S'il vous plaît

For CorieChan.

Baljeet had never answered his door for Buford before. The burly male had always waltzed in uninvited, and did it so often that Baljeet's parents were used to him opening their front door at all hours of the day. He'd bid them a simple "Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Rai", kick off his shoes, and head for Baljeet's room like he owned the place.

So when Baljeet answered his front door around 9 PM one storming January night to find a soaking wet Buford shuffling miserably on his porch with a sack, he could only stare in confusion.

There was a heavy silence around Buford that concerned Baljeet. His eyes were red, and he looked absolutely freezing, and there was this square of gauze haphazardly taped to his cheek… And he wouldn't look anywhere but the threshold.

"Buford…?" Baljeet asked quietly.

"… My mom…" the brunette started, wiping his running nose on his waterlogged sleeve, "… My mom kicked me out."

Baljeet's eyes widened.

"W-what?"

"May I come in…?" Buford's manners were rarely seen in the Rai household, and the polite words dripping off his tongue sounded so utterly foreign that Baljeet knew something was very seriously wrong. It was a known fact that Biffany VanStomm kicked her son out of the house on a daily basis, but it was normally for silly reasons like he needed more sun, or he needed to go to the library and actually study for once; it was never for anything serious.

Baljeet quickly stepped aside and ushered him into the house. His mother, who had been in the living room, had stepped into the entryway the instant she heard Buford's familiar rumble. She seemed even more confused than Baljeet did, but quickly hurried to grab him a towel nonetheless.

"You are soaking wet," Baljeet observed, helping the taller male out of his heavy jacket. "Do you not have an umbrella? Or a car?"

Buford sniffed loudly as he stepped out of his soggy old sneakers.

"She took my keys."

Baljeet's mother came back into the entryway baring a large brown towel, her bare feet making a soft pitter-patter on the stone floor. She cooed at Buford in a motherly fashion, asking him if he needed anything to eat or drink, or a change of clothes, or anything at all. Though grateful for her concern, Buford merely smiled at the shorter woman and politely declined.

When the brunette was no longer dripping, Baljeet lead Buford up a familiar flight of stairs and into an equally familiar bedroom. Buford dropped his sack in the middle of the floor and began to pull a set of dry clothes from it.

"Buford, what happened?" the Indian asked carefully, daintily taking a seat on the footboard of his bed. Buford pulled his wet shirt over his head and practically threw it to the floor.

His lips quivered gently in held back emotion.

"I told you," he snapped, trying to make his eye rubbing look casual. "My mom kicked me out."

Baljeet worried his lower lip between his teeth for a moment. It was all he could do to stay seated. "You know that is not what I mean."

Buford was silent. He drew a fresh t-shirt over is head, keeping his chin towards the floor in an attempt to hide his face.

"… I came out to her."

Baljeet gaped. "A-and she-?"

Buford just stood in the middle of the room. He was trembling slightly, and he was constantly wiping his face like he was trying not to cry.

"She threw a teacup at me," he admitted, his voice cracking. "And she started screamin'…" He glanced up at Baljeet, his freckled cheeks stained with pink and tears. "… But she's my mom, ya know? I can't really blame her for thinkin' that way, and it's hard to be mad at her 'n shit for it."

Baljeet felt himself dissolve.

Biffany was one of the sweetest women he'd ever met; she was really one of the last people he'd ever expect to have a problem with her son's sexuality. Baljeet knew Buford was nervous about the idea of coming out to her, but he also knew that he'd expected her to be okay with it.

… So she really did throw him out.

Buford didn't even have to ask.

Baljeet held out his arms, sadness and sympathy etched on his face as he stared at his best friend.

Buford scooped Baljeet up off footboard into his arms and held him close, as if he was all he had left. In return, the thin boy snuggled close and wrapped his arms around his neck as tight as he could, eager to comfort. Switching their places, Buford sat as far back on the edge of the bed as his knees would let him, and Baljeet shifted to find a more comfortable position straddling his hips. Both boys buried their faces in each other's necks, and Buford tried very hard to keep himself from crying.

