Coming Home Chapter 5
Sorry that this chapter took me so long-- it was transition-y and took me a long time to flesh out. I would like to give a quick shout out to TakeGuess, who was bugging me about this chapter (thanks!) and motivated me to pull this story back up and start working on it again. I hope you enjoy this chapter-- there's no Quil actually in it and lots of Adam (whom I love, even if some of you hate-- maybe this chapter will change your mind.) but it's all setting up for the next chapter, in which stuff will actually happen. So read, enjoy, and review if you please!
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Claire and Adam sat in silence as they sipped their way through the second pot of coffee that Claire had brewed up for them after Quil's abrupt departure. Quil's mood swings were confusing and frustrating, and the bitter black brew soothed her and sharpened her synapses as she ruminated over possible explanations.
It was very likely that he was angry with her or hurt about her leaving and staying away for all those years. They had been so close that she could easily understand his anger—she had made the decision to leave very suddenly, though the idea had been there for years. And her meager correspondence over the years had done little to show how important their friendship had been to her. Maybe she was underestimating how upset he had been about her leaving. At the time, he had seemed sad but excited that she was going to see the world, something she had always talked of doing.
Was he mad about her leaving in the first place or had she done something unwittingly stupid since coming back? Why was he being so moody? One minute his eyes were warm and welcoming and he was so hot she was nearly combusting, and the next minute he would ice over and storm off silently, leaving her chilled and confused.
They had not even talked since she had come home—nothing more than a few sentences at least. She had not been back for even twenty four hours yet, so she supposed that it was reasonable, but it seemed to her that he didn't want to get into anything. And what was he running off to all the time?
Maybe it was so glaringly obvious that she was in love with him that he could tell just by looking at her, and that was why he kept running away in disgust. That seemed a bit far-fetched—the Quil she knew would never purposely try to hurt her. Though she doubted he could return her interest, she also doubted that disgust would be his reaction; guilt or pity would be more likely candidates. However, she'd been gone a long time. She had changed and no doubt he had too. She could not necessarily count on her ability to predict his reactions anymore.
She wondered fleetingly if Quil had a problem with Adam. She couldn't see why he would, but maybe he was reacting in some long-instilled overprotective streak. Surely, though, a gay male roommate was the best of both worlds on that front—added protection while in the big city with no chance of getting her heart broken. So the overprotective big brother theory seemed a stretch. It was probably just coincidence that he had left at the same time Adam walked in. Clearly, he had needed an out, and that had been opportune.
And why was he looking so hellish in the first place? What had been going on here? No one else looked any worse for wear, so clearly it was a personal thing. Sickness was unlikely, as his 109 degree body temperature burned off most bacteria and viruses before they could do much damage. Maybe it was some sort of freaky werewolf bug—but the other guys had seemed healthy enough, though they had also seemed worried about Quil.
Perhaps she was grasping at straws, and Quil's moodiness was not stemming from anything related to her. There were so many other factors that could be at play—problems with work, family, love… Though, like her, Quil had very little family left. She felt a guilty rush that she did not even know where Quil worked these days outside of pack business, but supposed that, whatever line of work he was in, there could be stressful issues.
As for love, the thought made her pause as her heart twisted violently in her chest. She had been gone for years. Quil could have easily found love while she had been away. He could have a serious girlfriend. Hell, he could be married by now. It was about time, after all. He had been single for years, and he was beyond incredible—any sane female would go for him. She had not noticed a ring on his left hand, but she knew very well that none of the pack wore wedding rings. A few had tried at first, but it was difficult to remember to take them off or find a place to stow them when they phased. After long weeks of frustration and exploding precious metals, they had given up. Everyone on the reservation knew everyone else's business anyway—so it was common knowledge who was taken, without the necessity of jewelry.
The thought of Quil with someone else sickened her to the point where her head spun and her stomach clenched. She pushed away the mug containing the last dregs of her morning coffee, unable to stomach it anymore. This was a little absurd, she could admit. She had no right to feel upset or jealous—it was not like she had some sort of supernatural claim on the man. Pity, that.
Adam noted her abandoned coffee with a raised eyebrow.
"So… how's your brilliant scheme going so far?" Claire's withering glare seemed sufficient answer. "Yes, well, I know you don't like to talk about this sort of thing, and goodness knows I haven't got any sangria to ply you with, so you're going to have to do this sober. Watching the two of you is painful, you know this?"
Claire gave a non-committal grunt, and Adam soldiered on. "Claire, you've got to do something here. The sexual tension alone is making this whole place practically radioactive."
