers them, most likely figuring they need the rest after all that excitement. Eventually Ethan stirs, and Maelgwyn realizes he’d been asleep too. “You alright, cher ?” he asks Maelgwyn, voice a little husky. Maelgwyn’s breath catches in his chest strangely.

“Yeah,” Maelgwyn says, truthfully.

Ethan rests his chin on the top of his head. “We did okay, I think,” he murmurs. Maelgwyn finds his hand and squeezes it. He would be happy to lie here for the rest of the night, or even until the next morning when they have to catch their flight back. The turmoil in his chest has finally settled.

“Did anyone see my watch after dinner?” says Tristero. “I think I left it somewhere.”

Maelgwyn resists the urge to sit bolt upright and pushes himself up more slowly. Murmurs of denial are going around the room. Adelaide gives Ethan a look so furious that Maelgwyn is surprised it doesn’t physically scorch him, but when her father looks at her she just shrugs. Maelgywn pulls Ethan up, trying to angle his arm to obscure the bump under his sleeve. “We’re gonna head out, I think, dad.” He tries not to sound too hurried.

Samot struggles his way off of the couch to take Maelgwyn’s face and give him a pinot-scented kiss on each cheek. “Always good to see you, sunshine.” Maelgwyn winces, but only a little. Samot looks at Ethan but doesn’t take a step towards him. “Be safe, you two.” 

He goes to flop back on the couch. Ethan and Maelgwyn exchange a look. Ethan pulls a dramatic mock-offended face, and Maelgwyn has to try hard not to laugh. They circle the rest of the room with their goodbyes. Severea and Galenica trade polite handshakes that make Ethan wince again. Samol, true to form, gives Ethan a hearty hug with a slap on the back and a come back now, y'hear? The Tristés clamor to get Ethan’s instagram, and Maelgwyn waits uneasily as they chat and their father gets more and more animated about his search for the watch. He has to yank Ethan out of the room by the arm once Tristero really starts kicking up a fuss. “Cutting it close,” he hisses to Ethan, pulling him out to the foyer. 

Ethan looks at him with big, sad eyes. “I’ve never had a real Thanksgiving before, Maelgwyn. I was enjoying myself.” Maelgwyn feels genuinely sympathetic for a moment, and then Ethan snorts and goes back to smiling like an asshole and he has no way to know if that was a real display of emotion or not. They put their coats and shoes back on in silence.

“Heading out?” Maelgwyn tenses at the sound of Samothes’s voice. He walks out from the living room to give Maelgwyn another awkward pat on the shoulder and put out his hand for Ethan to shake. “You haven’t seen Tristero’s watch, have you?” he asks.

“No,” Ethan says, voice nonchalant, face pleasantly blank. Raising his arm to shake his hand had made his sleeve ride up his arm, and the watch is completely exposed. Maelgwyn’s heart is in his throat. If his father looks down even for a moment, the whole night is going to be turned upside down into an even more nightmarish hellscape than the one he just went through.

Samothes lets out a small sigh of disappointment and drops Ethan’s arm, turning to go. “Alright. Get home safe.” Ethan jerks his sleeve down immediately and looks at Maelgwyn, wide-eyed and exhilarated. Maelgwyn bundles him out the door before he can burst into laughter, which he does the moment they’re off the porch, loudly and raucously. They run down the laneway as if someone is chasing them, as if the various farces and facades they’ve conducted tonight are going to catch up with them. Maelgwyn laughs breathlessly as they scurry around the hedges in front of Samol’s house, where they finally stumble to a stop and double over to wheeze. The moment they can stand upright again, Ethan grabs him in a hug so hard they stumble back and forth for a moment.

“Maudit baptême du crisse,” he says into Maelgwyn’s ear, “I wasn’t sure if we’d get out of that.”

Maelgwyn puts his arms around him, still bubbling with laughter. “Holy shit. You’re gonna get yourself killed one day.”

“But not today.” Ethan kisses his cheek and leans their heads together. Maelgwyn can’t breathe. It’s a normal enough thing to do, on one hand. On the other, the last time Ethan kissed him was when they were playing at being lovers in front of the Tristés. It’s always so hard to tell what Ethan is thinking. 

He stands there in a breathless, smiling daze and can't do anything else. Ethan grins, slaps his shoulder and steps back, starting to back down the street with the implication that Maelgwyn should follow. “Somehow that all went better and worse than expected," he says.

"In every sense," Maelgwyn agrees as he catches up.

"I think I deserve more than one donut, don't you think?"

"Shit, you can have a dozen."

Ethan takes his waist again as they walk, butting their heads together and giving him his stupid grin. "Aw, aren't you a sweetheart?" The tension Maelgwyn always carries in his shoulders melts for a reason he can’t verbalize. He breathes out a laugh and tries not to think too hard on how his heartbeat keeps spiking tonight.

They make their way through the suburbs back to the bus stop, where they sit huddled together against the cold. Ethan rubs his arm to warm him up, and Maelgwyn leans into him.

A thought comes to his mind that he isn’t sure how he feels about. What he means by that is that his chest explodes with an unidentifiable emotion so strong it makes his fingers tremble. There’s been a lot of that tonight. "Shit," he says, "now they'll want you to come for Christmas."

Ethan starts laughing, pressing his head against Maelgwyn's shoulder. "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it." He stays resting there and sighs, sounding content. 

It’s like their con never ended. To an outsider, they would still look as if they were in love. It takes twenty or more minutes for their bus to come, which turns out to be just enough time for Maelgwyn to let himself fall for his own trick.