Joe was still in the dojo when Duncan came storming out of the elevator.
One glance at Duncan's face and Joe knew he was trying to hide how hurt he
was by the whole situation.
"He told you?" Joe offered trying to get Duncan to talk.
"He told me," he returned gruffly not stopping as he continued for the door.
"What happened, MacLeod?" Bryan asked as Duncan brushed past him. "What'd the kid do?" Duncan just glared at him over his shoulder. "Sorry I asked, man."
Joe sighed and went to the elevator. If Duncan came down, that meant Richie went up. Maybe Richie would be willing to talk;, he doubted it, but he figured he should at least try. Sure enough, Richie stayed true to his character and Joe found Richie on the roof sitting on the transformer in a near lotus position staring at the city. He turned when he heard the roof gravel crunch under Joe's feet.
"I should have never told him," Richie said softly turning to stare again.
"You should have told him earlier," Joe corrected. "Before he got a chance to get so attached."
"But by the time he got attached, I figured it didn't matter anymore," the boy defended. Funny, how everyone thought of him as a young man until he got in trouble then he was once again just a kid, the boy that hung around because he could.
"Why would you say that?" Joe prompted, relieved and confused at Richie's out of character willingness to share.
"Because I figured Dad wasn't coming back."
"And why didn't you tell him before?"
"Because I didn't know him."
"Rich," Joe leaned on the transformer box. "Why didn't you tell him when you got to know him?"
Richie paused and thought about it. "I guess because. I didn't wanna hurt them." Joe had to think about who the other part of the 'them' was; it was Tessa. "I mean, how would you feel if you took in this kid who didn't deserve any of the stuff you did for him especially from you, and he just said 'By the way, when my dad comes back, I'm outta here'?"
"I'd respect his honesty."
"But would you still be willing to do all the stuff you'd been doing?"
"So you did it for yourself," Joe observed quietly.
"Do you think I'm a huge jerk?" Richie asked fearfully his always- underlying fear of abandonment showing through.
"I think you were a scared kid. You didn't know where your next meal was coming from, where you were going to sleep the next night, or how long it would be before you got arrested and sent to jail. You had to look out for yourself; nobody else was. Then Mac and Tessa decided to and you took them up on it. It might have started out as a warm, dry place to wait for Masters, but it became your home, Rich," Joe told him trying to ease his fear. "You said you didn't want to hurt them. Go back to that. How would it have hurt them?"
"Because they being so nice, how is that a way to repay them? I really like them. They did stuff for me nobody but my dad had ever done before. They accepted me so fast, it wouldn't have been fair to make them try to live up to some guy they had never met before, and probably never would, just to impress some kid and make him like them."
"Do you think that was the way they would have felt?"
"Did they, like, make you take tones of psychology classes before you could become a Watcher or something?"
Joe couldn't help but smile. Richie might have grown up a little bit, but he was still an annoying smart-ass half the time. "I'm just trying to help."
"You know, how come everyone always wants to help me?" Richie asked suddenly. "Do I really come off as that pathetic?"
"You come off as someone who's had some troubles. And you're a good kid;, people don't like it when good people get shot down."
"Everyone roots for the underdog," he added.
"Richie, you're not an underdog. You're just like everyone else."
"Yeah, right. If I'm just like everyone else, how come I'm still 'kid', 'kiddo', 'sport' to every guy I meet?"
"Richie, you still look like you're nineteen, physically you are a kid."
"I guess I really wouldn't look that different at twenty anyway. But, you guys know I'm not and you just called me 'kid'," he pointed out.
"To me you are. I've known you longer than you've known me. I was there the night you broke into Mac's store. and I hate to admit it, but I was the one who called the cops on you."
"You did that? I was wondering who blew the whistle on me." Richie shook his head slightly. "Thanks a lot;, you almost got me sent back to juvie."
"I knew Mac wouldn't press charges; I just thought you needed to be taught a lesson."
"I'll send you a card."
"Rich, did you tell Mac everything you just told me?" Joe asked.
"We didn't really get that far. It was more of an over-view of the situation followed by some snide remarks and storming out."
"Then maybe you should tell him."
"I don't think he wants to talk to me right now."
"You should. Tell him you didn't want to abandon them like you were afraid they would abandon you."
Richie cocked his head to one side and smirked slightly. "Thank you, Dr. Dawson."
"Anytime, tough guy."