"Yes, well, I'll give you the tension bit, but I'm not entirely convinced it's anything remotely sexual. We were just… close, you know? And now he's obviously upset about something, most likely me. He's going all hot and cold, and I haven't the faintest clue what is going on in that man's head. I feel like I'm watching a tennis match with all these mood swings. This is ridiculous!" Claire stood up and grabbed her mug. She collected Adam's as well, oblivious to his protests that he wasn't finished yet. Claire glowered at the crockery, rinsing them with rather more violence than necessary. With a roll of his eyes, Adam continued.
"It seems to me that he's jealous."
"No, of course not!" Claire objected automatically, willfully ignoring the fact that she had just considered that possibility not five minutes earlier. "I mean, why on earth would he be jealous? It wouldn't make any sense. He's never expressed any sort of interest in me, and it seems far too immature for him to be jealous just because I managed to make a new friend in the last five years."
"Just out of curiosity—what exactly have you told him about me?" Adam inquired, peering into the coffee pot with a hopeful expression, before sullenly shoving the unfortunately bone dry carafe back in the machine.
"Oy! Careful there! If you break that, we're going to be miserable for the rest of our time here. You're just lucky that Quil brought that over for us this morning. I guess he could tell that we were sort of addicted and knew that there was no coffee in the house. Lucky, that, as I hadn't even thought of it until stumbling down the stairs this morning."
"So Quil just showed up out of the goodness of his heart to bring you your life's blood, even though it's been five years with naught but a few measly postcards, in which I'm doubting you regaled him with the mundane details of your caffeine dependency, so he has no reason to know how much of a coffee-aholic you are but was astute enough to figure that out, go out and buy you a freaking coffee maker, and come by your house at eight in the morning to drop it off so that you won't have to go without your morning cup of joe. Now, Claire, please explain to me how you manage to write that off as just good old fashioned friendliness, because from where I'm standing the boy may as well be wearing a huge sandwich board saying "I love you, I need you, I want you, I'm yours!" in bright red letters!"
Rolling her eyes, Claire mumbled a string of denials, which were countered with a disbelieving stare of condescension. "You can't possibly think that Quil brought this over with me in mind, Claire. That was all for you, you deluded nut." Adam argued. His words were a bit snotty, but his tone held little heat and more than a little affection for his singlemindedly oblivious friend.
Feeling indignant and confused, Claire huffed and called Adam several creatively offensive names, before slouching back into a kitchen chair. Adam simply smirked at her obscenities, knowing her well enough to know that she was more frustrated and confused than actually angry. Her arms crossed tightly across her chest, Claire continued to sigh moodily and snort quietly for the next several minutes, obviously thinking heavily. Adam allowed her to mull for a bit before pushing her again.
"You didn't answer my question, you know." He said lightly. Claire's gaze rose to meet his, a somewhat confused expression on her face. "What exactly did you tell Quil about me? Because I am pretty sure that he's crazy jealous, but I'm not sure why he is. Did he have any idea who I was before I showed up here?"
Claire pondered it for a moment. She was sure that she had mentioned Adam in her admittedly shoddy correspondence. She must have told him when she'd moved in, and she was sure that Adam had been mentioned here and there, just random tidbits about work or vacations or their apartment. Again, it seemed incongruous for Quil to get so worked up about her best friend, especially when there was obviously no romantic entanglement.
"Yes, I mentioned you. I'm sure I did. I don't remember all the specifics, but I'm sure I told him about moving in with you, and I'm sure that I mentioned you several other times as well."
"So he knows that we've been living together for a few years?"
"Yes."
"Does he know that we're not involved?"
"Well, of course we're not involved. To start, there's the small matter of me lacking a Y chromosome and the fact that, lovely as you are, I'm not even slightly attracted to you." Adam snorted, but Claire continued. "Besides, I'm in love with someone else. And you, well, you…. Anyway, that's just nonsense. How could he think we were romantically involved?"
"Well, did you happen to mention the fact that I'm gay in any of your long, detailed letters?"
"Ummm…. That is to say, I…. I have no idea if I did or not! I don't remember every word I ever wrote!" She exclaimed defensively, which made Adam chuckle.
"Well, let's be fair then, Claire. He doesn't know that much about your life anymore. You say you've been living with a guy for the last, what, three years? You don't specifically mention the parameters of the relationship, he sees that I've trucked across the entire country with you, and you don't bother with any solid definitions on our obvious closeness—what do you expect the guy to think?"
Claire stared blankly back at him. "Well, I don't know… just seems rather obvious. I thought anyway."
"Well, it's not all on you. Possibly, I could have assisted matters by not showing up in the kitchen without clothes on. But in my defense, I cannot be expected to properly clothe myself without the benefit of at least one cup of coffee, preferably two. Also, I did not know that he was going to be here, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, fixed in a lovelocked gooey eyed staring match with you. You should post a sign or something, hang a tie on the door…"
"Shut up, you." Claire retorted without heat. Satisfied that he'd made his point, Adam just leaned back and stayed silent. "And wipe that obnoxious smirk off your face!"
