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Trevor texted him during lunch.
Adrian liked to eat at the japanese place two blocks from the Tepes Hotel, which catered to the downtown crowd of fancy suits. He was there, minding his own business, dipping some sushi in soy sauce and reading the news on his phone, when he saw the notification on his screen.
trev: hey mind if i pick you up after work
He needed a moment at the idea of being in Trevor's car again, because that was a dumpster with a shitty tape player and Adrian deserved better. That monstrosity was why he always picked his partners up when needed. Sypha was an excellent, if intense driver, but she refused to own a car on principle, so it was that or getting an Uber, for sanitary reasons.
adrian: sure...? but why?
trev: sypha's kinda caught up with work and i have plans for us
adrian: oh no
trev: oh yeah
trev: stop acting like i only have bad ideas
adrian: sure
adrian: when you start having good ideas
Trevor, to his credit, didn't dignify that with an answer, at least not immediately. Adrian accepted his fate, oh the things one does for love and all that, and went on with his afternoon. Nothing much happened for the rest of the day, just a lot of paperwork and meetings and then some more paperwork, the piles of documents to check and sign apparently refilling magically when he wasn't looking.
He met with Trevor outside, just as the sun was starting to set, making the windows of the downtown high rises shine a blinding orange.
"Hey, what's up with Sypha? She didn't say much in the group chat," said Adrian, kissing his boyfriend softly after getting into the car. He put a lot of effort into ignoring the pile of unidentifiable crap in the backseat and the intense smell of Doritos that had apparently replaced the Cheetos stench.
Trevor smiled all dopey after the kiss. "You're adorable, did you know that?" Adrian rolled his eyes as his boyfriend chuckled and somehow managed to get his car moving again, even if it made some horrible garbage disposal sounds first. "Dunno, she called… just before lunch, I think. Something about a snake."
Adrian frowned deeply. "Should we be concerned?" he asked, because that sounded at least mildly concerning. Trevor shook his head a bit, scrunching up his face.
"She didn't seem too concerned, so probably not. If anything bad had happened, we would know by now."
"Hari?"
"Hari."
"Ok, then," said Adrian, relaxing as much as was possible in the very lumpy passenger seat. "So, what are these mysterious plans of yours?"
"Well," said Trevor, in a tone that suggested this warranted more concern than any snake-in-a-bookstore situation, "since I'm nowhere nearly as bold as Sypha when it comes to these things, I'm asking first." He looked over at Adrian as they stopped at a red light. "Do you wanna go shopping?"
"What's the caveat?" asked Adrian, seeing past the innocent question.
"I want to give you a dress," Trevor said simply. And, ok, Adrian would have never guessed that one. "It's not like you don't already like feminine things," his boyfriend explained, eyes on the road already heading to the mall, "and Sypha did give you those earrings."
Adrian's voice came out a lot lower and softer than he expected. "I do like those earrings." Trevor smiled at him reassuringly and it was absurd that at this point in their relationship this asshole could still make him blush so hard. "Maybe…" Adrian tried, cautiously, "maybe we could, uh, look at some stuff?" he said, struggling with the idea a little bit.
"We don't have to buy anything tonight," added Trevor. They were still a few minutes away from the mall. Adrian bit his lip and mulled over it during the ride and then while Trevor looked for a parking spot. The night was still a bit warm, but the temperature would probably be quite a bit lower by the time they went back home. "Hey, we can get fried chicken after," Trevor said as they got out of the car, sounding equally excited about this, because he had his priorities in order.