Baljeet sighed gently, and he strengthened his hold on his best friend when Buford finally began to sob. He nuzzled his nose against the patch of soft skin in front of his ear.

Neither party said anything for a long time.

Even when Buford stopped weeping, they just sat on the bed in silence, hands running through hair and rubbing backs and brushing tears away.

Finally, Baljeet smiled weakly.

"You know this is not your fault," he mumbled, pressing his forehead against Buford's affectionately. Buford nodded lightly, but said nothing.

"Stay with me," Baljeet all but whispered, pulling back to kiss the other boy cutely on the nose, "Until your mom comes around. Stay here."

"But what about your mom 'n dad?" Buford asked miserably, his pink cheeks flaring slightly at the gesture.

"Despite their outward reactions, my parents love you," the Indian tilted his head, "I love you. I can talk them into it if they disagree."

Buford sniffed, then brushed his thumb over his boyfriend's cheek bone. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss on Baljeet's lips. When they separated, he sighed.

"… Thanks, 'Jeet."

Baljeet hummed affectionately. He planted a peck upon Buford's forehead, then climbed off his lap.

"Get some sleep. You look exhausted."

Buford nodded obediently, and slid off the bed to change as Baljeet headed for the closed door.

"Hey… Thank your parents for me, 'kay?"

Baljeet smiled and nodded, then stepped from the room.

"Here you are, honey."

Baljeet accept the mug of hot chocolate graciously, and took a sip. Mrs. Rai leaned forward against the counter, wrapping her hands around her own mug of Chai.

"So what happened?" She inquired, bringing the ceramic to her painted lips.

The teenager shook his head, and placed the cup on the Corian.

"… May I ask you a serious question?" he inquired suddenly, nervous energy bubbling in his chest.

Mrs. Rai nodded. "Of course, honey."

Baljeet played with the glazed handle on the cup. His family was very traditional, but he had never seen or heard them express certain views on anything but politics. "…What… What are your views on homosexuality?"

The woman paused and set down her tea, but her face bared no indication of the question being surprising. She stood straight, and folded her hands on the edge of the counter top. Baljeet cringed a little at the blank stare she gave him.

"Baljeet," she started, a very serious tone on her lips. She reached over to rest her hand on his. "I want to make something very clear to you."

Dread dropped into the pit of Baljeet's stomach. He paled slightly.

"Your sexuality has nothing to do with how I view you as my son."

The teenager paused, and he gaped blankly as his mother's words rebounded off his head a few times.

"W-wait, what?" he stumbled out, furrowing his brows in confusion.

His mother's serious nature melted away in a manner of seconds, and she stepped across the room to the pantry on her tiptoes. "Actually, your father and I have been waiting for you to officially reveal yourself to us for quite some time now," she admitted lightly as she pulled open the door. Before reaching in to pull out a snack, she cupped a hand around her mouth and yelled, "OH PAPA, YOUR SON IS FINALLY COMING OUT!"

Hot embarrassment flooded all of Baljeet's senses. He stuttered and gaped, trying to explain to his mother that he wasn't even going to ask them about his own sexuality, and that he was going to talk about Buford, but his tongue was suddenly huge and rubber in his mouth. His entire body was hot with rushing blood; he must have looked like a huge pomegranate.

"N-no! Mother, I was not-"

Mr. Rai, who was a scarred, aging man in his 70's, peeked in from the living room with a grin on his lips.

"Oh, happy day!" he chimed dramatically, all but waltzing into the kitchen. "He finally trusts us, Mama!"

Baljeet buried his face in his hands. What did I get myself into? "No! I was not going to-" He yelped when his father's hand slammed into his back.

"Atta boy, son! Just like a Rai!" the man barked proudly, officially confusing the hell out of his son.

"What is going on," Baljeet stated flatly, sinking down in his barstool.

