It was anything but difficult to see that Ellis loved Nick. Their relationship wasn't easy. He had always mused no relationship-homosexual or straight-was easy. His childhood years had made some days blend into nights and he could remember, as a young boy that time had just become a twenty four hour clock. Those were the times that he would stay curled on the torn and tattered carpet of his slowly molding home, listening to the bellowing incoherent shouts of his parents.
His eyes would be dry, puffy, and sagging in the mornings. No one bothered to question why, being an only child, his parents were the only ones to actually notice. Though they failed to care. He had started to think that they didn't care because he was not a decent enough child.
So he began to become as compliant as possible with everyone. The grim nostalgic empty feeling of being unimportant or inadequate in anyone's life created a whirlwind of dreadful emotions that would cannibalize on his own mind creating a gigantic internal melt down.
If he made everybody happy, then he would be happy. Some people didn't understand why he would give them an extra compliment, give them an honestly kind confidence, pay for a bill, offer help on their car at no charge, or just be an extra attentive listener to their problems.
He made his parents unhappy he made them so unhappy. He was the one to cause his mother to go into distress on hopeless nights, he was the one to cause his father to leave with several unnamed women. He wasn't good enough and his mother and father needed each other to fill the gigantic crater he had created, so they would fight each other to keep each other.
In the end they bother just destroyed one another, Ellis in the middle of all of this. He should have been a better son. If he was a boy worth being proud of he was sure that his parents would have seen the common light in their life. But that light wasn't ever turned on.
He tries so hard with people, trying to get them to like him. He was a genius at reading people. Not in a way that would help him win at poker, but one that had grown to help with his mental stability through out his whole life. He loved it when people accepted him.
They would show it in the subtlest of ways, it takes so much notice to actually snatch the little movements and signs.
A twitch in a lip after he gives someone a pat on the back for a job well done, a flick of the eyelashes after an uplifting smile, and his favorite is the finger to the lip. It happens at recent introductions of strangers. He even averaged the time it takes for the digit to just faintly graze the upper or lower lip of the person at company.
In short, Ellis made it nearly impossible for someone not to like him within the very second of meeting him.
Except for one person.
An ornery, greedy, self-divulged, arrogant, ass of a man.
It took a few zombie filled months for Nick to actually start even likingEllis.
It took three renovating years for Nick to start lovingEllis.
Nick made up for what he had failed to give to his parents. Nick was horrible, like his parents, but Ellis held some type of importance in the gambler's life. It felt as if he had rehabilitated his childhood and time is now waking up to his lover's musky scent to falling asleep to his lover's tired sighs. It was much more livable than a clock.
Ellis was breaking the rules this year for Nick.
Or Ellis is breaking Nick'srules for Nick.
The older of the two had made it painfully clear that he did not want a present for Christmas. He practically drilled it into Ellis' head that if he ever bought Nick a Christmas present he would pull his organs out in alphabetical order through his throat.
Ellis' fingers danced on the felt green of the pool tables, the soft furs tugged at the base. The blue-flaked eyes ripped from the table to the cardboard folded paper in the center of the table.
Okay, three grand seemed way too unbelievable for a pool table. He huffed a snort lightly. He wondered away from the tables and toward the glass incased poker sets.
They were all so unique, some themed with allusions like Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, and even Batman. They were all in a range of one hundred to six hundred dollars.
"See something you like?" He hadn't noticed that the sales clerk was not with anyone. She looked at him with an eager smile, keeping a sweet eye contact for her benefit.
"Not yet. But ah really need a good Christmas gift fer mah boyfriend." He turned his head back down to the multiple cases of poker sets, his mouth quirking in a thoughtful frown.
"O-Oh. Okay, well you shouldn't look here then," She gestured with a wave of her hand for him to follow. They walked to the back of the shop, where she unlocked a drawer of a cabinet and pulled out a sparkling silver cased set.
"You need something like this."
"Nick, ah lied to you." Ellis stood in front of his relaxing lover with a poorly hidden smile.
Nick's eyebrow arched and he closed his novel with a soft thud. "Ellis…" His voice warned as he saw the southerner giggle and sneak behind their Christmas tree. He came back around a wrapped box in hand and a beaming curl of his full lips on his face.
"I gotch'ya a Christmas present!" He said with a bubble filled voice.
Nick stood without meeting the younger's eyes. He took the heavy gift and unwrapped it slowly, but uncaringly. Ellis was almost shaking with excitement.
The silver gleamed like it did in the shop, it reflected beautifully off the green pools of his boyfriend.
Nick unclasped the clips, his face showing no emotion.
He still held no reaction to the poker chips, cards, and dice. Ellis' face didn't fall though, he kept his happy exterior and stared keenly waiting for the acquainted acceptation he sought out.
Nick with a silence that made Ellis nearly wince, put the set on the sofa he had been sitting on and crossed his arms. He finally met the blonde's eyes with a steel filled scowl and accusing gaze.
"How much?"
Ellis gaped, stepping forward unconsciously. He had curiously knitted brows and his own eyes roamed Nick's face looking for any sign of those little acquiescent ticks. Only neutrality.
