"All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names!"
This house turns into a kind of festive insane asylum at Christmas, Rael thinks, as a way to avoid concerning himself with how Gil is currently taking measurements of Rael's torso for the cobalt blue jumper he plans on knitting him and Floran is mindlessly hovering around the both of them, occasionally snapping a picture or ruffling Rael's hair.
They've whisked him away from the crowd of people singing 'Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer' and backed him into a corner next to the gigantic (and reasonably sharp, Rael has discovered) Christmas tree in his living room.
"We hardly see you these days, man!" that's Floran, of course. Alexi often complains to Rael about how sentimental his dad can be, but Rael thinks it's sweet that he cares so much. Now, if only Alexi's parents could care in a way that didn't mess up his hair or require him to lift up his shirt and pose for measurements…
"I think he's gotten taller – arms up, please – and his sense of style has completely disintegrated." Gil contributes. Rael decides not to take the comment too personally and returns to focussing on the singing coming from his kitchen.
"Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history – like the dinosaurs!"
Oh, never mind, they're finished, Rael thinks, before coming up with the idea to list as many dinosaurs in his head as he can before Gil and Floran decide they've sufficiently fawned over him. Let's see, t-rex, brontosaurus, triceratops, velociraptor… Hmm, velociraptor is a good name. Intense and vicious sounding–
"Oh yeah, he'll definitely be dating soon, if he's not already. Just look at him," Floran says, prying Rael away from his daydream so fast it almost causes whiplash. Him, dating? Who do they think he'd be dating? There are a whole army of issues surrounding that concept. For one thing, just because he's a supplier it doesn't mean he can go around forming relationships wherever he wishes – Alexi would know in a second what he was doing! The guy can hardly stand it when he has to find a temporary partner 'cause one of them catches a cold or something. Just imagine if he was going out with someone! Rael hates the look of disappointment on Alexi's face when they're charging and Rael has been kissing someone else.
''Um, I'm not sure I really want to be dating right now," he says eventually, and he's not lying. Honestly, he has no idea if he's ready to be that close to someone else yet, or if he even has the desire to be in a relationship. He's aware that he's friendly and easy enough to get along with by disposition – heck, he'd managed to get Alexi to warm up to him pretty darn quick for a guy as stubborn as him – but he's no Casanova.
"Oh, sure," Gil says as he removes the measuring tape from Rael's arm and pulls his sleeve down. "Well, I have all the numbers I need." Rael rolls his shoulders and tries not to look too relieved about the current freedom of movement his arms are experiencing.
As Gil and Floran launch into an awkward discussion about how Rael should watch out for people only interested in him for his 'innocent charm' (whatever that means) and how he should never change his personality for anyone, Rael wonders if maybe this is a lecture best left for his mother to give him.
When it seems like they've dished out all the advice they could possibly give and Rael is about ready to escape, Floran puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him from glancing around and looks right into his eyes. His mouth is a straight line, not even an upturned edge, when he says "You know, Alexi can be a bit like a beetle in amber."
And suddenly Rael has no idea what's going on. Floran's expression and grave tone of voice should be amusing in that 'it's funny because it's so out of character' kind of way, but in reality it just confuses Rael. A 'beetle in amber' could mean trapped, he analyses, but why would Alexi be trapped?
Fortunately, Floran doesn't leave Rael guessing for too long and continues. "What I mean is, well, with people he really cares for… Alexi was born with the ability to nit-pick and complain for hours on end, but when he really likes you, he'll go along with almost anything you're doing, no matter how he feels about it. I'm not trying to say that's a bad thing in itself, but it often means he has to sacrifice his comfort." Rael must look bewildered, because Floran smiles at him before carrying on.
"I guess one example would be when Alexi travelled with you to the neighbouring country. He probably didn't tell you this, but he was really nervous about it, since his language skills aren't the best and he tends to get lost easily in new places. Gil and I were very happy when he decided to go because it pushed him out of his comfort zone, and of course, it's also a lovely country. But the point is, there's no way he would have gone if it had been him who the school decided to send over to study. He only made the decision because he couldn't handle being without you for a month. I'm sure you already know this, being as close to him as you are, but Alexi is very dependent." Floran pauses to look over at Gil to make sure he's not wandered off anywhere and stands up straight after having lowered himself to Rael's height.
"Just… watch out for him, okay? We know you care about each other a lot," Gil says.
Rael nods, though he's not entirely sure he understands Gil and Floran's intentions for telling him this now. There's a few seconds of silence before Gil speaks again. "So where'd you pick up a phrase like 'beetle in amber', huh?" And the atmosphere clicks back to calm.