Mrs. Rai chuckled as she headed back for her cup of Chai. "Have we never talked to you about our grandparents, Baljeet?" she asked, grinning into her mug before taking a sip. When Baljeet merely whimpered in distress and shook his head, she nodded to her husband.

"Both your mother and I's parents were raised by gay couples," Mr. Rai explained, walking around to the front of the counter. "We were really surprised when we learned about it; I mean, what are the odds? But then we got to thinking, and well, if the great-grand parents were friends, then our parents' families being friends makes sense… And since your mother and I were in an arranged marriage…"

"Oh and also, you told us you wanted to kiss boys when you were five," Mrs. Rai added, hiding her smirk behind her cup. "It was that 'girls are pretty' phase you went through that made us worry."

Baljeet stared blankly at his parents, his jaw lose on its hinges and his eyes bulging in shock. He sat there for a good half a minute or so before he grabbed his hot chocolate and downed half of it.

"Oh Papa, I think we've broken him," Mrs. Rai giggled, leaning against the older man.

Mr. Rai chuckled. "Point is, son, you don't have to worry about us disapproving of your lifestyle," he concluded, wrapping an arm around his wife.

Baljeet sighed heavily. Oh dear. Well, at least they approve… He placed his mug back on the counter and gave the adults a lopsided smile.

"… I wish Ms. VanStomm thought that way," he said carefully, turning the mug around. When his parents blinked at him, he nibbled at his lip and looked at the remaining cocoa. "… Buford is gay, too." He didn't let the two respond before continuing, "His mother threw him out. That is why he showed up here; he does not have anywhere to go."

Baljeet shrunk into himself a little bit when his mother was suddenly ruffling his curly hair.

"Buford is always welcome to stay as long as he needs," she cooed, planting a kiss on the side of her son's head on her way back to the living room. "Biffany will come around, I'm sure of it."

"Just try and keep it down, alright?" Mr. Rai added casually, patting the teen on the shoulder as he followed his wife. Baljeet nearly spit up his mouthful of cocoa.

Flustered and sleepy, Baljeet quietly snuck into his dark bedroom around midnight. The events earlier in the evening had cut into his homework time, but staying up late to finish was worth it for Buford's sake. Tomorrow was Saturday, anyway. He changed as silently as he could into his pajamas, though he soon discovered that doing such a thing in darkness was a lot trickier than he'd initially thought.

He crawled into bed, and sighed gently when he found it cramped. Buford had taken residence in the middle of the bed, rather than on one side, leaving little to no space for Baljeet to fit.

But Buford had gone through so much today that Baljeet just didn't have the heart to wake him up. So, he snuggled in on the edge of the bed as best he could without disturbing his bed mate.

He smiled gently, and closed his eyes. There was something so… contenting about having Buford's bulk sharing a bed with him.

Baljeet was almost asleep when Buford obnoxiously turned over on the springy mattress.

"Whaddya doin', fruitsnack?" the brunette yawned, and reached over to run his fingers over Baljeet's temple.

Baljeet frowned. "Do not call me fruitsnack," he mumbled, letting his eyelids blink open a centimeter or two. "And I am going to sleep."

Buford muttered something unintelligible under his breath in response, so Baljeet turned over to face the other boy and inquire as to what he said. But when Baljeet opened his mouth, Buford wrapped one arm over his waist and pulled him up against his torso.

The Indian blinked a bit, and decided to remain silent when the football player nuzzled himself down under his chin. His brows furrowed in sympathy when Buford inhaled noisily through his nose.

"… You okay, big guy?" he asked gently, moving his hand to run his fingertips through the short brown hair under his jaw.