"Nick, I-I don't understand-"
"How much was it Ellis?" No pet name, the first sign that he was in a dangerous pool of water.
He swallowed, his Adams apple bobbing nervously.
"Seven…Seven hundred and fifty." He said, his head pointed at the arm rest of the couch.
He looked back up, finally realizing the emotions swiping through Nick's face.
Anger, pure indisputable, and agonizingly recognizable anger.
"Ellis, what did I say about Christmas gifts? I said I don't want a fucking gift! And just like the fucking retarded shit you are you not only get me a gift, but you get a seven hundred and fifty dollar-fucking little-" He groaned and walked around the couch already heading to the stairs.
"Nick? Wh-whats wrong? Ah thou-thought you would like it." He stood at the spine of the sofa, his eyes glazed with a blanket of tears that had yet to fall. His voice pitched highly pleadingly.
He turned back again, snarled features gracing his naturally composed face. "Its because you don't listen! You knew I didn't want a shitty gift! Now you just wasted a shit load of money! You know how many fucking suckers it would take to get that much money? Your own useless excuse of a fucking job barely gets us through!" He now moved closer to his slowly crumbling loved one.
This was a replay. He was ruining everything again. He was making someone who was supposed to love him hate him. After this he's going to be alone again. He won't have anyone to care for him. He can't go back to that. He wouldn't make it. It hurt too much. The pain was too much for so long.
"Im sorry. Please. Nick stop." He backed himself to the back of the couch, the tears falling freely. Nick didn't seem too effected by it.
The shouting had coursed into a low dark gravel. "No, not this time Ellis. You did this too many times to count. I said I didn't want a birthday party and you threw a birthday party. I said that I don't want to hold hands in public and you kiss me in public. I said I don't want you to cuddlewith me at night and you fucking hug me like a goddamn toddler! I said that I want you to get an actual job and you still work at the shop! You need to learn to stop being so," His eyes went wild, and then they stood to a halt.
He looked deeper through and into Ellis, probing his mind and digging deep.
"You are such a nuisancein my life. Only bringing more problems for me." Sometimes the smallest of words can have the greatest of impacts.
Something inside of that longing, young, desperate, southern boy tore in pieces.
He dropped to his knees, the endless nights of loud screams, of crashing glass, of cries and wails all came rushing back into his memory.
He didn't hear the sob that escaped the bars of his throat. He could only hear his mother crying and father bellowing.
Nick had stood there at the bottom of the stairs. It wasn't fair how he was just watching the self-mutilation of his lover. Ellis had good intentions. He always had good intentions.
Suddenly he didn't feel good. He didn't feel happy that he had finally taught Ellis to listen to him. He just felt like scum. The added on cries of agony were actually wrenching his heart, they mirrored the one that Ellis had let out for help as a hunter was attacking him.
Was he in this much pain? Did Nick actually…do this to him?
"Ellis?" He knelt down, his hand hovering over the furled up form of the blonde.
Finally his hand touched down onto his boyfriend's shoulder.
"Ellis, I'm-I just got…angry. Please, I-" He sighed deeply.
Ellis stopped, his parents voices had finally calmed into one charming and low tone that made his heart jump.
He shakily pushed himself up, and leaned in close to Nick's face.
"I'm sorry." He pulled his face into his hands, and kissed his lips with sincere apology.
Ellis felt a wave of different emotions reel over him. The biggest being relief.
He kissed back with equal fever, pushing Nick down into the carpet below and thrusting his tongue in and out of the enveloped pair below him.
Nick groaned with a undertone of a growl. Ellis pulled away with a gasp, then looked down at Nick with lidded eyes, a sly pair staring at him from below.
He pushed himself back down, dragging his hotly wet tongue down Nick's neck. Once it reached the fabric of his cotton shirt he, stopped only to drag it off of the older's built body.
The suckling sounds made from the heated kisses to Nick's chest echoed through them. He sucked at the skin between his pecks, and then licked a thick saliva trailed line to his naval. He felt the other buck up in a careful manner.
He looked up with innocent eyes that turned Nick on even more. His hips started thrusting up into the air even higher and harder.
"Come on…Aylus" He whispered, the shiver felt off the other making him grin.
Then he felt a sudden waft of cool air draft onto his exposed self.
Immediately after his full length had been exposed it was swathed in between Ellis' lips, moans and grunts pouring through his little southerner's throat.
He lifted his neck to see that Ellis was currently enjoying himself as well, he pushed his arousal down his throat, lovely pants coming from Ellis' nose.
He moved away from the leaking appendage and took a breath, Nick irately thrusted up.
Nick's hands reached downward and he pulled his lips back where they belonged.
"Mmph."
His lashes fluttered closed and his cheeks hollowed to suck softly, yet roughly.
"Ye-yeah…El…that's it-" His neck tilted upward and Nick's back lifted, his legs spasm as he came into the pleasant moistened heat.
Ellis hadn't gotten his fill though.
And Nick didn't care.