back to basics
Chapters
Chapter 01
Chapter 11
Chapter 16
Chapter 26
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 15
Chapter 04
Chapter 17
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 10
Chapter 05
Chapter 09
Chapter 19
Chapter 12
Chapter 14
Chapter 28
Chapter 25
Chapter 29
Chapter 27
Chapter 20
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 21
Chapter 24
Chapter 13
Chapter 18
Chapter 30
"Flora... Do you remember what I said last week?"
Rather than needle him about how they talk an awful lot, and it's such a silly question, of course she remembers everything he says, but what could this possibly mean to be about, Flora simply replies, "And what about it?"
She'd been lying in wait for it to come back around, as a matter of fact.
"I'm starting to realize that it's not the standard, universal experience for a man to be so attracted to his best friend."
"No, it's not."
"So then..."
Flora counts another row.
"...I suppose I'm bisexual?"
"I still think you should have asked her first."
As if anyone could ever mistake Minoth for morally loose. Addam laughs at the thought as he shuts the passenger side door with his knee, arms full of Jewish deli.
"You know Flora likes you," he chides.
Minoth makes a miserable face.
"Oh, come off it. When have I ever mentioned a single negative comment she's made about you?"
"She's Flora. She doesn't make negative comments." Never mind the fact that obviously Addam wouldn't report it as such.
Still, that gets Addam laughing again. "Oh, then you haven't truly met Flora."
Flora grins mischievously when the pair enter, bickering without a chance of ever truly letting up; when Minoth catches that look, he allows himself a little rationalizing that if she's going to look that amused, she can't be totally dismissive. At the very least, his existence is comical, humorous to her, which is really all Minoth can ever hope for. All he ever lets himself hope for.
"You don't look surprised," is the first thing he says, and winces.
"Addam's always spoken highly of you."
Of course it echoes his very fear. Addam nods, betraying nothing, and unwraps the pickles.
It's not that Addam is a particularly bad driver - not susceptible to road rage nor grandpa behavior. It's more that Minoth hates sitting in the passenger seat dangling his hands in his lap, or else crossing his arms and putting the whole cabin ill at ease, when he could be the one getting them there, if not faster than at least in greater style.
He's no princess, nor is he a prince.
And damn, if it doesn't feel good to take that wheel. Palm on the shifter, elbow out the window. Taking control, taking point. Taking care of his friends.
"I know it's a little unorthodox, but I wanted to have the both of you here to hear it. Well, to talk about it, that is."
Minoth shoots Flora a look, an eyeroll of get-a-load-a-this-guy, because yeah, they both get it, Addam and Flora have been in each other's pockets for years, and Addam and Minoth have been in each other's eyes for half as long but twice as fierce.
That's not it, though. It's a fair bit more serious than that.
And Addam looks to the two of them like he thinks they'll take over and decide.
"Will you?"
"What size is the ring?" Flora asks suspiciously, peering at the box Addam has limply produced onto the counter.
"I got both," he answers honestly. "I want to marry both of you, but if it's only legal to marry one, then..."
"Then you shouldn't have asked, Prince," Minoth finishes the ill-considered sentence. "Seriously, what were you thinking?"
"I-"
Flora cuts him off. "If there's one for each of us, then it sounds like it'll be you and me, Minoth."
"You can't be serious," the men say in unison. And she does give a rueful smirk, but she also shrugs. Well?
"Bisexual flag's got three stripes. Not just two stripes slapped together. The one in the middle means something, you know. This overlap of ours."
"I thought you didn't like your 'overlap' with Flora," says Addam reproachfully. If the little lady takes offense to this revelation, she doesn't make a sign. After all, the overlap is what's offending them all, currently. "I just didn't know...didn't know how to ask you both, individually, what your thoughts were."
"So you should have asked us, together, without the ring."
"Rings," Flora puts in, just to be unhelpful.
"Can we start over, then?"
"Nope."
"Gah...I suppose I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too."