"I have to look sophisticated in front of Alexi's friends! Can't have them showing me up, especially this one and his intellectualness." Floran gestures towards Rael, and pulls out a Christmas hat from, well, from somewhere before placing it firmly on Rael's head. It seems there'll be no hope for his hair this evening.
Rael excuses himself after wishing Gil and Floran a merry Christmas in search of Alexi. All that talk about his partner had reminded him that he hadn't actually spoken to Alexi since he'd kicked off his shoes at the front door. He'd intended to hang out with him for a while, but his mother had called for him from the kitchen to help her with the dishes and to catch up with a few distant relatives Rael had only met once or twice before. Like Gil, they'd commented on how tall he'd apparently gotten, which Rael had suspected was the default thing to say in such a situation.
He wonders around his garden for a bit – it doesn't take long since it basically just consists of a patch of grass, a gazebo and a pond filled with koi fish – before concluding that Alexi's not there and moves on.
He checks the kitchen and front porch next, though he doubts Alexi would claim such a noisy part of the house for the night, and it turns out he was right to be uncertain as there's no sign of a blonde, moody-looking guy to be seen.
Well, that just leaves his bedroom, unless Alexi's desperate enough for a bit of quiet to lock himself in the bathroom or in his parent's room. He jogs up the stairs and continues straight along the corridor to his room to see that there's no light coming from under the door. A little weird if Alexi's actually in there, Rael thinks, and pulls back the handle to reveal that, oh, he actually is.
And he's sitting on his bed, holding his globe. Okay.
Alexi doesn't look up when he says, "Sorry I kinda disappeared. The crowd was getting a little too large downstairs. I didn't turn the light on 'cause your globe glows in the dark."
"No problem," Rael replies, and he's glad Alexi doesn't look at him 'cause he's not sure that the lack of light in the room is enough to mask his confusion.
He finds himself thinking back to a time when his mother had invited Alexi and his parents round for tea to get to know them better, and he'd led the boy upstairs to his room to play. He'd had his globe back then too – he remembers having knocked it over in a rather limited game of hide and seek; the only real hiding options being his wardrobe or, if one felt particularly flexible, his assortment of drawers, so they didn't play for long.
"Iceland and England don't light up anymore since I dropped the globe when we were younger. You remember?" Rael asks, silently wondering if he's brought up a memory so vague or distant as to be slightly creepy for him to recall so clearly.
"I remember," Alexi says quietly, and Rael lets out a breath before walking over to join his friend on the bed. "You still want to travel the world, right?" Alexi continues, gesturing towards the group of postcards on his wall featuring pictures of various countries before going back to spinning the globe.
"Yeah, I do," he replies, focusing on a particular postcard of a snowy Helsinki with a glistening harbour and fairy lights twined around trees. He smiles.
Alexi makes a sound like he's thinking deeply, before eventually telling Rael that it'll be difficult if he plans on backpacking round Europe or somewhere. In truth, if you gave him a magic ticket now, it'd be almost impossible to stop him from hopping on the next plane to Northern Europe, but he knows that for people from his country, it's more complicated than that. You can't just think about what you want to do as your partner is entitled to a say as well. A few years ago, if he was really going to go traveling, he'd have told Alexi to find a temporary partner to charge with while he was away, but he knew better than that now. Alexi hated Rael leaving him, and Rael hated abandoning Alexi. It just make sense for them to stay together.
Rael hears Alexi sigh quietly from his right and turns to face him, sitting on his knees. "Are you worn out?" he asks, and Alexi nods. Slowly, he leans in and kisses him, one hand stroking through Alexi's hair. He feels fingers clutch around his collar loosely. They stay like this for a good thirty seconds before Rael's senses return to him and he decides he's not going to be very mobile if he gives away any more energy.
"How was that?" he asks in what he hopes is a casual tone, because charging is a completely natural, everyday experience and why should they make it awkward?
"I feel better, thanks," Alexi says, frowning slightly. Rael has a disturbing suspicion that Alexi can see right through his skin and into his mind. "Where'd you get the Christmas hat, by the way?"
"Oh, Floran gave it to me. He and Gil were talking to me earlier." He puts the hat on the bed.
Alexi narrows his eyes. Rael thinks it's funny how he can be so suspicious of his father's activities. "What did they say to you? And by them, I mean Floran."
