"Josh, I have been wanting to visit Chicago, I'm using you for an excuse to go," Andre said calmly.
"Andre has developed a friendship with you for your own sake," Damion said stiffly, not looking at Andre. "He seemed like the logical choice.."
"You can trust me Damion in this delicate matter," Andre said blandly, "You know I am capable of caring for someone."
Andre resisted saying the words he knew would be unwelcome; You know the love I have for you and Daniel.
"I'm not a delicate matter!" Josh growled.
"Get it through your head you're a young one which makes you a delicate matter," Andre said bluntly, "I should know I've killed enough delicate matters in the past."
"Fine. Come along. But as my companion and not my watch dog. I always enjoyed your company. Dads your wrong about Pete and me," Josh begged.
"How am I wrong if you can't even stay away from each other for a few months? We'll talk about it later son, I have to go home to Les," Louis said tightly.
"I'll see you soon," Daniel said, wondering at the hurt Les was putting Damion through with his affair with Dora.
"Can all of you please give Josh and I some time alone together?" Damion asked.
Once Armand and Daniel left, Damion turned to his son saying softly, "Please understand I owe Les so much. I wish it had started out better between you and Les. Lescan be as frail as he is strong He has lost too much in his life mostly by his own doings. Daniel has you."
"So Les has to have you?" Josh said resentfully of his dads teenage lover who in his mortal life was a brilliant cellist.
"I've never been a good father. When I was a mortal your uncle my ward after our father's death fell in love with a boy who would have only brought unhappiness and scorn into his life. He fell in love with a boy of color. Back in the time I was mortal in the 1920's such a thing was illegal in New Orleans for men and women much less two boys. I taunted my brother Devon, a boy of fifteen, mocked him. I was angry and disappointed in what I knew to be Devon's foolish lack of worldliness. I pushed him into having a brain fever. What today modern people call a nervous break down, and he shot himself. He died. Please understand it was how things were done in my day. To ridicule a child who was different. To guide him into conforming. Not out of spite, but out of what we thought back then was love. We thought the only way anyone could achieve happiness was by conforming to social mores. I wanted happiness for my brother. At least with a white boy I thought he could disguise his nature at I disguised mine. Tara This time my parental folly took a new turn. For a brief time when I was separated from Daniel out of loneliness I put a child of eight on the devil's road. I thought she would never grow up, she would stay and uninformed child in the matters of what goes on between adults. I was wrong her body didn't grow up but her mind did. I stood back and let her affair with a teenage mortal boy take its course without my interference. When she tried to give her lover Jean the dark gift he died. There wasn't enough blood in her for him to change. She hated me for Jean's death. She became unhinged. Her madness and my stubborn ignorance of the pain she was in made us both easy prey to each other and to others. Andre killed her with flames and without pity when he felt she was a danger to me. Through I did not invite him to do so. Your sister Trisha, I, out of fear of her scornful tongue, I always indulged her, and ignored her. And she left me without a word of good by. I've always been a fool of a father. I do not care how you feel or what you think about me. I know I'll always love you."
"I thought you liked Pete."
"I always encouraged yours and Pete's intimate friendship to a point Josh to a point. To take up housekeeping with this boy to uproot Tabby and Ace. Non, this is going too fast. You have to stop and think this out."
"You're making terrifying scenarios where there is none. Was yours and Daniel's partnership hurried into?"
"Oui, I should have known more about love before I entered into a partnership with Daniel, experienced life on my own. The both of us were each others first loves."
"And what about your relationship with Les was that hurried into?"
" Les was very young, only nineteen when a young rogue bought him into our world" Damion mumbled, "When we first met I felt dazzled and protective of Les. He's such a braggart. Such his own man, yet Les is very needy, I understand Les more than I want to understand myself."
"I understand Pete."
"You haven't known him enough to understand him," Damion begged, "Yours is a sympathetic relationship. A young boy's first love. Enjoy it for what it is. I have to go," Damion said, leaning over, giving Josh a quick kiss on the cheek, "I'll see you later to take you to the airport."
Joining Daniel in the hallway, Damion walked down the stairs with him, Daniel muscled up enough courage to speak to him while Louis was putting on his coat.
"Is everything all right at home?" Daniel asked.
"Non, everything is not all right at home. Josh is angry with me," Damion said in a small voice.
"You were kind of hard on him. And on Pete too."
"Do you think I'm wrong?" Damion beseeched him as he buttoned up the black buttons on his fine wool coat.
"Even if you are wrong no real harm will be done. A couple of months apart isn't going to hurt them. And you my dear friend after their separation is over you will have to give them your blessings."