"Can't eat a cake you don't have," says Minoth. "What use is throwing out the cake you have, just to spite eating it?" says Flora.
They may just be pithy comments, but Addam can see the worth in them. The weight they add to his case, anyway. There's nothing to choose to between the two of them; there's no comparing, good bad or otherwise; Addam's just gotten himself in over his head, as usual.
"Certainly there'll be no throwing, of cake or people. The question is...how?"
"I think it should be you two," Minoth volunteers at last. "And no, I'm not just saying that because it gives me an easy out."
Addam and Flora exchange looks. But you have thought about it, then? The first and swiftest admission of guilt...
"You're just...you're perfect for each other. You support each other in everything. Take care of each other. Like it's nothing."
Like it's nothing. Indeed, sometimes Addam does a better job at caring for Flora than he does stewarding his own self. And she, too.
"Well, Minoth, that's quite the speech. Would you like to officiate?"
"We'll look ridiculous, won't we?"
Minoth leans chin on fist. "What makes you say so, Addam?"
"Well, it's certainly not..." Addam waves his hands evocatively, fizzling out. The evocation doesn't work, though, and even Flora is puzzled as to what their fine feathered friend could possibly mean.
Maybe some internalized phobia or other. Who else might he complain about it to, anyway?
"If I may?" They bid Minoth go on with his theory. "Addam looks straight when he's with Flora, but gay when he's with me. Flora, the same. And I just look gay all the time."
"Now THAT'S ridiculous."
"I remember when Minoth told me he was transgender. Took me completely by surprise. You do it very well, old friend."
Do it? No, testosterone's just a hell of a drug. Rather than blush or scowl, Minoth turns the conversation away from himself - and it's quite easy to do. "I'm guessing the two of you figured it out together, like you each couldn't know it until the other did."
It's not even a question. Flora scrunches up her nose in victory. "We like to share," she says playfully. "Two heads together caught it early."
"Mutual gender envy, too," remarks Addam.
"What about kids? You guys want any kids?"
"A little coarse, Minoth," Flora admonishes him. It doesn't chafe the same way it would as posed by a not-so-well-meaning relative (because there it wouldn't be a question so much as a suggestion, a reprimand), but it's still not something so easy for her to think about.
Addam shoots her a comforting glance.
Isn't everyone anxious about becoming a parent? Not even when it's incumbent upon them, but just thinking about the idea?
"Sorry. Just pragmatics."
And would that that's all it is, truly, but no, there's more.
"Maybe...maybe we'll talk."
"Addam would be the one to carry the baby, if that were still possible."
Not meaning to impugn his prince's hard-won manhood, Minoth reserves any jokes about what a divine mother he'd make. And maybe Addam wouldn't mind that, because what even are the rules, if you don't care and you're not cracking an insult, but still.
"Permission to be indelicate again?"
Addam nods, already weary.
"You've still got the equipment, it's just not in working order, I gather?"
Well. Could be worse.
"Not the same order, no, but...the factory's still operational, in some sense."
"Noted, Prince. Duly noted."
"I always wondered about you two, you know."
Flora groans. "I'm sure a lot of people wondered about us. We're easy to gossip about, because there's never very much to say."
Easy to put together, and equally easy to pick apart. Perhaps to Addam's credit, or perhaps to the contrary, he's never propped Flora up as the solution to his romantic toils. Never used her convenient presence as any sort of a perfect prop.
"I guess I always just assumed you were...together," muses Minoth.
"Yes, well, Addam is inclined to talk that way." Vaguely, and always sort of dreamy-in-love.
"Flora," Addam catches on a thought, of a sudden, "did you ever have a crush on me?"
"You flatter yourself, my prince." Imagine anyone having a silly crush on silly old Addam. But, when Flora arches a brow at him, Minoth backs off.
She peers at the ceiling, pondering. "I suppose I did, at some point. Did, or still do. But my first crush was on Marena. So if you were hoping to claim that prize..."