"Aw, man!" Richie rolled his eyes and groaned. "Not you, too. It's bad enough Mac still calls me that!"
"Hate to break it to ya, Rich, but Mac's going to call you that for the next three thousand years at least. And you better get used to being the kid, because unless someone younger comes along, you're stuck."
"Great."
"Are you going to tell him?"
"I guess I have to."
"Look, Rich, I'm sorry about slipping up downstairs. I thought you were going to tell him last night," Joe apologized.
"Don't worry about it, Joe."
"Why didn't you? Tell him last night, that is."
Richie looked at Joe with his own admittance of guilt written clearly in his eyes. "You didn't see his face," Richie told him. "He was so happy when he thought that I was kinda startin' to lean that way; then when I told him it was just a joke. I might as well have just stabbed him. He was crushed, Joe. It was bad enough I had slipped up like that, gotten his hopes up and everything, but to tell him why? I just couldn't do it. I didn't sleep at all last night; I was trying to come up with a way to tell him that wouldn't just be a slap in the face. I couldn't do it. I'm so deep into all this. Everything I tell him from here on out is just going to be another turn of the knife."
"Very morbidly put, Rich."
"I'm immortal; that's not all as figurative as it sounds."
"I should hope it is," Joe chuckled. "The last thing I want to have to explain to Mac is how my trying to get you to talk to him led to you murdering him."
"It's close enough."
"Richie, stop being so dramatic. Sure things might be a little awkward between you two for a while, but you'll work it out. I know Mac and I know you. You'll have everything back to normal before you head back to school."
. . . . . .
Richie stayed on the roof for another couple hours after Joe left to find Duncan. He had no idea how to approach his best friend and tell him that the role he had coveted for so long wasn't up for grabs and never really had been. He went down to the loft and waited for Duncan to return. He made dinner and ate alone. At two thirty he gave up and went to bed. He wasn't sure why he was surprised Duncan was avoiding him. Maybe it was because the roles were usually reversed; Duncan would seek out Richie and force him to talk whatever problem they were having out. Now it was Richie who had unintentionally hurt Duncan's feelings and wanted so desperately to work it all out.
Richie lay motionless in his bed listening to the sounds of the city on a summer morning when all the parties were breaking up and the bars were closing. Cars zoomed by every now and again some with their base blaring;, some relying on only the sound of their engine to let those still awake know they had passed. At around four o'clock Richie heard the elevator distantly hum Duncan's arrival. At least he assumed it was Duncan; from Richie's room he couldn't sense an immortal until they stepped onto the third step of the stairs that led up to it. He recognized the heavy boot fall of Duncan and listened to the older immortal get ready for bed. He heard the water turn on, then off ten minutes later. Then the light that faintly illuminated Richie's room from down stairs turned off and there was nothing but his own breathing and the darkness to keep him occupied. He wished Duncan had come upstairs to tell him he was home, or to check on him like he usually did. But those were fatherly acts that Richie had stripped him the privilege of. With a sinking heart Richie realized Duncan would probably never do those things again. Richie closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
Duncan lay motionless in his bed. There was nothing but his own breathing and darkness to keep him occupied as he tried unsuccessfully to sleep. He wondered if Richie was awake or if the boy was even home. His car was still parked outside, but that didn't mean that Richie hadn't walked somewhere or retrieved his motorcycle from the storage room in the back of the dojo where Duncan decided to keep it for fear of thief and vandalization. As he began to gather up the nerve to go check he heard a faint cry come from the upstairs. Duncan sat up in bed and listened. From Richie's small room (that most people didn't even know existed up the spiral staircase in the corner) he heard the boy mumbling and calling out in his sleep.
Duncan smiled faintly as the sounds grew louder. He recognized the pleas of Richie's I-want-attention-come-talk-to-me nightmares. Richie had first done this on the fifth night he stayed with Duncan and Tessa. It was the first day the three hadn't spent completely together and the boy had felt neglected and decided he couldn't wait for the next morning to get the attention he so desperately wanted. So he had feigned a nightmare that brought Tessa running and Duncan ambling after her with some tea to calm his nerves. After a couple months Duncan began to notice that this particular kind of nightmare (that boasted slightly overly dramatic pleas for help) only occurred when Richie had been left to his own devices for a day or two and hadn't been given the required amount of attention any teenage boy needed. Duncan and Tessa had decided that as long as Richie's pleas for attention didn't involve getting arrested they would let him do what he wanted.