"Only if we get some for Sypha on our way home, 'cause I don't want a repeat of the last time we had fried chicken and didn't get her any," Adrian replied. They walked into the mall holding hands. Some people stared, and he wondered to himself how many of those were because Trevor looked like a werewolf lumberjack while he was wearing a Prada suit and not, you know, because of regular old bigotry. He didn't care either way, because no one that could tell his father about him and Trevor would be at the mall, ever: Carmilla would die in silent disgust before she set foot on a mall of all places; Godbrand was certainly too busy either drinking himself silly or kissing ass; Hector and Isaac both didn't like people, only for very different reasons and in very different ways; Trevor's extended family definitely was also drinking, but further away and cheaper stuff, and they would be a problem on the other side of the ridiculous, pointless family feud. Adrian had managed to stop caring about random people's uninvited opinions by now. Kind of. His main concern at the moment was making sure Trevor didn't make him try on anything covered in sequins or glitter.
"Ok, where to first?" asked Trevor, at least trying to give him the reins on this little experiment. Adrian decided to get the worst out of the way first, partially because he wouldn't know where to start and also because it would be easier to take the band-aid approach.
"I can't choose. Seriously. Just… take me somewhere you think fits me?"
Adrian stopped in front of the store and felt what could only be described as slow, ice cold despair setting inside him, while his douchebag boyfriend smiled like a maniac beside him. "Do you secretly hate me?" he asked, unsure if he wanted an answer.
"No, I just really like the idea of you in fishnets," retorted Trevor, doing his absolute best to make Adrian blush like a teenage girl to keep it in line with the current theme of the night or something. The worst part was that he was being completely honest too, judging by the look in his eyes. Or maybe the worst part was that Adrian actually kind of liked that idea, even if he wouldn’t admit it yet so that Trevor wouldn’t get all smug about it. He was insufferable enough as it was for one night.
Adrian sighed deeply and walked into Hot Topic, trailed by his very excited boyfriend. He had never been to one, because his rebellious teenager phase was of the more subdued and hidden variety and geared towards challenging his father's world views more than society as a whole. Less to do with gender and sexuality, more about inheriting the family business. Which was to say, Adrian had never had an outright openly emo phase and maybe, according to Trevor, it was time for him to have one or at least get some edgy band shit. That was probably the logic behind pushing Adrian to this store in particular once they got past the gender self-consciousness barrier.
"Hi boys, how can I help you?" asked a sales rep who couldn't be older than nineteen, with green and pink spikey hair and lots of other spikey things all over her look. Even her pronouns pin was spikey. The whole place had too many spikey things.
"Uh," said Adrian, because he couldn't focus his eyes anywhere without being overwhelmed with patterns, colors, crazy fonts and brands. Trevor took pity on him.
"Hey, so, my boyfriend here," he said, grabbing Adrian by the shoulders and directing him to look at the poor sales rep instead of being wide-eyed by the store itself, "desperately needs to connect with his emotions and, I dunno, just. He needs dresses, and he needs to experience 2008 because he missed that whole thing."
"That's like, so sad, dude," the girl said, truly moved. "Also, like, gender norms? Ew," she added eloquently, guiding them towards a rack full of things Adrian couldn't conceive before. There was so much lace, and faux leather, and fishnets. The sales rep eyed him for a moment and then selected a few pieces from the rack to show them. "So, yeah, we have shorter stuff that would look rad on you, 'cause I think you got some legs there." Trevor nodded in agreement. "Like, personally? You can rock some lace, dude," she said, showing them several black dresses with varying amounts of lace all over the place. Trevor nodded some more. "Also, if you feel like going for a whole look, there's…" she stopped, giggling a little, "ok, maybe not platforms, you're tall enough already."
Trevor was enjoying all of it way too much.
"I'll try… these," Adrian said, picking some of the more tame stuff on a first look and ditching them for the dressing room so he could breathe a little. He saw the sales rep load a bunch of other things into Trevor's arms before he closed the curtain and actually looked at the clothes he picked.
There were some striped dresses that looked very cute, but not much his style, so he discarded those right away. Pattern in general was not his thing, but he could give it a try on a couple of more subtle ones like the black yin yang one. Gotta start somewhere.
When Adrian stepped out of the dressing room, Trevor looked him up and down, visibly impressed. "Dang," he said, also the picture of eloquence. The sales rep nodded in agreement.