"No prize," Addam tuts, then follows up, scrambling: "That is, it's not that I wouldn't be honored!"
"My first love, love," Flora reminds him.
Though Minoth tries to completely avoid any deep thought about intrusion into Addam and Flora's longstanding dynamic, nowadays, he does sometimes pass a stray thought to that alternate universe where it had been he who'd found Flora first, so to speak, and pulled Addam in later. If it had been him, so hapless magnetic as to gather both a husband and a wife, with the latter coming former.
But that would have taken some doing, on the playwright's part. Some imagination. Some chutzpah. Some arrogance.
Tch. Some arrogance he's got now, sticking alongside them. It's the world he's got, though.
"You know..."
Both Minoth's and Flora's heads swivel to acknowledge Addam in an owlish unison. Minoth's hand goes to Flora's head to stroke her hair, almost absentmindedly.
Nodding, Addam waggles an index finger. "I do a lot of sitting here in the corner and watching."
The other two say nothing, guilty.
"And I find that I don't really mind it."
"Aw, no, Prince, it's our-"
"Yes, Addam, don't let us-"
Addam smiles. "I said, I don't mind it."
They stop protesting, but remain guilty.
"And really, it's nice to know."
So they kiss his face, itself so nice to know.
"I think the two of you would make wonderful fathers."
Minoth squints. Hold the self-deprecation a second, just focus on the semantics. He checks for anything coming from Addam's direction, but there's nothing there.
"You mean, the two of us together? Two-dad team?"
"That's right," Flora beams. "Especially to a little girl, I think."
And Minoth...yeah, he can see that. Addam's expression is approving, now, too.
Sort of easy to play good cop and bad cop, just naturally. Or maybe sappy daddy and stoic daddy. Something like that.
Not that Addam would ever force such terminology upon his husband.
"If you think this is bad, you should have seen him when he realized."
Flora lets out an ungainly giggle at the thought, covering her mouth but otherwise remaining cool to Minoth's reaction.
"Realized? Realized what?"
"Oh!" Oh, he really should have. "That he liked you, and it meant something."
"I thought Addam was the type to always be conscious of that sort of stuff."
"Oh, no, he didn't deny it - not like you."
Minoth frowns. And just how does Flora know that? Persnickety prince, ratting him out... It's his own business!
"He just thought, well, everyone likes both, right?"
Minoth thought for a moment. Addam, the embarrassingly oblivious bisexual. Well, biromantic. Yeah, it just about fit, didn't it?
Explained why Addam had fallen all over himself to offer Minoth the bed, ALONE, in no uncertain terms, the time he'd had to stay over while his good-for-nothing shack of an apartment suffered a power outage in the middle of winter. Well, he could have gone home anyway, and he'd wanted to, but Addam had insisted.
Insisted, and then stood there at the foot of the bed speaking in soft voice to Minoth's silhouette, before wishing him a boisterous good night.
"Musta been tough for him, huh? Wanting to reach out his princely hands to a mangy beast like me, but not knowing why. Just figuring I didn't want him as a friend the way he wanted me."
Addam's hushed tone is all too familiar to Minoth as he enters and joins the conversation, unexpected and uninvited but never truly unwanted. "All the same, isn't it? Whether I wanted you as a friend, or something more? I just wanted to be close to you."
"And I just couldn't take it, then," Minoth replies in an expression of sorrow all too harsh.
Another unwilling anecdote, Flora puts in for Minoth. "He told me how worried he was, when you two were dating in secret."
"Secret?" Addam frowns. "I never thought of it like that. Just...giving you your privacy."
"Oh, yeah?" Minoth frowns back. "Then how come she thought it was so funny? Come on, Prince, she must have known."
"Oh, I knew, but he never told me. Another difficult time for our Addam - having to figure you out all on his own."
She pouts at him with manifest fondness, and he grins right back, going to her and kissing her cheek.
"So, who takes who out for the anniversary?"
A pointless, though spirited, hypothetical.
"I should think splitting the check is the most equitable arrangement."