"Mac!" Richie called down the stairs. Duncan's smile grew; Richie was becoming impatient with him and wanted to make sure he was coming. Duncan slid out from between the sheets and slowly made his way up the stairs. Once he passed the third step Richie once again quieted to mumbling.
"Rich?" Duncan asked softly playing along and sitting on the edge of the boy's bed. "Richie, wake up." He reached down and shook Richie 'awake'.
"Mac?" Richie mumbled sleepily opening his eyes. If his law career didn't work out he could always audition for a soap opera and make a decent living for awhile.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, fine," Richie answered happily slipping into his 'I wanna talk but can't think of how to do it' routine.
"You want to talk about it?"
"Nah, I'm fine," he assured him in a purposely less than convincing voice.
"Okay, see you in the morning," Duncan answered getting up to leave. He couldn't decide if he was mad Richie was manipulating him again or relieved Richie still felt comfortable enough to play the vulnerable kid to Duncan's experienced male role model.
"I'm sorry," Richie said before Duncan got to the door.
"Why? For waking me up?"
"For earlier. Not telling you, lying to you, everything. I just didn't know what to do."
"And just letting me know didn't occur to you?" Duncan asked.
"It did," Richie assured him. "But it usually involved big blow out fights."
"Like the one we just had?"
"Sometimes worse. But it never involved 'Don't worry about it, Rich."
"If you hadn't hidden it for so long, it would have. Richie, I don't understand why you thought I'd be so mad because you had a father."
"I don't really either, Mac. I'm not exactly known for my rational thinking when comes to stuff like this."
"Joe said you two got it pretty much figured out this afternoon."
"We have our theories," Richie allowed.
"Are you going to tell me? Or do you plan on waiting another three years?"
Richie smirked slightly in the darkness and told Duncan what Joe had discovered.
"You thought we would kick you out?" Duncan asked in disbelief when Richie had finished.
"Well, we gotta be honest here. I didn't want to do anything wrong; you hated me. It took me a while to figure out it wasn't going to happen."
"You thought I hated you?"
"Please, Mac," Richie laughed slightly. "It wasn't like you weren't completely determined to remind me every chance you got that I didn't deserve what I was getting."
"I guess I was pretty hard on you the first couple of weeks," Duncan admitted. "But you have to admit it scared you straight."
"Yeah."
"Richie, just because I get mad at you, or frustrated with you, or annoyed by you-"
"I get the point, Mac."
"It doesn't mean that you mean any less to me or that I love you any less."
Duncan didn't have to see him to know Richie was blushing. "Thanks. I mean, me too. I uh, love you, that is," the boy stammered awkwardly.
"And I'll admit, I was hoping that one day we might reach that next level. But now I know we're not. And I'm okay with that. Sometimes I don't know if I feel so fatherly towards you because I just do or because I feel you need one," Duncan added figure the conversation had become awkward enough and they didn't want to have to venture into such territory again. "But you have one. And he did a good job raising you. You were a good kid, Rich. And you're a good man. when you act like it." Richie laughed a little. "That gives credit to this Greg Matters guy."
"Masters," Richie corrected.
"Whatever," Duncan answered pulling Richie into a friendly headlock. "Although I have to wonder about a father whose kid feels he has to resort to fake nightmares to get attention."
Richie pulled away. "You know about that?"
"I have for a long time. It didn't take us long to figure out your little game. I told you before; you're dramatic."
"All these years and you just played along with it? Why didn't you call me on it?"
"Because Tessa thought it was cute," Duncan told him. "She had read so many articles about kids like you who went about getting their attention by getting into trouble and breaking the law that when you started pretending to have nightmares she thought it was adorable." Duncan paused. "But her favorite game to play with you was to see how long until you stopped faking sleep and actually fell asleep."
"You know about that, too?" Richie laughed nervously realizing he was way too old to be playing the same childish games he played at seventeen. He used to feign sleep after he had gotten his attention just to see how long Duncan or Tessa would sit in his room to make sure he didn't have another nightmare.
"It was pretty easy to tell. You don't know that you snore."
"I don't!"
"Yes, you do."
"John hasn't said anything."
"Does he snore?"
"Well, yeah."
"Then why would be complain about you?" Duncan teased as they forced themselves to slip back into their old relationship.