"I don't think I like pattern very much," said Adrian, noticing that patterns comprised... most of the shop.
"Try the plain black stuff," suggested the sales rep helpfully as Trevor passed him the pile of dresses they had collected.
Adrian sorted through the dozens of clothes in the dressing room with him. He found he really liked the plain black stuff.
"Told ya he had some legs," said the sales rep to Trevor, victorious, when Adrian came out of the dressing room in a short black dress with lace around the collar area. Trevor was stunned silent, apparently.
"Are these skulls?" Adrian asked, having trouble looking down at the lacey bits and then remembering mirrors exist for a reason.
"Hell bunnies," supplied the rep, smiling friendly. Alright, then. Adrian looked at himself in the mirror fully, appreciating how the dress fit decently well because he had something of a waist. Trevor had called him Dorito shaped once and it spoke volumes that they were still dating after that.
"I like it," he said aloud, surprising himself a bit. Trevor seemed to still need some time to process, but he looked pleased. Sales rep clapped her hands excitedly. "I'm gonna try a few more of these."
"That's great! You're prime goth material," she mused, in what he could only assume was a compliment. That seemed to break the spell and make Trevor start laughing. Adrian just ducked back into the dressing room and got himself into another black dress, this time long sleeved. Bell sleeved even, as he noticed while putting it on. Apparently his thing was skulls now, because it featured a lace one in the back and Adrian really liked it.
"You look cute as fuck," complimented Trevor upon seeing it. The sales rep was apparently elsewhere for a moment. "I wouldn't mind if you got some platforms too, you know." Adrian raised his eyebrows inquisitively at his boyfriend, who tried to play it cool and failed miserably. "It would just be cool, you know, if you were, uh, a bit taller for a little while," Trevor tried, only digging himself a bigger hole.
Adrian took this chance the universe handed him for some payback and stepped closer slowly, silently reminding his boyfriend that he was already taller than him, making sure to drill that in as he smiled down at Trevor like he was undressing him. It took some effort to make the bastard blush, but it was well worth it and Adrian appreciated every second of it, before leaving Trevor all dazed and fanning himself to go try on something else. He laughed quietly only after getting into the dressing room. It was a shame Sypha was missing this.
*
It took Adrian a good thirty seconds staring at his mom's huge and elegant dresser to realize he had no earthly idea what he was looking for.
Adrian knew, academically, what makeup was. In theory. Well, he knew what it looked like on his mom, and on actresses and models. He knew… lipstick was a thing. He had also heard the word mascara a few times. Adrian didn't actually know, in practice, what the hell makeup was. As he was just fourteen years old, all he could see on the dresser was a sea of colorful and bright and glittery bottles and boxes and they were all very confusing and overwhelming.
Terrible idea was an understatement.
Adrian grabbed the one thing he vaguely recognized as a stick of lipstick and snuck back out towards his room as fast as he could.
Several minutes passed before Adrian managed to stop panicking, hands clutched around the stolen lipstick protectively and defensively, as if anyone could see him all curled up behind the door. He took a deep breath, then another, and looked at the thing in his hand. The bottom of the plastic casing informed him it was rich rosewood colored. If anyone asked, he would call it dark red. Adrian needed another moment to steel himself before he plopped it open with a soft click, that felt much louder in the quiet of his room.
Adrian didn't really move for a while, glaring at the lipstick as if it could answer his questions, sate his curiosity. He could just… not do anything with it, right? Just hide it until morning and either try returning it to mom's dresser or leave it somewhere so she could find it. Mom would think she had misplaced it. It would be fine. He could just hide it under his pillow for the night, return the lipstick and then move on with his life. Easy.
Except Adrian hadn't just waited until after dinner to do this, to quietly excuse himself back to his room just so he could sneak into his parent's room, for nothing. Even after dad eyed him weird from the moment he got home from his French classes, Adrian was still too restless to let go and decided he needed to do something. He had made sure they were still with their guests, having drinks and talking politics and definitely not paying attention to him, .
