Only Ash Remains [boyxboy]

Chapter XXVII

~Wednesday 18th March 2015~

Erin had slacked on his work recently. With everything that had happened, he had been focusing on the present rather than the past. That morning, with Ross busy in meetings in his home office, he decided to return to the basics. He settled himself in the living room, in the corner of the couch, and put in his headphones. With his laptop settled on his legs, and a blanket draped loosely over his shoulders, Erin just listened to the sound of his father's voice and typed.

For the first half an hour, he didn't move. He just listened. He wasn't even paying much attention to the words, he was just listening to his father talk. Henri had a smooth voice, one that Erin had always loved to listen to as a child. When he had been very young, Henri had always been the one to read him bedtime stories. Never Tabitha - although she didn't seem to mind. Not from what Erin could tell, then again, being so young, he could have interpreted the situation all wrong.

Still, it was nice to zone out for once, to forget everything else around him and just scribe out the voice notes he managed to salvage from the fire that killed his father. It took a long time, especially since Henri tended to speak pretty quickly - and go on more than a few tangents, but Erin didn't mind. He had fifty tapes to begin with, he was down to his final ten now. After that, he could begin his own project, then compile the research together all in one place and... Well, Erin hadn't really thought about what he might do after that.

During one of the many tangents that Henri went on, Erin's gaze drifted down to the bracelet hanging loosely around his wrist. It was his gift from Ross, and he had almost forgotten about it. He only found it a few days ago when he and Ross collected those boxes from the house he had shared with Jordan. There were still more boxes, things that he had at his mother's, but he wasn't quite ready for that yet. Ross didn't seem to mind either, he was happy with waiting.

"Hey," Erin smiled, removing one of his headphones and pausing the audio on the old cassette player nestled beside him. Ross mirrored his expression, looking as beautiful as always, standing in the doorway and leaning against the frame. He was wearing a suit, since he was in video conferences and had to look the part. Even so, the sleeves were rolled up, as always, and the top button undone. Ross only smirked when he noted Erin's wandering gaze.

"What are you doing in here?" Ross walked around to the side of Erin, crouching down and looking at his laptop. Erin couldn't help himself, giggling as he took Ross' glasses and put them on himself. With his own eyesight having been cleared up when he was sired, it was somewhat amusing to him now to try on Ross' glasses whenever he could. Call it reminiscing.

"Scribing out my dad's notes," Erin ran his fingers through Ross' hair, loosening it up a little, preferring the more casual look on him. Ross never minded, he just remained still and allowed Erin to adjust his appearance in whatever way the boy saw fit. He smiled too, and always kissed Erin after, like a silent thank you.

"I thought everything was lost in the fire," lifting the cassette player, Ross turned it over in his palm, frowning down at it, "how many of these do you have?" Ross placed the cassette player back where it had been sitting beside Erin's thigh, his fingertips brushing against the boy's leg as he did so, making him wish that they weren't both so occupied that day. Without his glasses, had to squint to look at the screen, so Erin gave up his fun and placed them back on the bridge of his nose.

"Fifty or so they were the only things salvageable. My dad was... Weird in the days before he died," Erin almost grimaced, having not thought back to that day intentionally for a long time. Years of child therapy made it somewhat bearable, but Erin was never the same. And his dreams weren't either. Who wouldn't be haunted by the charred corpse of their own father? At this point, Erin simply took dead bodies into his stride, he had discovered enough of his own loved ones to build up a tolerance.