Mighty Fall {Trohley, Petekey}

24: i said i would have this finished by halloween

Andy was a little bit of a nervous wreck.

He was meeting Joe's family, for fuck's sake, he kind of had the right to be nervous. Plus, there was the fact that he was going over for Hanukkah, which was a little terrifying. What if he said something offensive about their religion? What if there was something that he was supposed to bring?

Joe would have told him if there was, though, and Andy put so much of his trust in Joe. There was no way that Joe would have not told him something.

He wondered if Joe was worrying about this too. Clearly his family has been over for a few days, he knew Hanukkah was something like seven or eight days long and Joe had mentioned that they had arrived on Monday and it was now Friday. It was at least the fifth day of Hanukkah.

He distracted himself by peering into the black hole that was his closet. There wasn't much there, he tended to keep his clothes out on the floor of his bedroom or anywhere else but where they were supposed to be. It wasn't like he cared much, but most of the items of clothing that weren't in the closet had been collecting dust on the floor for weeks, so logically he probably should make a decision based on what was in his closet.

As he sorted through countless shirts that he didn't even remember owning, he hummed to himself, the tune of some Christmas song in his head, unheard by anyone else. He probably shouldn't be humming Christmas songs during Hanukkah, that was probably considered disrespectful, but he didn't know of any songs that involved Hanukkah. He really wished that he had learned more about Judaism in school, it seemed really interesting and quite frankly, refreshing compared to the years of his only religious education being Christian-centred.

He scanned his mind for anything he could remember about the religion. Their sacred book was the Torah, their beliefs were similar to Christian ones, and they celebrated different holidays. Six-sided stars were in there somewhere.

That was literally all he knew, religion-wise, about being Jewish. He wondered if celebrating Hanukkah with Joe would be that much of a culture shock. Probably not, they couldn't be that different, could they?

Andy stopped humming and realized that he had been aimlessly sliding the hung shirts on the rack ever since he had been thinking. He went back and inspected the shirts he had passed, and one brought his attention. It was a yellow button-up flannel that he looked good in. It was perfect- formal enough to make him look like he cared but casual enough to not make him look like he overdressed.

He quickly got dressed, his dad was driving him in a couple of minutes. He contemplated putting on a bow tie, but decided against it. He didn't want to put so much time into tying it just to decide it was too much.

On the ride to Joe's house, he and his father sat in silence, listening to the radio but not really. His dad knew where he was going, and he knew that Joe was his son's boyfriend. He didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to know that Joe and Andy probably held hands and kisses and all of those things that high school couples did, because they were two boys, and to him, that was wrong.

However, he knew that saying anything about how he felt to Andy wouldn't help anyone. His son wasn't going to break up with Joe just because he didn't like it. He noticed how Andy was dressed up, clearly today was an important day for them. Was it their anniversary? Were they going to a fancy restaurant or something?

Beside him, Andy was focusing on the view out the window. He counted how long it took them between each stoplight. He took note of the colour of the leaves they passed on the ground, he wondered when would be the first snow of the season.

Andy had always been better than Joe at distracting himself. If there was something he didn't want to focus on, there was always something else to think about. That wasn't always something that he was proud of, being able to put off his problems until they all came crashing down on him, but sometimes, it saved him from unnecessary stress. Like right now.