"Gladly, I will go to the priest myself and get their marriage plans started. It will be by a priest of course. And I insist on the ceremony being as traditional as possible. Father Jim has recently baptized the triplets of a gay couple gifted to them from a surrogate mother. I am sure he will be open to performing a Catholic wedding ceremony for Josh and Pete outside of the church walls. If it happens," Damion sighed, "I hate having Josh this angry at me."
"Is everything else all right with you?" Daniel said.
"Fine," Damion said quickly, cutting off any other further inquiry.
Damion swiped away a sandy blind hair from Daniel's handsome face.
"Daniel, I" Louis said, his face feeling cold, "Thank you for loving our son. Especially when he isn't feeling very loving towards me right now. Do you think he hates me?" Damion said with a small smile.
"Feeling a little lost right now? Don't. You're not lost. You haven't lost anyone," Daniel reassured him
Damion put his hand to Daniel's face, then he abruptly turned away to leave, without any word of good bye.
Daniel went up the stairs into their son's room.
"How do you put up with dads leaving every night to be with Les?" Josh cried out angerily, folding a shirt, slamming it into his suitcase, "How can dads come here and disprupt everything in our lives " Josh threw the shirt he has been folding across the room. "How do you put up with his bullshit?"
Andre shook his head thinking the same thing as Josh.
"I'll see you at the airport tomorrow," Andre said, "Daniel Later."
"The airport! Father at least let me call Pete to ask him to see me off." Josh begged, "I've carefully thought out my relationship with Pete. I am not being impulsive! I have to call Pete!"
"I have to call Josh," Pete begged Christov once they got home.
"Why? You promised Damion you wouldn't see Josh. A promise is a promise, Right Henri?" Christov said blandly, thowing himself on the couch. Christov picked up a magazine, pretending to read it, "Good riddance I say. Insanity runs through that blood line. Like shit from a goose. Thank God your only Veronica's ancestor and your not related to that line through vampire blood."
"Christov you're not helping the situation," Henri said crossly, pulling the magazine Christov was pretending to read out of his hand. Rolling it up, he whacked Christov lightly on the head with it.
"What situation! There isn't a situation here. Pete isn't going to wither up and die just because he's not allowed to see Josh!"
"You're all being unfair!" Pete fumed, "I'm calling Josh. Damion is totally of our line here. I didn't do anything wrong!"
Christov and Henri stared at their mild mannered foster fledging in amazement.
"Go to your room!" Christov yelled.
"What!!" Pete yelled in amazement.
"Room!" Christov ordered, pointing at the stairs.
"Henri tell him!" Pete pleaded.
"Room," Henri said in a mild voice.
Angrily, Pere stormed up to his room.
"Fledglings," Chrisotv muttered in exasperation "Must they be such a pain in the ass?"
"He's in love mon ami," Henir said in a consolatory voice. He sat besides Christov "He was only trying g to impress upon Josh he could be adventurous too."
"Stabbing Josh in the nose with a whip cream nozzle is hardly going to impress Josh, or Damion," Christov said shrugging, "It' not love, It's stupidity. You see a good looking guy, you get hard, then you ago all soft and gooey. Then you go stupid. This too will pass."
"And I am not!!" Pete screamed running down the stairs, "A six year old you can order around!"
"Room!!" Henri and Christov yelled in unison.
"I'm not going to my room!!" Pete yelled.
Jumping off of the couch, Christov chased Pete back into his room, slamming the door on him.
"We're not going to discuss this," Christov yelled, "Till you've cooled off."
Trotting down the stairs Chrisotv placed himself next to Henri Christov rubbed his temples.
"Remember when I first met you?" Henri said, putting his arm around him.
"I do. I was mortal and beaten up from a rough trick," Christov said..
"I entered into your dingy, little apartment room. I never saw a man so bruised and blooded up."
"The trick I was with was doped up on meth and horse. Fuck, he had the strength of two men. I thought for sure he was going to kill me. I barely made it home."
"I put my fingers to your neck. Your pulse was so strong. And you. . ."
"I told you I was going on vacation as of now. And to go look for some other piece of ass."
"You couldn't even see me your eyes were so swollen shut. You were so insolant, and you laughed at me," Henri reflected.
"I woke up the next morning with a cup of luke warm coffee next to me. Later, I went back to Detective Mayer. He sent me back to the shit who beat me up. I pumped the creep for information about his supplier."
"You more or less was cutting your trick's throat by using this information to help Detective Mayer bust the drug cartel working the East End of New York."
"What a gruesome way to die. Someone cut the dealer open and emptied out his body. I didn't know what the hell was going on. Drug dealers were turning up dead all over the place. Mutilated. I thought you were a murderer, killing off people at the retirement village where the bulk of my customers were. Turned out I was right."
tbc