"… Yeah…" Buford mumbled miserably. He squeezed his arms around his boyfriend's thin frame, letting a certain urgency exist in the hold. "'s just… Keep thinkin' 'bout my mom…"

Baljeet smiled sadly and snuggled impossibly closer, but he felt guilty. Who was he to have this perfect life, with perfectly accepting parents and perfect grades and perfect relationships with his friends? Who was he to sit back and watch Buford's only means of support throw him out of his home for his choice in romantic relations, and watch him struggle to keep friends and keep up his grades? Who was he to have the right to try and sympathize with his plight when he himself has known very little emotional scarring?

He knew he would never fully understand what Buford was going through.

… But he loved him.

Baljeet didn't know what he could say to comfort him. Nothing, he supposed, could really ease Buford's mind about his mother's views, but it hurt to see him so torn apart. He wanted to do something,

He wormed his arms around Buford's shoulders and held on as tight as he could, desperate to do something. He turned his face down to bury it into the other boy's short hair, then swallowed back a lump in his throat.

"You know I love you," he repeated quietly, pressing a kiss onto Buford's scalp. "And I know your mother does too."

Buford nodded gently, but kept his face nuzzled into Baljeet's chest. "Je t'aime," he whispered tiredly.

Baljeet smiled softly; Buford only absentmindedly spoke French when he was exhausted. He could probably coax him to sleep now.

The first song that popped into the Indian's head was, strangely enough, a Disney song by the name of 'Baby Mine'. There was a certain morbidity in humming Buford a song sung by a mother to her son, considering the circumstances, but it had the feeling of a soft lullaby when the lyrics weren't involved. As he hummed, Baljeet ran his fingers over one of Buford's ears. His touch was soft, but contained enough pressure to be considered a light massage.

Buford was asleep before the song had even finished.

Buford was a resident of the Rai household for a week. If he wasn't at school, asleep, or snuggling with Baljeet, he was seated at the old Baby Grand in the family room. The sides of the piano had Hindu gods and goddesses carved into it's polished wood, and although it was rarely ever played and therefore severely out of tune, Buford had taken a few hours out of Saturday afternoon to tune it up so he could play it. (With the permission of Mr. and Mrs. Rai, of course. Though none of them knew how he knew how to tune a piano, nor where he got the tools to do so.)

Everyday was a new song.

He knew every song by heart, and he let them flow out of his fingers so naturally that sometimes he was able to hold full conversations with Baljeet while he was playing. Most of the time, however, Baljeet would just sit quietly on the firm couch and read a book or do some homework.

It was interesting, watching Buford lose himself to the music. Buford's love of music and his almost prodigal ability to play a jaw-dropping number of instruments was something that was never discussed, or even mentioned, so to watch him perform in any way was considered a treat. But whenever he would whip out whatever instrument to improvise something for Phineas and Ferb at their request, it was always light and happy. The Buford seated at the piano now was playing a variety of sad songs, slow and echoing and heartbreaking, and sometimes he would mumble along their lyrics in his gravelly, untrained voice and Baljeet would end up so emotional that he'd have to get up and leave.

But Buford never shed one tear. He merely played.

That next Friday, exactly one week after he showed up on the doorstep, he didn't touch the piano. He didn't look at it, he didn't wander near it, and he most certainly didn't look to be debating on whether to sit down and play it. He just wandered the decorated house idly, and by the end of the night found himself wrapped inside the comfort of Baljeet's warmth once again.

It was noon on Saturday when the Rai's received a phone call from Biffany VanStomm. There was a sort of scared urgency in her voice when she asked to speak to her son, and it was that fact and that fact alone that made Buford actually accept the call.

Buford locked himself in Baljeet's room before he put the phone to his ear.

"… Hello?"

"Buford, I need to tell you something," Biffany's voice rang through the receiver, and Buford had to bite back the swelling emotion at hearing it. It had been awhile since she had spoken in French to him; she only did it in emotionally draining situations because it was easier to rant in her native tongue.

"Get on with it, then."

He could hear her hesitate.

"Your father is gay."

The brunette blinked. He pulled the phone from his ear, and stared at it like it'd just told him two plus two equaled fish. He put it back up to his ear. "… Wait, what?"

