[FIN] Homeward Bound

[TawnyAngel]

Ah.

Here they went then.

Zevran's expression shifted almost imperceptibly, his smile was still perfectly bright and amiable to anyone not used to reading his moods.

This was no problem, he told himself. He would just act as he normally would and if Abel's father had a problem with him, that was the old man's problem and not his. Except it would be his problem whenever they were in the same room, and it would affect other things, and-

Ah, s**t, why did the man have to be so strange?

When the pokemon scampered in Zevran beamed and cooed at them in Spanish. "Very pleased to meet you too!" he said in English as Clara bounced upright and hastened to greet them both. Then, to the two humans who'd just entered, he added; "It sounds like it was hard work, all done now?"

"All done!" Taavi confirmed cheerfully as he waited for his turn at the sink. "And um, if it's not trouble I'd love a sandwich! Breakfast is feeling like a pretty long time ago now." He'd really missed this place! Maybe he should live on a ranch one day... but a small one, he'd still want to go out and do more ranger-ish things so something this big wouldn't be manageable... Well not by himself anyway, who knew! Maybe he'd meet somebody who wanted to keep a ranch and go on hikes and camping trips and stuff.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Both Pokemon bounced around Zevran before doing the same to Clara, glad that she was back to visit. Isaac and Rebecca slipped into the room from the hall next, the former with much more enthusiasm in contrast to the latter's cautiousness.

Abel studied his boyfriend's face carefully, curious what was going on in his head but more than that he was admittedly a little nervous to see how this would go. Hopefully well. All the same he reached out to give his love's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and as he stood up he leaned in to press a kiss to the top of his head.

Daniel finished washing his hands and grabbed a colorful towel hanging from the oven handle nearby so he could dry them off, though not before moving aside to make room for Taavi to clean up. Joanna beamed and shooed them both. "Alright, I'll make sandwiches for both of you. Out then, out out out! After you wash your hands of course," she added with a smile to Taavi.

Aaron huffed as he plated his sandwich and rounded the counter with it. "You didn't make my sandwich," he pointed out, his tone half-joking.

"No I didn't, and I'm appreciative of your hard work making your own sandwich so I could have time to eat mine, hm?" She patted Daniel's arm with a warm smile as he offered the towel to Taavi next so he could dry his hands off.

Once the towel was out of his hands Daniel turned with a broad, beaming smile to his older son, arms outstretched to pull him into a tight hug. "Abel! I'm glad you could come visit."

"Hey Dad," Abel said as returned the grin and the hug readily. "I'm glad we could too. So Dad, I'd like you to meet my boyfriend, Zevran," he added, gesturing with one arm towards the shorter blond. Hopefully this would go well, hopefully it would, hopefully...

"Ah, right," Daniel replied, his warm bright grin promptly morphed to a more neutral, almost critical expression as he studied Zev carefully. A moment or two later one hand outstretched to shake his as he said smoothly, "Nice to meet you."  

[TawnyAngel]

Despite his concern about how this was all going to play out Zevran found himself distracted again by how the members of the Gray family interacted with one another. It was so warm, so easy. Were most families like this? He suddenly felt as though he'd missed out on a great deal; big things like having family in the first place but little moments like this too. How many memories did they all have together? They had shared great pain but they must have shared great joy too. Did they argue often? Was he going to cause arguments?...

Ah. Perfect.

Though Daniel's smile faded Zevran's remained in place, though he softened the grin a little to make more of a warm smile that creased his eyes just a little at the corners. "And you as well Daniel, I am glad to be able to visit at last." But not to be able to visit you! He would have preferred to only meet Joanna, couldn't Daniel have just stayed out in the barn where he would not radiate displeasure over everyone?

Ohhhh no.

Taavi licked his lips nervously as he poured himself a mug of coffee, the atmosphere around Daniel had just got pretty cool and it was pretty obvious why. Could he put off going over there? He glanced over at Joanna and smiled brightly. "Um! Are you sure I can't help you at all?"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Joanna smiled and pressed a hand to Taavi's shoulder gently. "Well dear, I'm going to be making ham and cheese sandwiches with some mustard, but if you'd like anything else on yours you can get it from the fridge. If not, you can help me out by cutting some more ham instead, if you'd like."

"Yeah," Daniel replied simply, though a soft frown curved his lips, searching for something else to say that wouldn't continue the awkwardness.