He hadn't spent all day, all week, thinking about this just to back out now.
Adrian got up, told his brain to shut up with all the negative shit, and headed into the en suite. It was, apparently, really hard to apply lipstick with your hands shaking like that, doubly so if it was your first time doing it. By the time Adrian gave up, tears of anxiety and frustration clouding his vision, his face was smudged red and the lipstick forgotten on the sink.
"Do you want help?"
Adrian nearly jumped out of his skin, turning before thinking to look at his mother leaning at the door. She had a raised eyebrow and knowing smile, as usual, but she didn't look mad. That didn't stop Adrian from freaking out, though.
"Mom, I, uh… sorry, I didn't-- I mean, this is not--" he sputtered, completely lost.
Lisa, far more amused than Adrian's predicament called for, just smiled as her son did his best to embarrass himself into an early grave. Only when Adrian gave up on trying to lie or excuse himself or pretend nothing had happened did she come fully into the bathroom and grab one of the pristine white towels, wetting it on the warm tap to clean his face. Adrian looked even more flustered as the towel got stained red, but Lisa didn't seem to care even a bit.
"You could have asked for it, you know," she said, conversationally, as she dabbed his face gently.
It was really hard to pout with his mom holding his chin like that and cleaning his lips like a toddler, but Adrian tried his best.
"There," Lisa said, once Adrian didn't look like a clown anymore, just a very normal shade of embarrassed. "Now, do you want help or not?"
Adrian blinked at her, eyes red from crying. "What? With the…? Really?"
Lisa shrugged and grabbed the lipstick off the sink. "If this is something you want to try, then yes." She uncapped it and took a closer look to see that a good chunk of the thing had been wasted on Adrian's attempts to apply it. When he didn't answer, simply frowning at her instead, she sighed. "Adry, dear, I'm your mom. You know I love you more than anything, don't you?"
"Mom…" Adrian tried, tearing up more. Sometimes, when his thoughts seemed like a hurricane destroying everything in its path, it was a bit hard to believe that, but he knew. Mom kept showing him.
Lisa let out a ragged breath herself, closed her eyes for just a moment and then refocused on her son. "This here?" she said, gesturing with the lipstick, "I don't care about it. I care about you. If you want, I'll take you to buy your own makeup. We'll get whatever clothes you feel happy with, and we can get new ones if you eventually decide you like something else."
"I don't want any makeup, or… clothes," he protested, suddenly more defensive, because he could see his mom was about to say something about dresses and Adrian was confused enough as it was. He could see in the mirror that his face was all red and puffy.
"Maybe you don't, maybe this is just curiosity. Maybe you just like lipstick. That's normal at your age regardless. What I'm saying, Adry," Lisa pushed some of his hair back behind his ear, looking Adrian in the eyes, "is that you can talk to me, and I'll get it, and I'll be ok with it, whatever it is, because you're my baby and I love you."
Adrian decided all he wanted for the night was a hug from his mom after that, with the excuse that he was tired and it was a school night and he was still confused. Lisa pretended to buy it for his sake.
He heard his dad's voice through the door, after mom left his room. Adrian was curled up in bed after Lisa tucked him in like the child he was and kissed his forehead and turned the lights off on her way out. He heard as dad asked 'what he was up to', cold and harsh, after 'acting weird' during dinner, and Adrian heard his mom lie smoothly and effortlessly and convince Vlad to make her another martini.
Dad kept watching him for days. He couldn't exactly be blamed for not wanting to deal with those questions and weird feelings after that.
When his father didn't relent, turning more judgemental throughout the years, Adrian couldn't be blamed for outright avoiding that stuff and pretending to fit in.
*
Sypha joined them at the food court just as they were getting a table to unload the shopping bags on. She eyed it all with unabashed amusement.
