A/N #1: This is a one-shot about the evening Eric spent at Lafayette's house on the night before his wedding to Sookie. If you haven't read my story One Thousand Words, you'll probably want to start there first. This could stand on its own, but it'll make more sense if you read OTW first.
From Chapter 24 of One Thousand Words…
After I'd said goodbye to Jason, Pam, Sam and Daphne, I kissed Sookie once more. "I love you, Sookie. I'll see you tomorrow." I kissed her hand and walked across the lawn to Lafayette's car.
I turned one last time to wave, and saw Pam with her arm around Sookie, and caught Sam giving Daphne a peck on the cheek. God damn, what a great night! I thought.
"C'mon, chere, time to take you home." Lafayette teased. He opened the car door for me like a perfect gentleman, and I climbed in the passenger seat.
"Go easy on me tonight, okay?" I pleaded.
"Easy's my middle name, baby. Don't you worry, now. Lafayette's gonna take good care of you."
"That's exactly what I'm afraid of." I replied as we pulled out of the driveway and drove off in to the night.
The short ride back to Lafayette's house was rife with tension. My tension, of course. Not his. He was cool as a cucumber, obviously relishing in my discomfort, but I was sweating bullets at the thought of spending the night at his house. I'm not an idiot. I realized what I was thinking was completely irrational. Lafayette may be a tease and a total flirt, and I was pretty sure he wasn't going to pull any funny business, but I was certain he was going to push me to see just how far he could take it before I hit my limit.
I really liked him, and not just because of his devotion to Sookie, but I am a raging hetero after all. Pink Tacos, and all that shit, ya know? But I still get a little bajiggidy around gay men. Correction. Gay men don't fluster me. Queens in spandex giving me an eye-fuck, however, most certainly do. I mean really, when his junk is all up in your face, squished straight though the ridiculously thin lycra, how is someone expected to react? It's one of those "train-wreck, yet cannot look away" moments every time you see it.
We pulled in to his long driveway and parked along the side of his house. Lafayette removed the keys from the ignition and looked over to me. "Honey, we're home." he said through a glittering lip-glossed grin. Christ on a popsicle stick...he just puckered and blew me a kiss. I groaned internally, the full realization of what was to come before the night ended hitting me squarely between the eyes - oddly enough, right where his air kiss was intended to land.
We entered though the front door, and he led me through his small, but tidy home. I'd only been in it briefly to use the restroom the night of the crawfish boil, and I was so wrapped up with thoughts of Sookie (I mean, I was holding my Johnson, after all. Who wouldn't be thinking of Sookie in that instance?) that I'd failed to take notice of how warm and comfortable it was. I suppose I had expected disco balls and pink pleather furniture, which of course was so straight-guy of me, but what I found instead were plush and comfortable oversized couches and chairs, and warm, earth-toned walls and floors. The only hint that a gay man lived there was a print of Petroclus hanging above the mantle. His home was really nice, and I felt like a total asshat for thinking all the stupid shit I'd thought.
"It's a great house, Lafayette. Thanks for having me here."
"No problem, chere. Gives us the chance to get to know each other better." He cooed.
I laid my garment bags that contained my suit and other essentials for the wedding across the back of a barstool and walked in to the kitchen where he was pulling out a bottle and some shot glasses from one of the dark cherry wood cabinets. "Nectar of the Gods?" He waved a bottle of Patron Silver suggestively in front of my face. Oh, hell yes. I would certainly need some of that. "Set 'em up, barkeep." I said.
He handed me the bottle, then took both shot glasses and motioned for me to follow him in to the living room. We flopped down on the couch, and he poured a shot for each of us.
"To Eric and Sookie. May they be happy, and fuck like rabbits!" Lafayette said, holding his arm out in a grand toast.
"I will drink to that, my friend!" I said, sucking down the liquid, relishing in its heat that was now working its way down my throat. I could already feel it taking the edge off.
"So, tell me sugar," Lafayette said, kicking off his shoes and stretching his feet across the couch. His toenails were painted a bright pink. I think my dick shriveled up inside me a little bit. "You nervous?"
"About having your giant, ugly-ass feet so close to my face? Yes, I am."
"You know what they say about men with giant feet…no, jackass, I meant about getting married, starting a family, yadda yadda yadda."
"Only about fucking up. Everything else, no, absolutely not." I poured us each another shot and placed the bottle back on the table.
"Here's to you not fucking up." We clinked glasses and downed another shot.
"Thanks. I'll do my best. I've never wanted anything so badly in my life." I stretched my legs out on to the coffee table and shifted my body lower on the couch.
"I know you will. I see how she looks at you. I've never seen her look like that, and I've known her all her life, so that's saying something."
I pondered that for a moment. "Lafayette, tell me something I don't know about Sookie. Something that's important to her. I really do want to give her everything."
"I think you're pretty close to doing that already. But let me think. I know she wants a large family. You ready for that?"
"Dude," I said, pouring us another shot, "I'm planning on adopting Jake. How much more ready do I need to be?"
"True dat." He replied. "But seriously. I know she wants a lot of kids. That girl's got so much love in her. It's amazing after what she's been through. You'd think that would have scared her off. Woulda screwed me up." He downed his shot and gestured for me to pour him another.
"You're talking about her uncle? Fuck, I want to kill that guy." I said, tossing my shot back & refilling my glass.