Abel slipped an arm around his father's shoulders and one hand reached for Zevran's shoulder. "We can all go out back for target practice sometime while we're here, yeah?"

Daniel's eyebrows rose a bit and he glanced between the two blondes briefly, his expression brightening a bit as he latched onto the topic. "Ah, we can! I can get the rifles out whenever you want."  

[TawnyAngel]

"Sure!" Taavi replied to Joanna, obviously a little relieved. "I'm pretty good a handling meat!" A moment after he said this his eyes widened a little as his brain played out for him the sort of things his friends would be saying if they weren't occupied. He shot Joanna a bright worried smile, she wouldn't think that right? She was Abel's Mom. "I mean! Because I worked at Meat Palace for a while! Which is a restaurant! It sells a lot of meat!" He had not helped the situation at all. At all!

Taavi looked away again and focused on cutting ham.

Perhaps luckily for Taavi all of Zevran's attention was focused on Daniel, was the common ground thing going to work? "Excellent!" he crowed cheerfully. "That will be good motivation for me to drag myself upright. Do we play for kudos? I used to play for bottlecaps when I was younger, I had quite the collection as I recall."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Once Taavi moved to cut the ham, Joanna smiled and stepped over to wipe off the sandwich press quickly. She paused before doing so for a moment to process everything he'd said in rapid succession, then proceeded to wipe the press off like she'd intended. "I think I remember you - or maybe it was Abel - mentioning Meat Palace before. Wasn't that the awful restaurant you worked at before joining the KSO?"

Like Zev, Abel was rather more preoccupied with the conversation with his father than on what his best friend was saying. He glanced between the pair rather hopefully. Since his father enjoyed shooting and was still rather disappointed that Taavi didn't like it, perhaps Zevran could fill that small hole and give them the common ground they needed to get along? Not that he doubted his boyfriend would get along with anyone, of course, but much as he hated to admit it, his father kind of did. At least in this instance he did, at any rate. Sigh. "We always played for kudos, or who would have to do a chore we all hated or something."

"Like mucking out the barn stalls," Daniel put in with a wry smirk.

Abel wrinkled his nose and made a face. "Like mucking out the barn stalls, yeah. But I think you're exempt from chores," he gave Zevran's shoulder a gentle squeeze as he aimed a soft, fond smile at him, "so probably just for kudos. At least for you, anyway; I might not be so lucky."

"Nope!" His father replied brightly as he clapped his son on the shoulder, then stepped over to sit down beside Aaron, who'd stolen the seat Joanna had vacated a scant couple minutes ago. "Just let me know when you want to go shooting and I'll bring everything up."

"Alright," Abel agreed with a small nod. Well that was... a thing. It could've been worse, of course, but it definitely could've been.... better. Oh well. He stepped back around Zev to pick up his mug of coffee, though he gave his boyfriend's shoulder another soft squeeze as he asked in a softer voice, "D'you want to go digest on the back porch? You can see the whole back of the ranch from there." As in, out of the room where his father was who so obviously had much chillier responses for Zevran than for his family. Hopefully Zev wasn't too put out or frustrated by it; hopefully his dad would get better about it over the next couple of days.  

[TawnyAngel]

"That's right!" Taavi laughed and shook his head. "I do not miss that place, at all. Um, here, ham." He passed a couple of slices over to Joanna and then - judging they needed a bit more - started to cut again. "But I made some good friends there so it's not all bad right? I guess I'd do it over again if I had the choice, I wouldn't want to not meet them."

"Ha!" Zevran grinned. "At last I have found an advantage to all of this. Not that I'd lose to you of course anyway Abel, unless it be out of pity," he winked cheekily. "And perhaps tomorrow?" he suggested cheerfully to Daniel, as though he hadn't noticed the cool treatment at all. "Much though I do not like to admit it, I think I need to do not very much for the rest of today." Sitting out on the porch, away from Daniel, sounded just about perfect and Zevran turned to Abel again with a softer smile. "I would like that," he confirmed with a little nod and a brief touch to the hand on his shoulder. It probably made Daniel uncomfortable but if he was pretending everything was fine then he wasn't going to refrain from touching his boyfriend's hand when he felt like it!  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Thank you honey," she said as she accepted the slices of ham so she could begin preparing the sandwiches, though they did need a bit more meat on them so she worked slowly to give him time to cut more. There wasn't any rush, neither his stomach nor Daniel's were going anywhere. "I bet you don't, it sounds like it was awful. It sounds like the experience was good though, in the end, even if it wasn't a good place to work. And making friends is always important."