And sure, what they've got is a most equitable arrangement, at least in attempt, so rotating every three years on who gets to treat is a bit more of a hassle than what it's worth, for the tradeoff of having to make up balances on a celebration night.
"As long as we don't have to get each other gifts. Addam, you're impossible to buy for."
He nearly cackles: "Which is why I'm so attached to giving!"
There's a second, secret anniversary Minoth celebrates, but only by his lonesome, and only with his tendency to cringe close at hand.
The time he'd confessed to Addam that he feels so much safer when he's around the "prince" and his at-times-overbearing ways; that he's so happy their friendship has lasted; that he's probably always been envious of the easy bond Addam shares with Flora.
If he could go back, he's not sure he would change it, since its stumbling situationship is what got him, eventually, here, but oh...oh, it's not always his favorite memory.
Necessary? Yes. Sufficient? ...eh.
A walking date in the shopping village just a stone's toss closer to the city than their humble townhouse is just as serviceable, if not more, than the traditional dinner date that Addam used to plague himself with scheduling, before he allowed himself the freedom to just spend time with his loved ones as he felt best, and not conform to the norm.
After that, they'd started strolling through the stationery store and the fiber arts boutique once every month or so, and loving it. On a good day, Minoth will even volunteer to give Flora a carefree piggyback ride.
Addam considers the nature of his attraction to his two (beautiful, lovely, perfect) partners, and notes that it doesn't really seem to bring his own gender or presentation in. Maybe that's just how bisexuality is, but he rather supposes that if he were a gay man, it would be a factor in his relationship to men, and the same if he were straight.
Of course, he's not straight. So maybe that's just how bisexuality is.
But perhaps, also, Addam himself is just far more fluid than he'd ever thought himself to be.
Maybe it's all just a wash, for him.
"I'm never sure if we're closer to couples' counseling or a gay-straight alliance."
"Bisexual erasure!" Minoth cries, on instinct, the age-old joke. But it's true: they could meet another polycule and have a fine time chatting about six sets of queer experiences in conjunction with the privileges of passing, or not.
"Did you ever participate in those, in college? High school, even?"
Minoth snorts. "Unlike present company, I was not a model student, in either sense. Kept to myself, and liked it that way, because I couldn't find it in me or the closet to like it any way else."
Is it really coming out if the truth that's landed out is the fact that you have a partner at all, and not which gender they've got?
Minoth had had no intention of letting on to any of his colleagues that he'd gotten embroiled into a...romance, monogamous let alone polyamorous, but despite his most earnest efforts, something catches him out regardless. Explaining important plans that can't be bucked, maybe. Stuck on the phone with his...guybestie, one supposes.
Minoth flinches. God, how embarrassing. His whole mystique, blown. Now he looks soft.
And then, no one really reacts. Big deal.
"I'm not going rollerskating."
Addam sighs, arms crossed, and looks at Flora. "I told you he wouldn't want to come."
"And I told you I'd convince him," Flora replies, hauling Minoth up out of the dining chair (his phone clatters safely onto the wooden table) by the bicep and patting his cheek. "Come on. It can't possibly be as bad as you think. You'll look dashing."
"I'll look like a beetle."
Flora bites her lip, unable to decide between her beloved vintage swindle and the promise of keeping Minoth's precious gourd intact.
"Dancing, then."
"Nope."
"Drive-in movie?"
"...maybe."
Aha! Compromise.
"You're not vain, are you, Flora?"
"I certainly hope I've grown out of it, if I ever was."
"Methinks the lady was indeed."
"And you, Minoth?"
"Too much of a looker to have to worry about it, eh, my prince?"
Flora's fingertips dance, none so effervescent, over his frown lines, and maybe he's a little regretful of the circumstances that caused them, but if he can take them, to reserve for Addam the crow's feet and Flora the smile lines, Minoth will with impunity.
How lucky, three, to observe such accumulation of wear, naturally; with all implicit and explicit beauty.