"I don't think you should take Trevor along when shopping anymore, he's a terrible influence," she said, plopping down on a chair with a heavy, tired sigh. Trevor grinned at her.
"He really is, and he's going to pay for his crimes staying in line for our food. Go on, chop chop," Adrian said, shooing his silly boyfriend off. Both of them chuckled as Trevor stuck his tongue out at them before leaving in search of oily, salty goods.
Sypha raised a hand before Adrian could even think to ask. "I'm saving the snake thing for when he gets back. Not wasting my dramatic skills on repeat performances." Adrian rolled his eyes. "So, dresses," she prompted, smiling proudly.
"Yeah," Adrian sighed as he folded his arms on the table to rest his head. "It was… really good, actually?" he tried, not ready to process the whole thing yet, but confident the end result would be at least nominally positive. Sypha hummed in agreement. "I am, apparently, 'prime goth material', whatever that's supposed to mean. Oh, god. I guess I'm a goth, now," Adrian realized, blinking, because his new dresses and fishnets and tights were almost all black. He even got the platforms.
"You are! You really are!" exclaimed Sypha, getting very excited. "That evil bastard taunted me and didn't send any pictures and I'm so mad right now! I wanna see!" Adrian couldn't help but laugh. "Seriously, though? I'm really happy you are ready to live up to your full goth babe potential."
"You're almost making me regret this decision, darling," Adrian muttered, playing up his distaste, as Sypha revelled in his misery.
"I have a lot of dark stuff at home. Want me to do your makeup later?" That got him blushing a bit again, because Sypha knew just where to push him, but it was nice pressure, the kind that helped him work through this stuff instead of ignoring it and being resentful. "It would be a crime for you to go full goth and not put on way too much mascara. Gotta go with the full raccoon look," she said, pulling up example pictures on her phone and just like that Adrian was laughing along and agreeing to try it, at least in private.
Once the scandalous plate of chicken wings was properly set between them and Sypha had already started digging in shamelessly, Trevor pointed his soda at her. "Ok, tell us about the snake. I need to know. Hari wouldn't tell me anything, they just kept assuring me it was all fine."
Sypha not so much dipped as drowned a piece of chicken in cheese sauce. "Alright, so, apparently Mr Fell decided to get a pet snake. I have no idea how or why, but he got a huge, fancy enclosure set up below the staircase, next to the register, over the weekend. Quality stuff, from what I know of reptile ownership."
"Who do you even know that has pet reptiles?" asked Adrian, frowning. Trevor's eyes were glued on their girlfriend, who kept gesturing with her food and talking around bites.
"Cousin Yuri is a ball python breeder," Sypha said, as if it was obvious. "Anyway, that shit is huge and it wasn't there two days ago. There is even a small 'please don't tap the glass' sign on the corner. And the snake is… look, I have no clue what breed that is. Google's got nothing for me. Massive, black, yellow eyes, surprisingly friendly," Adrian was already gearing up to protest because of safety reasons, but Sypha gave him a look before continuing, "Mr Fell explained that he, the snake, is a rare breed and not venomous and they can be intense but were usually very nice. Now, get this, the snake's name is Crawley."
Trevor snorted while drinking his soda and got his shirt a bit wet, laughing like that was the best joke he heard all day. Adrian had a tad more self control, but not much. "Wait, isn't that his--"
"Yep, that's his husband's name. Kinda. Spelled different, though. Snake's name is with an A. Apparently it's an inside joke of theirs," Sypha agreed, handing Trevor a wet tissue from her purse on automatic. He was doing a lousy job of cleaning himself with a bunch of napkins. "So that's how my day started, with this snake watching me work for a couple of hours. It was kinda weird, but I tuned it out after a while and Hari asked for my help unboxing some books and it was all fine, you know. Then, just before lunch, this new customer came to me in the historical fiction section and asked me where was the snake, 'cause his kid wanted to see it."
"What," both men said in unison. Sypha smiled calmly back at them.
