I love Henry Spencer. I really love him, and I love writing his point of view. He's like this badass bear daddy enduring all the crap his son, and now his son's boyfriend manage to come up with and trying to pick up the pieces afterwards. And framing him in a family dinner is just too much fun.

Out of the Blue

When Henry Spencer was a rookie, he once witnessed a full building fire. There had been a mild suspicion of arson, so their chief sent him and his squad to collect witnesses and basically to watch how grown-up officers worked. He had spent the whole time standing side by side with a newbie firefighter, coughing on smoke, just outside the circle of fire and extinguishers, and he still remembered everything: the flames bursting high in the night, his animal brain screaming him to turn and flee as fast as possible. Above all, he remembered how outraged and terrified he had felt in front of it. Those men running around in overalls and pumps were trained to it, and still some of them would be burnt and hurt bad and scarred by that fire before the night ended. Rooms and family furniture were gone. People had lost homes. No one would ever know why. The flames had just rushed out, because that's what flames do, the young firemen said, 'til at some point they'd stop. Spreading havoc with no reason at all. Totally out of the blue. In his entire life Henry had never found something so completely out of his control, so utterly impossible to foresee, and nothing had ever scared him worse.

At least until he had Shawn. And later he had Shawn's couple to dinner.

Henry moved around the plate the Deli smashed potatoes, resisting the urge to get up and crash them on the two men sitting in front of him.

-For the last time, it was a joke. I didn't mean anything bad.-

-You made my phone ring in the middle of a meeting with the mayor, and with that Hellish ringtone moreover.-

-If you decided to finally learn how to use a Smartphone this wouldn't ever happen.-

-It was "Dancing with Myself", Spencer. It went on two minutes before O'Hara shut it up.-

They were arguing over ringtones. Holy crap.

-Every time it's the same story.- Carlton growled. -You have no respect for any proper boundary.-

-It was a joke, Grandpa.-

-Measure your words, Spencer.-

-You ever listen to yourself? You're boring, Lassie!- Shawn hissed fiercely. -You're boring!-

-I asked you forty times to change that ringtone!-

-As every normal guy know how to do. It's not my fault if you grew up like a Steinbeck's character!-

Two pairs of shocked faces turned to him. Shawn shrugged.

-What? I peek into Lassie's books when I'm bored.-

Henry gulped down a bite of potatoes and decided to draw back in his special place. Carlton and Shawn' arguments were getting nearly a constant feature of family dinners: they ended either with Shawn sprawled on his couch for the night or them holding hands . Sometimes both. Henry had never done it. Seeing his son arguing with a lover, ranting about their faults and then waiting for the phone to drill with seal-pup eyes. It was strange. Was that having a Father-son bond? A grown man snorting on your couch and Thursday evenings with no control over TV? It seemed so.

Meanwhile the two idiots were still bickering. Henry caught the words "stick" and " better than parchment" thrown around the table. Shawn rolled his eyes and grumbled. Carlton was clutching the fork with an alarming glare.

Luckily enough, the fork was just stuck in the steak with enough force to clang against the plate as Lassiter shot on his feet.

-Thanks for the dinner Henry. May you excuse me?-

-Sure Carlton.-

-Can I leave your son here for a moment?-

-As long as you don't stab him, Carlton.-

By that point Lassiter was obviously very beyond sarcasm, so he just nodded and marched towards the door with jacket in hand. Shawn scampered up as soon as he realized he was really going away. He whined.

-Oh, c'mon Lassie! Don't be such a tight-pants!-

Henry sighed and began to pile the plates as his son dashed after his boyfriend. He tried to remember if he still had a clean cover for the couch without feeling annoyed enough.

The fact was he liked both of them. They were good men, or something like that, and he had no problem to shout them to quit the crap. They could even do together well, in time. But there were variables. Accidents he couldn't even fathom right now. When or if they would snap apart, and how much it would hurt, and what they'd do after. What happens when two strong-willed, proud males break up like he and Maddie had broken? Nothing good for sure.

He walked in his kitchen just as the front door bang behind the idiots. It could become a problem, all of that. But right now it wasn't. It was nothing he could control. He could just hope the flames would leave something, and that by then he'd held by enough extinguishers.

Henry put down the plates and peered through the window over the kitchen sink. Watching as Shawn ran to the Ford, nearly got his hand snapped in the door, squeaked.

Nothing he could control.