Rael shrugs. "Nothing much, really. Gil wants to knit me a new jumper so he took some measurements, and Floran just kinda hung around us. He told me I have an 'innocent charm', or something." He decides to leave out the part where they warn him that Alexi will follow him in whatever he does. He thinks that's for the best.
"Anything else?"
"Oh yeah, Floran did say you're too dependent on me. I wonder where he got that idea from." Rael smirks. So he can't resist unravelling Alexi just a little.
Alexi forms an impressively unimpressed expression. "I'll have to make self-sufficiency a new year's resolution."
Rael has to laugh at that, but then a thought creeps out into the expanse of his mind and tugs at his spine. Rael knows Alexi depends on him, sure, and it's not strange for Gil and Floran to know that too, but why had they felt the need to flood him with a sea of relationship advice right before switching course to bring up Alexi? It had seemed completely spur of the moment at the time, but Floran kneeling down to look Rael in the eye, and that long speech…. the more Rael thinks about it, the more staged it had seemed.
But, if their talk had been planned, then what did that mean? Did Gil and Floran really approve of him that much, to trust him with dating their son? Like a beetle in amber, Floran had said. If it was true that Alexi acted like that around him, then why would his parents think Rael was the best candidate to be his 'boyfriend?' Surely they'd want him to be with someone who couldn't, well, 'manipulate' him?
A colony of questions buzz around his head and Rael stays silent while he processes them. Suddenly, Gil's words speak to him. "We know you care about each other a lot." That's true; he has one definite to tick off. And because they care about each other, and because Gil and Floran know they care about each other, they trust Rael with Alexi's heart. Wow, Rael thinks. This is a lot to consider.
When Rael looks over at Alexi to make sure he's still there – he's so quiet when he wants to be – his face is lowered and Rael sees that he's taken on the task of unwinding a loose strand from his shirt sleeve. Rael's intensive questioning slows enough for him to notice that Alexi has really nice, long fingers, and he decides that, if he's at the stage where he's admiring the guy's fingers, he must be pretty far gone. He'd had no idea.
People from their country reserve the lips for their partners and use a kiss on the cheek when they want to show that they care about someone, but since Alexi is his partner, how is he supposed to go about this? He can't tell if Alexi would mind him just kissing him as if they were charging, which he reminds himself that they would be, but he doesn't think he can delve into that again just yet if he wants to be able to stand and greet the rest of his family later.
Cautiously, he tilts Alexi's chin so that they're looking at each other. Rael's close enough to see his left eye twitch slightly as his eyelashes flutter closed. He's frowning, but Alexi's almost always frowning, and Rael had learnt quickly that his expression hardly ever reflects how he's feeling.
He's stared enough, Rael thinks, before kissing the corner of Alexi's mouth. It doesn't occur to him that he's teasing before Alexi puts a hand to his chest and tells him so. "Oh," he says simply, but any further comments he might have are disrupted by Alexi pushing him down on the mattress and kissing him. Hard.
Oh no, not good.
Well, actually, very good. Alexi's tracing his jawline with a fingernail and they're both making pleasant little muffled noises and Rael wants to lean into the touch even more but– suppliers don't function like that, Rael remembers, as he takes a moment to breathe.
"Alexi," he says in a half scolding half I'd really love to continue but I can't kind of tone, and Alexi seems to get the message. He takes his hold off of Rael's hand (when had they been holding hands?) and sits up.
"Sorry." He looks away. "I forgot… who we are, for a minute. You must be exhausted."
Rael sighs, but the sound has nothing to do with anger or disappointment. "Well, I can't actually get up, but I think we both got a bit carried away there." He smiles up at Alexi, who leans down to kiss his cheek.
"Sorry," he says again. "Could we maybe talk about this later? I mean, just because it's Christmas and Floran or your mum will probably call us down soon for din–"
"We can make it a new year's resolution," Rael tells him, winking. Maybe that looked a little too suggestive. Whoops.
Alexi just laughs and shakes his head. Rael likes that laugh a lot.
"So, maybe we should go to Finland for Christmas next year?" He asks this mostly to wind Alexi up, though he's actually thought about taking the trip many times before.
Predictably, Alexi jabs Rael's arm and begins listing a whole array of flaws in this plan. "There's also sleeping arrangements to consider, as well as money and the language barrier. Not everyone is multilingual like you..."
Rael closes his eyes and lets Alexi's lecture carry him to a complete state of calm. Sure, he'd love to travel to Finland to see the pretty harbours and the pretty lights, but right now, nestling into his pillow with Alexi chiding him, his bedroom is the only place he really wants to be.