"No need, lover. That man went to hell a long time ago. And good riddance." Something about the way he said it made me think he knew more about her uncle's demise than he was letting on. Backwoods justice, I assumed, and fuck it if I wasn't happy with that thought.
"Lafayette, if she wanted to adopt twenty kids and then have ten of our own, I'd do it. I'll do anything to make her happy, because it makes me happy in return."
"Hold on there, Brad Pitt. You live in Manhattan. I don't care how much money you have…you can't fit that many kids in a New York City apartment. Where you planning on housing all of them?" He stretched out like a cat, and his feet came to rest on my lap. Oddly enough, it felt pretty normal.
"I'm a photographer, Lafayette. I can live anywhere and still be able to do my job. But she's got the center to think of, so I suppose we'll make that decision together when the time is right."
"Sookie's right. You are a good man. I wish I knew how good, but I know your boat don't float in that direction." He winked at me. The fucker was toying with me again. With his feet in my lap. Bitch.
I moved to stand up, or tried to, at any rate. The Patron was kicking in full force. I was feelin' pretty good. I flopped back down on the couch. "You're pure evil." I said.
"Okay, okay. I'll be good." He said, backing off. "Enough of the serious talk, too. This is technically your bachelor party. No trashy ho hookers, here, but let's put on some music."
He walked over to the stereo and popped in a CD. Soft Cell's version of "Tainted Love" blared through the speakers and Lafayette started to dance. "I loved this shit in high school." He said, dancing over to the couch and offering me his hand. "C'mon, sugar, come dance with the big, bad fairy queen."
Fuck it. What could it hurt? And that's how we spent the rest of the evening…dancing to 80's classics and polishing off an entire bottle of primo tequila right in the middle of Lafayette's living room. Once we were finally exhausted, we both fell back on the couch, laughing our asses off. I was fucked up. Hammered. Shit-canned. Obliterated.
"Lemme ask you somefin', Laf." I slurred. "Whazzit like growin' up gay in such a small town? Was it hard?"
"It was hard all the time, but I couldn't find anyone to suck it." He joked.
I cringed. "I wazzn't talkin' 'bout your Johnson, Lafayette. I meant, wazzit hard on you personally?"
"I know, silly boy, I was just teasin'. I like making you uncomfortable. It's fun." He rolled over on his side and stretched a bit before continuing. "Yeah, it was difficult. But everybody has problems, right? I mean, shit, I coulda moved to a bigger city, met more people like myself, but this is my home. Some people liked me, some people hated me, but as long as I knew I was still bein' me, it didn't matter to me what anyone thought."
"I wish I coulda felt like that about myself years ago. I was so fucked up for so long. Prob'ly woulda saved me some heartache." I've always been a sappy drunk.
"Well, maybe, baby, if you'd felt that way earlier, you may not have meet Sookie. Did ya ever think of that?" He asked. "Maybe you had to go through the shit you went through so you'd be able to recognize something extraordinary when it came in to your life…and then you'd appreciate it all the more, and never let it go."
I sat there, dazed. Even through my drunken stupor, I knew that he was right. Every miserable, shitty thing that I ever dwelled on in my life disappeared the day I met Sookie. She was my something extraordinary.
"Lafayette, you're a poet. I love you, man." I leaned in to give him a hug, and then promptly passed the fuck out.
I woke up with a miserable fucking hangover, but I was warm and comfortable. I felt an arm around me, and then it hit me…it couldn't be Sookie's arm. I felt lips against my ear, placing a soft kiss on it. "Morning, sugar." Lafayette drawled.
"Lafayette, why did you kiss my ear?" I asked.
"Why are you holding my hand?" He shot back.
"Where's your other hand?" A slight panic was settling over me now.
"Between two pillows." He replied.
"Those aren't pillows!" I jumped off the couch and leaped across the room.
Lafayette rolled on his back, laughing hysterically and holding his hands over his rumbling stomach. "Chere, you should see your face right now."
"Well, forgive me if I'm not used to waking up with a man's hands between my legs."
"Oh, relax, I was just kidding. I slept on the loveseat. You passed out with the Patron bottle between your legs. I just couldn't resist fuckin' with ya. I promise you, I didn't invade the sanctity of your nether regions, lover." He pointed towards my family jewels, making a little circle with this finger.
"Wait, you thought it would be funny to reenact Planes, Trains and Automobiles with me? That's just fucked up, man!"
"Admit it." He said. "It's hilarious."
I leaned my back against the kitchen counter, scratching my chin. I had to hand it to him, he's clever. I started laughing, and before I knew it, I was doubled over. I sat down on the floor to try and steady myself.
"Alright, alright, sweet cheeks." Lafayette giggled as he walked over and offered to help me up. "You need to get in the shower. We've got a wedding to get you to, and we can't have you walking in smellin' like moonshine."
I took his arm and stood. He led me to the bathroom & pushed me in. Before the door completely closed, I stuck my head out and asked, "Hey Lafayette, you know what'd make me happy?"
"Another couple of balls and an extra set of fingers?" He replied on cue.
"Lafayette, I do believe you and I are going to be good friends." I jumped in the shower, excited to begin my wedding day.
A/N #2: Just in case you've lived under a rock since 1987, the quotes recited by Eric and Lafayette in the end of the story are also from Planes, Trains and Automobiles, one of the funniest mother effin' movies of all time. When I first started thinking about writing this one-shot, the pillow scene in the movie popped in to my head and it just wouldn't leave. Thanks to Susan for encouraging me to write this. Pink Tacos rule!