Everything wasn't completely normal again. Richie seemed to have the need to allow Duncan to continue fathering him, although he had started to complain about it before he left for school the previous fall. But it worked out because Duncan felt the need to prove to Richie nothing was different and continued to try to father him while he was around. By the time Richie had to leave for school again they had spent so much time trying to be what the other needed that they had unwittingly slipped back into the way they had been when they had first met. Duncan was completely in charge and Richie begrudgingly did as Duncan wanted and tagged along for the fun.
"Is that everything?" Duncan asked as Richie loaded the last bag of clothes into the back of his car.
"That's it," Richie affirmed closing the door to the trunk space.
"So are you coming back in December?"
"I don't know," Richie admitted awkwardly having to once again bring up the subject they had avoided all summer. "Dad might want to do something."
"Was Christmas a big deal to Greg?" Duncan asked trying to swallow the hurt as he reminded himself he had to share Richie now.
"Actually, Dad's atheist, we didn't do Christmas. But we had other traditions, I don't know if he wants to start it up again or not."
"That's why you were always so awkward around Christmas," Duncan realized. "You didn't have it growing up."
"Nope. But birthdays, man, those were a huge deal. Week long events at our house."
"Okay, well, the invitation's out. That's still your room whenever you want to come back and use it."
"The Washington game?" Richie suggested hopefully. "You guys are still comin' like last year, right?"
"Of course," Duncan assured him. "You still staying for the weekend like last year?"
"Of course."
"Okay. We'll see you then."
"Okay. See you then," Richie agreed getting into the car and starting it.
"Call me when you get there," Duncan ordered closing the door.
Richie rolled down the window. "Okay," he answered dramatically.
"I'll miss you, tough guy."
"I'll write, I'll call, I'll send smoke signals and homing pigeons."
"Hey, why don't you bring Heather up with you sometime?" Duncan suggested.
"Are you going to lock me in a closet if I don't?" Richie asked with a smile.
"I just might," Duncan reached through the window and ruffled Richie's hair. "I want to meet Greg, too. I want to see who I lost out to."
"Mac, you didn't lose out to him," Richie assured him. "You're just different."
"You better get going if you want to beat the traffic." Duncan stepped back onto the sidewalk. "See you in a couple months!"
"Bye, Mac!" And with that Richie backed into the street and drove off to begin his sophomore year.
"He told you?" Joe offered trying to get Duncan to talk.
"He told me," he returned gruffly not stopping as he continued for the door.
"What happened, MacLeod?" Bryan asked as Duncan brushed past him. "What'd the kid do?" Duncan just glared at him over his shoulder. "Sorry I asked, man."
Joe sighed and went to the elevator. If Duncan came down, that meant Richie went up. Maybe Richie would be willing to talk;, he doubted it, but he figured he should at least try. Sure enough, Richie stayed true to his character and Joe found Richie on the roof sitting on the transformer in a near lotus position staring at the city. He turned when he heard the roof gravel crunch under Joe's feet.
"I should have never told him," Richie said softly turning to stare again.
"You should have told him earlier," Joe corrected. "Before he got a chance to get so attached."
"But by the time he got attached, I figured it didn't matter anymore," the boy defended. Funny, how everyone thought of him as a young man until he got in trouble then he was once again just a kid, the boy that hung around because he could.
"Why would you say that?" Joe prompted, relieved and confused at Richie's out of character willingness to share.
"Because I figured Dad wasn't coming back."
"And why didn't you tell him before?"
"Because I didn't know him."
"Rich," Joe leaned on the transformer box. "Why didn't you tell him when you got to know him?"
Richie paused and thought about it. "I guess because. I didn't wanna hurt them." Joe had to think about who the other part of the 'them' was; it was Tessa. "I mean, how would you feel if you took in this kid who didn't deserve any of the stuff you did for him especially from you, and he just said 'By the way, when my dad comes back, I'm outta here'?"
"I'd respect his honesty."
"But would you still be willing to do all the stuff you'd been doing?"
"So you did it for yourself," Joe observed quietly.
"Do you think I'm a huge jerk?" Richie asked fearfully his always- underlying fear of abandonment showing through.
"I think you were a scared kid. You didn't know where your next meal was coming from, where you were going to sleep the next night, or how long it would be before you got arrested and sent to jail. You had to look out for yourself; nobody else was. Then Mac and Tessa decided to and you took them up on it. It might have started out as a warm, dry place to wait for Masters, but it became your home, Rich," Joe told him trying to ease his fear. "You said you didn't want to hurt them. Go back to that. How would it have hurt them?"