"Ah, we'll see about that," Abel countered with a grin of his own, "I'm a pretty good shot, I'll have you know."

"We'll just have to see tomorrow then, won't we?" Daniel replied with an amused huff, and aimed a querying look at his younger son. Aaron merely shrugged a bit and took a bite of his sandwich.

With their shooting plans more or less set now, Abel turned his focus and a soft smile to his boyfriend. How frustrating was it for Zevran, always so active and lively, to be restricted so by his injuries? Better restricted than dead though. "Doing nothing for the rest of the day sounds like the perfect way to spend our first day of vacation... For us anyway, I don't think Taavi can just do nothing while he's here," the blond noted with a chuckle as he shot his best friend an amused smile. Turning back to Zev he picked up his mug in one hand and gestured towards the door with the other while he remained where he stood in case his boyfriend needed him for support on the way up or out, "You can bring your coffee if you want to, there's tables and stuff outside."  

[TawnyAngel]

"No problem," Taavi smiled as he passed over more ham and then started to wrap the rest of the meat back up. "And, yeah, pretty much! I learned from it I guess, as you do from a lot of mistakes... not that it was a mistake working there - I needed a job and all - but you know what I mean?" Taavi shrugged and laughed a little awkwardly. "Mistakes and unpleasant things, I guess I mean." He wished he was better at explaining stuff, he never seemed to find the right words exactly! Not that Joanna would mind, it would just be nice to be more eloquent.

At that point he realised he'd been spoken to and turned to Abel. "Hu? I mean, sorry? Oh!" he grinned and nodded as he registered what Abel had said. "Yeah! Definitely, Daniel's got plenty of stuff lined up for me to help with!"

"We shall indeed, I look forward to it!" Zevran agreed as he got cautiously to his feet and crossed the room to retrieve his crutch from where he'd left it leaning against the wall. "Coffee and a good view in good company, what more could I ask than that?" he asked rhetorically as he returned to the table to pick up his mug, and then headed to the door Abel had indicated. "See all of you later!" he added to the Gray clan - plus Taavi, though he probably counted anyway - before stepping through, and mercifully out of Daniel's sight.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Joanna smiled and accepted the additional ham. "Thank you dear, and I know just what you mean. Experiences help you grow, whether they're good or bad ones, and good things can come out of both."

"Heh, just make sure you do at least a little relaxing while we're here," Abel said, chuckling as he clapped a hand on his best friend's shoulder. And then Zevran was off - up and out - and the taller blond couldn't help the soft huff of amusement. He figured his boyfriend would want to spend some time just the two of them but he didn't expect him to hurry off to do so. All the same he stacked their plates and set them on the counter where his mother gestured to, then he leaned in to plant a kiss on her cheek before following his boyfriend out onto the large back porch.

As he'd said there was plenty of seating; on the far right and tucked into the corner sat a circular glass table and umbrella with four chairs. In the middle of the porch and in front of the steps down to the yard sat a couple lounge chairs with a small table between them, and on the left side near the house was a porch swing that could easily seat up to three people, its plush cushion and matching canopy white with a soft purple floral pattern. "Pick a seat, any seat," Abel said with a shrug as he followed his love outside, his smile warm and fond as he watched him. On the edges of the porch every so often in strategic spots sat planters full of flowers and some herbs; a garden snaked around the ground just in front of the porch with more flowers, and beyond that the rest of the large ranch sprawled out around the whole house. Off in the distance sat the large barn, and scattered around were the same myriad of Pokemon they'd seen on their drive in.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Some relaxing," Taavi grinned to Abel. "A little relaxing. Maybe. We'll see!" There'd be plenty of time for that among the work, he knew, but he couldn't resist a tiny tease. "See you guys later!" Honestly he was a bit glad that they were going, until Daniel came around things were going to be a bit awkward whenever he and Zev were in the same room.

