Snafu

Harmony - Part 1

When he arrived home, Gideon immediately dropped his coat on one of the tables in the great room and came to kneel in front of Cole. He was curled up on one of the divans, staring at the huge landscape painting with a steaming mug of coffee cradled in his hands, which Jessica had delivered only moments before.

She had waited with him until he calmed down on the patio, then herded him inside with stern instructions to take a shower and some pain meds and drink lots of water. As she fussed over him, he told her that when he first arrived, he had resolved never to make messes that she would need to clean up, then laughed at himself jaggedly. She patted him on the top of his head and told him not to worry so much.

After toweling off and changing into some of Gideon's soft pajamas, he curled up in the great room and was fed a steady diet of coffee and little snacks to pick at, like dried fruits and fancy, salted chocolate bars. The kinds of things that Gideon usually had ready when they were finished with a particularly intense scene also worked well after he had sobbed his brains out on the patio earlier.

Gideon wasted no time getting right to the elephant in the room.

"Baby, tell me what's wrong," he demanded, putting both his hands on Cole's face and wiping at the exhaustion bruises under his red-rimmed eyes. Cole had to look like a mess. He had been crying on and off all day, see-sawing between resolve to tell Gideon and terror that made him want to throw his stuff in a bag and disappear forever. He felt the waterworks begin again, his nose growing hot and his eyes burning. Half the reason Jessica kept bringing him coffee and water was because she was worried that he was going to dehydrate himself while already hungover.

Gideon, on the other hand, looked put together in his work suit with a blank expression, save the way his eyebrows pinched just slightly. Cole desperately hoped he would keep that composure. From his handwriting on the note left this morning, he knew Gideon was not in a particularly good mood, but at least he came in and knelt and touched Cole's face gently and asked one more time with patience instead of looming over him and shouting as Cole had half-expected him to.

"I'm glad you're home," Cole sniffed, delaying just a little longer. Gideon's brows drew together more. Cole glanced toward the patio, where there was no longer any mess, then made eye contact with one of the portraits that had watched his entire meltdown and finally looked at Gideon.

"I have to tell you something." He pushed the blankets away from his shoulders a bit, knocking Gideon's hands off his face so that he could put his feet on the ground and brace his hands against the cushion of the divan. Opening his posture so there was nothing between him and Gideon. "Please don't...you're going to be mad, but please don't...yell at me or..."

He twisted his lips and looked down at his feet. His toes were only a couple of inches away from Gideon's knees. It was not fair to ask Gideon not to yell because he certainly deserved to be angry at Cole. But if Gideon started to get agitated, Cole might end up shutting down and not saying everything he had resolved to say.

Gideon stood up so that he could sit beside Cole, perhaps sensing that this would be a long conversation that he did not want to remain kneeling on his kneecaps for. "I'll listen to you," he said.

"I need you to hear out everything that I'm going to say," Cole said a little more clearly, then paused to clear his throat because his voice was already shaking. He looked down at his hands. They were trembling, so he stuffed them under his thighs. He looked at the piano. He looked at the ceiling.

Gideon waited silently.

"Um," he laughed a little to himself. "Fuck. You know how James approached me and tried to, like, hold the debt over my head?"