"Because they being so nice, how is that a way to repay them? I really like them. They did stuff for me nobody but my dad had ever done before. They accepted me so fast, it wouldn't have been fair to make them try to live up to some guy they had never met before, and probably never would, just to impress some kid and make him like them."
"Do you think that was the way they would have felt?"
"Did they, like, make you take tones of psychology classes before you could become a Watcher or something?"
Joe couldn't help but smile. Richie might have grown up a little bit, but he was still an annoying smart-ass half the time. "I'm just trying to help."
"You know, how come everyone always wants to help me?" Richie asked suddenly. "Do I really come off as that pathetic?"
"You come off as someone who's had some troubles. And you're a good kid;, people don't like it when good people get shot down."
"Everyone roots for the underdog," he added.
"Richie, you're not an underdog. You're just like everyone else."
"Yeah, right. If I'm just like everyone else, how come I'm still 'kid', 'kiddo', 'sport' to every guy I meet?"
"Richie, you still look like you're nineteen, physically you are a kid."
"I guess I really wouldn't look that different at twenty anyway. But, you guys know I'm not and you just called me 'kid'," he pointed out.
"To me you are. I've known you longer than you've known me. I was there the night you broke into Mac's store. and I hate to admit it, but I was the one who called the cops on you."
"You did that? I was wondering who blew the whistle on me." Richie shook his head slightly. "Thanks a lot;, you almost got me sent back to juvie."
"I knew Mac wouldn't press charges; I just thought you needed to be taught a lesson."
"I'll send you a card."
"Rich, did you tell Mac everything you just told me?" Joe asked.
"We didn't really get that far. It was more of an over-view of the situation followed by some snide remarks and storming out."
"Then maybe you should tell him."
"I don't think he wants to talk to me right now."
"You should. Tell him you didn't want to abandon them like you were afraid they would abandon you."
Richie cocked his head to one side and smirked slightly. "Thank you, Dr. Dawson."
"Anytime, tough guy."
"Aw, man!" Richie rolled his eyes and groaned. "Not you, too. It's bad enough Mac still calls me that!"
"Hate to break it to ya, Rich, but Mac's going to call you that for the next three thousand years at least. And you better get used to being the kid, because unless someone younger comes along, you're stuck."
"Great."
"Are you going to tell him?"
"I guess I have to."
"Look, Rich, I'm sorry about slipping up downstairs. I thought you were going to tell him last night," Joe apologized.
"Don't worry about it, Joe."
"Why didn't you? Tell him last night, that is."
Richie looked at Joe with his own admittance of guilt written clearly in his eyes. "You didn't see his face," Richie told him. "He was so happy when he thought that I was kinda startin' to lean that way; then when I told him it was just a joke. I might as well have just stabbed him. He was crushed, Joe. It was bad enough I had slipped up like that, gotten his hopes up and everything, but to tell him why? I just couldn't do it. I didn't sleep at all last night; I was trying to come up with a way to tell him that wouldn't just be a slap in the face. I couldn't do it. I'm so deep into all this. Everything I tell him from here on out is just going to be another turn of the knife."
"Very morbidly put, Rich."
"I'm immortal; that's not all as figurative as it sounds."
"I should hope it is," Joe chuckled. "The last thing I want to have to explain to Mac is how my trying to get you to talk to him led to you murdering him."
"It's close enough."
"Richie, stop being so dramatic. Sure things might be a little awkward between you two for a while, but you'll work it out. I know Mac and I know you. You'll have everything back to normal before you head back to school."
. . . . . .
Richie stayed on the roof for another couple hours after Joe left to find Duncan. He had no idea how to approach his best friend and tell him that the role he had coveted for so long wasn't up for grabs and never really had been. He went down to the loft and waited for Duncan to return. He made dinner and ate alone. At two thirty he gave up and went to bed. He wasn't sure why he was surprised Duncan was avoiding him. Maybe it was because the roles were usually reversed; Duncan would seek out Richie and force him to talk whatever problem they were having out. Now it was Richie who had unintentionally hurt Duncan's feelings and wanted so desperately to work it all out.