Adam laughed, "You love my smirk, and you know it."
"Yeah, yeah…" Claire muttered, unable to counter, because it was true—she did love that incredibly annoying smug smirk that graced his face far too often. Other than Quil, Adam was probably the most precious person in her world. She loved him unconditionally and knew very well that despite their bickering and snide remarks, despite the fact that they rarely if ever spoke about their relationship or how they felt, that he loved her too. The emotional spectacle of falling in love and all the wonder and joy of romance and true love were all well and good in Claire's book, but sometimes nothing could quite compare to the wonderful steadfastness of a deep and perfect friendship, unmarred by the passionate ups and downs of romance.
"You know I love you, Adam. I know I don't ever say it, but I do. Just, you know, thought I should make sure you knew." She looked at him very seriously, proud that her squirming was barely noticeable. Talking about emotions made her quite uncomfortable, and she didn't do it often. Adam shifted uncomfortably, also a bit discomfited by the turn of the conversation.
"You don't have to say it—I know. It's not the words, you know—it's… you tell me all the time, Claire, just by being you. And obviously, I love you too. Why else would I hang up my blue polyester and shiny wings just to cart myself across the country and meet a bunch of creepily enormous friends of yours? Seriously, is there something in the water? How do they grow them so gigantic here? You're normal sized after all. There is a hugely disproportionate number of extraordinarily fit men in this town, just saying." Adam, who avoided talking about his own emotions at pretty much any cost, seemed glad to have gotten the sentimental portion of the conversation out of the way and eagerly embraced a new topic.
Claire smiled, happy that they had expressed their feelings and gotten that uncomfortable necessity out of the way. She would, without hesitation, jump in front of a bullet for him and knew he'd do the same for her. Adam was right: some things don't need to be spoken. They both knew and words weren't necessary.
She sighed deeply, realizing that, though words weren't necessary here with Adam, they definitely were required when it came to Quil. She had to get things squared away between them, and words, unfortunately, would be required. She toyed with the end of her long braid, flicking the black hair viciously while considering her options. Obviously, she needed to talk with Quil. However, he seemed extremely jumpy and prone to fleeing the situation whenever the chance presented itself. She worried that she would not be able to express herself properly. She was abysmal when it came to pouring her heart out, and she could easily see the situation going pear-shaped in a hurry. A solid plan and a script would be valuable assets.
She barely glanced up as Adam excused himself, saying something about calling a friend in Seattle to talk about a job. Waving him off, she began crafting a rough version of a confession/explanation speech whose purpose would be to explain all the jumbled emotions that were spinning inside of her. It seemed inconceivable that, as gifted with language as she was, she should struggle with something like this. For years, professors had lauded her ability to weave beautiful prose and sound explanations in a variety of languages. However, enter the variable of her own emotions and the result was inevitably verbal incompetence. She cursed her emotionally stunted brain using a wide variety of rather poetic French obscenities, just to prove to herself that she could still put together a viable sentence. Realizing that her mental quibbling was doing nothing to aid her quest for the perfect articulate confession of true love, she shook her head to clear her thoughts. Unfortunately, where they lead was just as depressing.
A heady mixture of doubt and fear swarmed through her as she worried that if she bungled up this opportunity, Quil might not give her a chance to explain fully. In the past, she never would have believed that Quil would run away from her when she was trying to tell him something important, but she was still struggling to make sense of the juxtaposition of the old Quil and this touchier new version of him.
Frowning, she decided that someone could not change that dramatically, and that the core parts of Quil's personality were definitely still present. That in mind, she decided that, if prefaced with the information that what she needed to tell him was important and that he needed to hear her out, he would do so. No matter his weird moodiness and bipolar responses, he had given absolutely no indication that he did not care for her anymore. And the old Quil would never have done anything to knowingly hurt her. It stood to reason that, though a bit quirkier than usual, he still would not do anything to purposely cause her pain. Deep down, she felt safe in that knowledge. Yes, he was acting in a completely frustrating and confounding manner, but she knew, just knew, that he was still the same man she had fallen in love with. He might be upset about something, but he would always love her and have a special place in his heart for her, albeit probably slightly different and far tinier than the space she would desperately love to procure. That, however, was a problem for another time. The most important issues on the table were to figure out what was upsetting Quil (and hopefully fix it) and to tell him how she felt (and let the cards fall where they would.)
At least she had a plan now. She was quite confident of two things: first, it would be far more difficult than it sounded, and, second, she would, without a doubt, bugger up the entire proceeding into a hereto unfathomably FUBAR situation. With a sigh she laid her head on the table; her next thought was that she was definitely going to need another cup of coffee.