"So I told the guy the snake was there, just curled up in a corner. Guy said no, definitely no snake in there, so I decided to go with him and sure enough, that was one very empty enclosure. It wasn't open but the snake was… not there," Sypha said, pausing for dramatic effect. "Mr Fell, of course, was out for the day. So there was me, Hari, this customer with his kid and a very pale Evan in the store, freaking out just a little, because there was a snake loose in there with us. Hari had gone to the back and when they came back, and I'm not proud to say this, they were the only reasonable person in the room, 'cause I kinda forgot the snake wasn't dangerous."
"Look, it might not be venomous but I'm not sure that makes it harmless, babe," said Trevor, scratching his chin.
"Mr Fell said he was fed recently and it would be several days until he needed to eat again. Hari remembered that. I didn't," Sypha shrugged as if that wasn't a big deal. "Customer freaked out, which freaked me out because I did not want to be responsible for that shit, and then the kid wandered away for like a minute and got close to Evan without him noticing. I think he felt the kid's hand brush his leg or something? Whatever it was, Evan passed the hell out."
"Holy shit," Trevor said, amazed and thoroughly entertained. Adrian just kept shaking his head in horror at the story.
"I had to ask Hari to help me drag Evan's unconscious ass to the kitchen, because we couldn't just leave him there in the middle of the store, right? It's a tripping hazard," Sypha said, deadpan. The boys stared at her. "He was fine! Didn't hit his head or anything. Landed on a pile of Sherlock Holmes novels. Now, the customer, left unattended, decided to call animal control after a bit, while telling us - mainly me, 'cause Hari was searching for the snake - all about how this was unacceptable and dangerous and he was going to sue. We tried to calm him down, but the guy was… well, understandably upset. That lasted right until he suddenly spotted the snake chilling on top of the children's section, looking very bored and not moving at all. Then he grabbed his kid and ran out the door, while the kid screamed bloody murder. Like, what did he expect? That snake wasn't gonna go full Anaconda on them in a second."
"Wow," breathed Trevor. Adrian nodded in agreement.
"So animal control showed up like, more than an hour later, and by that time Hari had already helped me get the damn snake down and back into the enclosure. Crawley's a heavy boy, let me tell ya. They were not pleased with what they assumed was a prank call, and then they were less pleased with our snake Houdini, asked for a bunch of permits and shit. Thankfully Mr Fell showed up and, I dunno, probably showed them the right papers for his snake? I decided it was not my problem and went to hug Princess Magnolia in the kitchen because that shit was annoying. I mean, it's funny now, but not so much at the time."
"Jesus," said Trevor, finishing the last of his soda. Adrian started grabbing their bags to leave and then stopped, frowning.
"Is Princess Magnolia in danger? The snake could, you know…?" he asked, worried for the cat's safety. Trevor shared the sentiment, now looking wide-eyed at Sypha.
"I wondered about that too. Mr Fell looked absolutely offended at the very idea. 'Crawley would never hurt her!' were his exact words," she said, doing her best impression of her boss. It was probably best not to argue the point: Mr Fell was a very stubborn man and Anthony wouldn't have agreed to the pet snake if his precious furry baby was in any danger. Adrian would like to believe that. He loved that cat.
Trevor got up and grabbed several bags, including some from Adrian's hands. "Ok, I think it's fair to say we're all drained and need some rest, you most of all," he said, pointing at Sypha. Adrian couldn't wait to get home. Both quietly agreed, now that they were done eating and the day was catching up with them.
Sypha finished her soda on their way to the car, slurping loudly. "You know what's gonna look great on you?" she asked, looking for a place to throw away her cup. Adrian just hummed. They were holding hands and Trevor was walking up ahead, spinning his keys distractedly as he reached the car. Sypha motioned for him to lean down and whispered in Adrian's ear, "Bright red lipstick. We should try that later."
Adrian was acutely aware of his deep blush, of his lover's devious smile and of the fact that he agreed with her. Trevor wouldn't know what hit him.