Richie lay motionless in his bed listening to the sounds of the city on a summer morning when all the parties were breaking up and the bars were closing. Cars zoomed by every now and again some with their base blaring;, some relying on only the sound of their engine to let those still awake know they had passed. At around four o'clock Richie heard the elevator distantly hum Duncan's arrival. At least he assumed it was Duncan; from Richie's room he couldn't sense an immortal until they stepped onto the third step of the stairs that led up to it. He recognized the heavy boot fall of Duncan and listened to the older immortal get ready for bed. He heard the water turn on, then off ten minutes later. Then the light that faintly illuminated Richie's room from down stairs turned off and there was nothing but his own breathing and the darkness to keep him occupied. He wished Duncan had come upstairs to tell him he was home, or to check on him like he usually did. But those were fatherly acts that Richie had stripped him the privilege of. With a sinking heart Richie realized Duncan would probably never do those things again. Richie closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
Duncan lay motionless in his bed. There was nothing but his own breathing and darkness to keep him occupied as he tried unsuccessfully to sleep. He wondered if Richie was awake or if the boy was even home. His car was still parked outside, but that didn't mean that Richie hadn't walked somewhere or retrieved his motorcycle from the storage room in the back of the dojo where Duncan decided to keep it for fear of thief and vandalization. As he began to gather up the nerve to go check he heard a faint cry come from the upstairs. Duncan sat up in bed and listened. From Richie's small room (that most people didn't even know existed up the spiral staircase in the corner) he heard the boy mumbling and calling out in his sleep.
Duncan smiled faintly as the sounds grew louder. He recognized the pleas of Richie's I-want-attention-come-talk-to-me nightmares. Richie had first done this on the fifth night he stayed with Duncan and Tessa. It was the first day the three hadn't spent completely together and the boy had felt neglected and decided he couldn't wait for the next morning to get the attention he so desperately wanted. So he had feigned a nightmare that brought Tessa running and Duncan ambling after her with some tea to calm his nerves. After a couple months Duncan began to notice that this particular kind of nightmare (that boasted slightly overly dramatic pleas for help) only occurred when Richie had been left to his own devices for a day or two and hadn't been given the required amount of attention any teenage boy needed. Duncan and Tessa had decided that as long as Richie's pleas for attention didn't involve getting arrested they would let him do what he wanted.
"Mac!" Richie called down the stairs. Duncan's smile grew; Richie was becoming impatient with him and wanted to make sure he was coming. Duncan slid out from between the sheets and slowly made his way up the stairs. Once he passed the third step Richie once again quieted to mumbling.
"Rich?" Duncan asked softly playing along and sitting on the edge of the boy's bed. "Richie, wake up." He reached down and shook Richie 'awake'.
"Mac?" Richie mumbled sleepily opening his eyes. If his law career didn't work out he could always audition for a soap opera and make a decent living for awhile.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, fine," Richie answered happily slipping into his 'I wanna talk but can't think of how to do it' routine.
"You want to talk about it?"
"Nah, I'm fine," he assured him in a purposely less than convincing voice.
"Okay, see you in the morning," Duncan answered getting up to leave. He couldn't decide if he was mad Richie was manipulating him again or relieved Richie still felt comfortable enough to play the vulnerable kid to Duncan's experienced male role model.
"I'm sorry," Richie said before Duncan got to the door.
"Why? For waking me up?"
"For earlier. Not telling you, lying to you, everything. I just didn't know what to do."
"And just letting me know didn't occur to you?" Duncan asked.
"It did," Richie assured him. "But it usually involved big blow out fights."
"Like the one we just had?"
"Sometimes worse. But it never involved 'Don't worry about it, Rich."
"If you hadn't hidden it for so long, it would have. Richie, I don't understand why you thought I'd be so mad because you had a father."
"I don't really either, Mac. I'm not exactly known for my rational thinking when comes to stuff like this."
"Joe said you two got it pretty much figured out this afternoon."
"We have our theories," Richie allowed.
"Are you going to tell me? Or do you plan on waiting another three years?"
Richie smirked slightly in the darkness and told Duncan what Joe had discovered.
"You thought we would kick you out?" Duncan asked in disbelief when Richie had finished.
"Well, we gotta be honest here. I didn't want to do anything wrong; you hated me. It took me a while to figure out it wasn't going to happen."
"You thought I hated you?"
"Please, Mac," Richie laughed slightly. "It wasn't like you weren't completely determined to remind me every chance you got that I didn't deserve what I was getting."