"You know how your father ran out on us? He didn't leave for another woman. He divorced me because he fell in love with a man." She took a deep breath. "When you… told me you were in love with another boy… All I could see was your father, telling me he was moving out." Her voice cracked a little, and Buford felt his heart sink. "… I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to act the way I did."

Buford took a seat on Baljeet's bed and ran a hand through his hair. …Fuck.

"…Why are you telling me this now?" he asked, pressing his fingertips into his hairline. "Why not after I told you? Why not before you threw glass at me and told me to leave?"

"I was angry," she said, sincerity and regret in her voice, "And I was scared. I remember thinking that you were going to be just like him, and walk out on me. So I just… Beat you to what I thought was going to be the punch, and kicked you out." Buford could hear her sniffling over the phone. "But Dieu, this week has been so terrible without you here, and you're my son, and I love you, and you're nothing like your père."

Buford's hand moved from his hairline to his eye, which he rubbed furiously to keep the tears inside the lid. His mother sounded so unbelievably sad and remorseful, he couldn't bear to listen to such a strong woman weep.

"Maman, don't cry," he choked, swallowing back a steadily growing lump.

"I don't care that you're gay," Biffany continued, her voice shaking and croaking with tears. "I don't care who you fall in love with. I don't care what you do or who you become; you're mon enfant and I will always love you."

The tough teenager sitting alone in his boyfriend's room suddenly felt like he was six again, and his sobbing mother was telling him that even though daddy left, it'd be okay, because je t'aime, Buford, jet'aimerai toujours.

"Does this mean I can come home now, Maman?" Buford's voice cracked in his emotion, and he didn't even give two shits, because the woman he loved the most as telling him it everything was going to be okay. He didn't even want to hold back the tears anymore, and when his mother's whispered, throaty 'S'il vous plaît' came through the receiver, he wouldn't have been able to hold them back even if he'd tried.

"It will be very weird to sleep alone again," Baljeet grumped, "I do not think it is something I like."

"Get used to it, fruitsnack, 'cause I ain't living in your house if my momma wants me back," Buford countered, a grin on his lips.

The two boys were currently marching their way up the walk to Buford's home, where Buford was going to be greeted by his mother for the first time since he'd come out.

"Do not call me fruitsnack," Baljeet mentioned quickly, then veered onto another subject, "It is just going to be kind of lonely, that is all."

Stopping on the porch, Buford scooped the scrawny teen up into his arms and brushed noses with him. "Don't worry, all you have to do is think about me and I'll be there," he growled, one of his hands sliding rather close to Baljeet's rear.

The Indian's face burned. "D-do not say stuff like that!" he snapped, squirming in a vain attempt to get free. "Is that all you ever think about?"

"Maybe," the bulky teen purred, moving to capture the other boy's lips. Baljeet sank into the kiss with no complaints, however.

They must have only been standing there mid-kiss for three or four seconds before the door opened and completely revealed them to Ms. VanStomm.

Both parties stood staring at one another for another three or four seconds, with Buford and Baljeet still lip-locked and Biffany blinking owlishly.

Once they'd finally parted, Buford coughed and mumbled an embarrassed "Hi, mom" as he set Baljeet back on the cement.

"Baljeet," Biffany stated suddenly, looking to her son with wide eyes. "Baljeet?"

Cursing the twinge of heat in his face, Buford pulled the very embarrassed boy against his side.

"Baljeet," he said proudly, a smile worming it's way onto his lips when his mother's eyes lighted in delight.

"N-nice to see you again, Ms. VanStomm, but I really must be going-" Baljeet tried, moving to ditch out of his boyfriend's hold before he was absolutely smothered.

"You little weasel!" Biffany giggled, grabbing both boys by the arm to drag them inside. "Why didn't you tell me it was Baljeet! You two are going to sit down and tell me all about this right now!"

Laughing and groaning, the three headed into the house for a very interesting afternoon.