hometown
Written for August Fic Challenge 2023, Prompt: Fireflies. Fiest try at HOA fic, probably won't be the last. Set ~2007. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!
Jason sits on the storm-weathered front porch of the house he'd grown up in. He hasn't been here since he bolted at 18. He hadn't planned to ever come back.
The house behind him is a mess. Apparently his father wasn't much for upkeep in these last few years, all alone in this shitty old house. The roof shingles are falling off here and there, the shutters and siding have been through a few too many hurricanes, the yard is wild and overgrown and the forest on the edges is slowly attempting to claim it all back. Inside isn't much better. Everything in there is covered with a sticky yellow layer of nicotine, and empty bottles and take-out containers litter the place. He's not surprised – his father had always made the place seem miserable and now it was nothing but.
With a heavy sigh, he stares out into the dusk of a summer night, the air humid and thick around him in a way it hadn't been in a desert a world away from here. He sips idly at the frosty beer in his hands and watches the fireflies flicker in the darkness of the trees beyond, frogs and katydids and crickets creating an evening chorus.
The screen door opens and closes behind him and a second later a hand lands on his shoulder. He startles in anticipation of his father's approach, but this touch is familiar in another way and instead he relaxes into the comforting grip. His eyes flick up to find Salim beside him. With a grunt of acknowledgement, he scoots over so Salim can join him, his own drink in hand.
"Are you okay?"
Another grunt, because even Jason doesn't know the answer to that.
His father is dead. The house is his.
He doesn't care. He doesn't want it.
He doesn't even want to be here, but he is. For as long as it takes to clear the place out and deal with the old bastard's miniscule estate. Sign some papers and get the fuck out of this town before anyone he used to know gets too curious about what he's been up to since he left it all behind.
He feels Salim's eyes on him, no doubt concerned.
His eyes drift over to his father's old truck in the gravel driveway, loaded full of trash bags and piles of junk. They'll take it all to the dump in the morning, then come back, load it up with more crap, and do it all again.
His eyes drift back to Salim, then, and he can already sense that the other man has something he wants to say. He's been wandering through the house the last ten minutes or so and Jason's sure he's happened upon more than a few ghosts in there.
"I can hear you thinkin'," Jason says, the words easy and familiar. He bumps his shoulder against Salim's and manages a smile.
"You know, we've been at this for three days and I haven't found a single thing of yours that he kept. Not a picture of you as a child.. Not a drawing or trophy or card. It's like he erased you from this house."
And Jason can't really argue. He'd pretty much done the same. And there hadn't exactly been a lot of trophies or drawings or cards or pictures, not since before his mother died when he was young, nearly too young to remember her at all. Those things had existed, back then, pictures of them as a family, home videos of vacations or birthdays or holidays. They'd been gone long before he was, though.
Salim's hand curls around his, thumb moving in a gentle back and forth. "I'm sorry, direi," Salim says, and it is the last thing Jason expects to hear. "I'm sorry that your father was not the man you needed him to be."
And that's a fucking understatement, Jason thinks. He's well aware that Salim knows everything, that he's heard all the stories by now, almost five years since the disaster in the Zagros Mountains that brought them to each other. They've been together for most of that time, apart at first, then reunited in the UK. Now, they've made the trip back to Jason's hometown.
And he can't imagine a world where his father was a decent guy. Can't imagine a world where he was a decent son, either. However, he can't fathom ever treating a kid the way his father treated him. Can't imagine ever treating Zain that way. Hell, he has multiple pictures of Salim and Zain on him at all times. Tucked away in his wallet, the background on his cell phone. "I'm not," he finally settles on. "Sorry, I mean. He was a piece of shit, but…" he voice breaks a little, and Salim squeezes his hand to sooth him, "Hey, if he hadn't been such a hardass, I might not have run off and joined up, might not have met you, and where would you be without me?"
"Not being eaten alive by mosquitoes, probably," Salim teases.
Jason scoffs, but he is not wrong. He had forgotten about how bad the damn bugs were.
It's hard to be comfortable here, feels like his father's ghost is lurking around every corner, waiting for him to fuck up or ready to lay into him for daring to bring someone like Salim here, with entirely too many insults to choose from.
But fuck that.
His father is not here. His father is six feet under in a graveyard across town and he can never interfere in Jason's life, his choices, ever again. He fought monsters with the man beside him, his sword in the darkness, and he's earned the right to love him, to have a life with him, happy and content.
"I love you," he says, leans over to press his lips to Salim's, and of course Salim says them back.
He stands, pulls Salim to his feet, too, and drags the man into the house while the fireflies dance on across the sky.