A few steps away from the door Zevran had stopped to look around the porch and out over the view of the rest of the ranch. When Abel joined him he half turned and flashed him a smile before returning to his study of their surroundings. "This place is huge, I can't imagine living with so much space around and with neighbours so far away. I am thinking that you would have to be more creative here to get into trouble than in a city.... Or you would have until I arrived anyway." Zevran winked and smirked as he said this, took a sip of his coffee, and then headed towards the porch swing. "I've been thinking about this thing since you mentioned it, though I'm sure we shall get a chance to sit on all the furniture while we're here. We wouldn't want any to feel left out!"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Well hopefully Taavi would do some relaxing while they were here, but even if he didn't Abel knew he'd enjoy the trip regardless. Hopefully any awkwardness his dad created because of Zev wouldn't bother him too badly. Either of them, actually.

Setting that aside for the time being Abel took a moment to observe his boyfriend observing the expansive ranch, his colorful eyes roaming over Zevran's ever attractive figure, and idly wondered if he really was enjoying himself or if he wasn't and just wasn't saying so to spare his feelings. He wanted to think he was enjoying himself, but it was hard to tell...

It wasn't hard to tell he'd go right for the porch swing though, and the taller blond chuckled a bit as he followed his boyfriend over to it and sat down carefully, in contrast to the usual careless manner in which he flopped down into comfortable seats. "It is huge, isn't it? Plenty of room for a lot more pokemon, and for everyone to come visit all at once. But there's plenty of ways to get in trouble here, though not in the usual conventional ways. You always make it much easier to get in trouble, you terrible influence, you." Fondness crinkled his eyes and warmed his smile even with the jest - or perhaps because of it - and he wrapped his free arm around Zevran's shoulders. "We have plenty of time to sit on all the furniture inside and out, don't worry. We'll have more than enough time to sit on all of it several times, in fact! Mmh, but are you enjoying yourself so far?" He asked, curiosity slipping into his expression as he lifted his mug to take another sip of his coffee. He really wanted to think he was, but...  

[TawnyAngel]

Zevran hummed contentedly as Abel moved to join him and considerately so too, that detail didn't go unnoticed. "Well." Zevran kicked off his shoes and shifted so that he was curled sideways on the swing, his weight trusted to Abel's shoulder. He sipped his coffee, held his response off longer. "I was," he continued eventually. "Joanna is like she seemed by email, though moreso. Aaron was awkward but I felt that was nothing personal, I like him so far! But I'm afraid your father rather killed the mood when he turned to look at me as though I'd kicked his favourite dog and then pissed on his family portrait. I was expecting it but," Zevran lifted the shoulder that wasn't snuggled against Abel, "expecting something to be unpleasant doesn't make it less so when it happens."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

As Zevran leaned on him, Abel shifted ever so slightly to better support his boyfriend's weight. The last thing he wanted was for him to slip or get jostled or something that could exacerbate his injuries. He hummed thoughtfully too, considering Zevran's response as he sipped at his coffee more. Eventually he settled the mug on his knee and bent his head down to press a gentle kiss on his boyfriend's hair. "Well, I appreciate your honesty. Mom adores you, of course, and Aaron's always a little awkward when he first meets people. He'll be better once he's more comfortable with you. Dad, though... normally he's just fine with people, but then again normally I'm not dating a guy. I'm sorry he's so..." Groping for an accurate and polite adjective, Abel gestured with his mostly empty coffee mug for a moment before he huffed and set it back down again. Zevran knew what he meant, and could probably think of a variety of words to use - some no doubt much more colorful than others - so it probably didn't matter that he couldn't think of an accurate one. "Stubborn, I guess." There, that was adequate. Somewhat.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Stubborn," Zevran echoed, and then he laughed but only briefly because it hurt to do so. "You could use that word. I wouldn't mind so much if he hated me for something I had done, some choice I had made! But no," he gave a snort of irritated derision and gestured with his mug, "he hates me because I have a d**k. But not even hate! Agh. Would he rather you were with nobody than with somebody who has the 'wrong' parts who makes you happy? I will continue to be as charming as I can but does that even matter? Usually I-" Zevran paused sighed, and frowned - not that Abel could see his expression. How did he explain this? Maybe he already had but it had slipped his mind in the haze and stress of everything that had happened lately.

"Usually I know how I can make somebody like me, or hate me, or want me if they like men at all. With your father I feel at a loss for anything but cold distaste, I hate that." He scowled deeper. "Better to be hated with passion than regarded like that, at least hate is personal."