"I guess I was pretty hard on you the first couple of weeks," Duncan admitted. "But you have to admit it scared you straight."
"Yeah."
"Richie, just because I get mad at you, or frustrated with you, or annoyed by you-"
"I get the point, Mac."
"It doesn't mean that you mean any less to me or that I love you any less."
Duncan didn't have to see him to know Richie was blushing. "Thanks. I mean, me too. I uh, love you, that is," the boy stammered awkwardly.
"And I'll admit, I was hoping that one day we might reach that next level. But now I know we're not. And I'm okay with that. Sometimes I don't know if I feel so fatherly towards you because I just do or because I feel you need one," Duncan added figure the conversation had become awkward enough and they didn't want to have to venture into such territory again. "But you have one. And he did a good job raising you. You were a good kid, Rich. And you're a good man. when you act like it." Richie laughed a little. "That gives credit to this Greg Matters guy."
"Masters," Richie corrected.
"Whatever," Duncan answered pulling Richie into a friendly headlock. "Although I have to wonder about a father whose kid feels he has to resort to fake nightmares to get attention."
Richie pulled away. "You know about that?"
"I have for a long time. It didn't take us long to figure out your little game. I told you before; you're dramatic."
"All these years and you just played along with it? Why didn't you call me on it?"
"Because Tessa thought it was cute," Duncan told him. "She had read so many articles about kids like you who went about getting their attention by getting into trouble and breaking the law that when you started pretending to have nightmares she thought it was adorable." Duncan paused. "But her favorite game to play with you was to see how long until you stopped faking sleep and actually fell asleep."
"You know about that, too?" Richie laughed nervously realizing he was way too old to be playing the same childish games he played at seventeen. He used to feign sleep after he had gotten his attention just to see how long Duncan or Tessa would sit in his room to make sure he didn't have another nightmare.
"It was pretty easy to tell. You don't know that you snore."
"I don't!"
"Yes, you do."
"John hasn't said anything."
"Does he snore?"
"Well, yeah."
"Then why would be complain about you?" Duncan teased as they forced themselves to slip back into their old relationship.
Everything wasn't completely normal again. Richie seemed to have the need to allow Duncan to continue fathering him, although he had started to complain about it before he left for school the previous fall. But it worked out because Duncan felt the need to prove to Richie nothing was different and continued to try to father him while he was around. By the time Richie had to leave for school again they had spent so much time trying to be what the other needed that they had unwittingly slipped back into the way they had been when they had first met. Duncan was completely in charge and Richie begrudgingly did as Duncan wanted and tagged along for the fun.
"Is that everything?" Duncan asked as Richie loaded the last bag of clothes into the back of his car.
"That's it," Richie affirmed closing the door to the trunk space.
"So are you coming back in December?"
"I don't know," Richie admitted awkwardly having to once again bring up the subject they had avoided all summer. "Dad might want to do something."
"Was Christmas a big deal to Greg?" Duncan asked trying to swallow the hurt as he reminded himself he had to share Richie now.
"Actually, Dad's atheist, we didn't do Christmas. But we had other traditions, I don't know if he wants to start it up again or not."
"That's why you were always so awkward around Christmas," Duncan realized. "You didn't have it growing up."
"Nope. But birthdays, man, those were a huge deal. Week long events at our house."
"Okay, well, the invitation's out. That's still your room whenever you want to come back and use it."
"The Washington game?" Richie suggested hopefully. "You guys are still comin' like last year, right?"
"Of course," Duncan assured him. "You still staying for the weekend like last year?"
"Of course."
"Okay. We'll see you then."
"Okay. See you then," Richie agreed getting into the car and starting it.
"Call me when you get there," Duncan ordered closing the door.
Richie rolled down the window. "Okay," he answered dramatically.
"I'll miss you, tough guy."
"I'll write, I'll call, I'll send smoke signals and homing pigeons."
"Hey, why don't you bring Heather up with you sometime?" Duncan suggested.
"Are you going to lock me in a closet if I don't?" Richie asked with a smile.
"I just might," Duncan reached through the window and ruffled Richie's hair. "I want to meet Greg, too. I want to see who I lost out to."
"Mac, you didn't lose out to him," Richie assured him. "You're just different."
"You better get going if you want to beat the traffic." Duncan stepped back onto the sidewalk. "See you in a couple months!"
"Bye, Mac!" And with that Richie backed into the street and drove off to begin his sophomore year.