Marc drummed his fingers against the top of his knee as he waited for her office to open up. Dr. Sterling finally emerged and called him in then. Marc stiffly followed and took his seat across from her. "How have things been going?" she asked.
"Pretty good, actually," Marc paused, lacking for what to say. Things had been going well he didn't feel this need to talk to her anymore. "Brendan and I are still going well. We had, uh..." he twirled his hands off a little bit and felt his face heat.
Dr. Sterling chuckled. "And you were able to get comfortable with it?"
"Yeah." Marc cleared his throat, ready for a subject change. "And Whitney being back has gone pretty good as well. She's trying to figure out if she wants to move state side again, or what. But I mean it sounded like she'd done a lot of reflection on herself too and isn't upset with me. She's even met Brendan now."
Dr. Sterling nodded eagerly. "And so... still nothing from your dad?"
"I think he tried calling some on Ariel's birthday, but I didn't let it happen. And I was finally able to tell Whitney about all of that too, and she supports me in not letting him see Ariel."
"Good, good. Maybe when Ariel is older and can act for herself a little more, she can decide if she wants a relationship at all with him," Dr. Sterling put it out there. "But that'd still be up to you."
"I came out with dating Brendan at his work, too," Marc admitted. "I feel kind of bad about it, but something came up and I ended up having to tell them..."
"That's a pretty big step," Dr. Sterling commented, tapping her pen against her clipboard. "Sounds like you've got a lot going for you now. That's good."
They sat in an awkward silence as Marc shifted in his seat. "So, yeah," he awkwardly spoke up. "I was kind of thinking... maybe seeing you less frequently then?" He felt guilty to cut it off, and maybe that would come somewhere down the road.
"Totally understandable," Dr. Sterling beamed. "Seeing me less isn't really a bad thing, you know. Though I'd always be interested in having you bring in Brendan and having some talks between the three of us. He's obviously an important person who's helped you get to where you are now."
Marc bit his lip. He hadn't considered that very much. "I could bring him in some time. Maybe Ariel or Whitney as well."
Dr. Sterling began ticking off some things on her clipboard then. "Is there anything else you wanted to talk about, then?"
Marc gave her a slight smile. "Not that I can think of."
She hummed to herself. "Well, we can set up your next appointment a bit further out, and then you're welcome to head out if you'd like."
Marc agreed to that, setting up his next one for a little over a month out before leaving the office. He stretched outside and squinted briefly against the sun. It was a nice feeling to only have some good things to tell her. He hadn't been able to think of much else to say.
With that he was able to head towards Ariel's school, where he waited the last few minutes until Ariel was out of class. He walked with her back to Brendan's class while he had to finish up some things at school. Ariel used the time to set out with some colored pencils on one of the tables, and Marc tried to entertain himself with what Brendan was doing.
"With the semester ending, I have to come up with different outlines for final projects for each of the classes," Brendan grumbled, not seeming pleased. "And I teach an art class for each grade every semester. There's only the one other art teacher."
"I didn't even know there were two," Marc pointed out.
"Exactly." Brendan scowled, shuffling some papers together. "And, we've been invited to some staff Christmas party."
"We?" Marc echoed curiously.
"Yes, we. As in I and my 'significant other', as the staff invite so politely put it." He sighed.
"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Marc laughed it off.
"Yes, I mean, the Dean is the one setting everything up and sending out the invitations. It's just weird to get, I think." Brendan made a face between confusion and distaste. "You don't have a staff Christmas party at your work, do you?"
"I do, actually," Marc remembered. "I got an e-mail the other day but I didn't actually read it."
"Shit," Brendan sighed.
Marc shrugged it off. "We can go to both, unless you don't want to."
"I mean it was one thing telling the Dean I was gay when there was the whole accusation thing, but I don't think anyone else knows, really. Would it be weird if I just showed up with you?" Brendan asked.
"Well they'd figure it out pretty damn quick I imagine. Same goes for my workplace. I'll probably only have to tell one person and then everyone else will get it down the grapevine." Marc never had much mixing of his personal and work life, and so he wasn't even sure if anyone knew he was married, divorced, or in this case, dating Brendan. "I don't have a problem letting people know if you don't," Marc added.
"I don't, really. Just... you can't ever know how someone is going to react about it until it's too late, you know?" Brendan settled back in his chair with a huff.
Marc picked at the corner of his desk. "True, I guess. But I would think the people that are okay with it outweigh the ones that aren't, right? And it's just a Christmas party."
"This means presents are coming, too." Brendan sneered. "Time to start making some extra prints, because I'm cheap and I have tons of art I can always give away."
Marc laughed then. "Maybe you could do something with Ariel too? Like a combined thing, for Whitney and her parents and for me. I think that'd be cool."
"Could do woodblock with her," Brendan mused. "Assuming she doesn't somehow stab her hand."
"Maybe not, actually," Marc quickly decided.
"No, no, relax, I'm kidding. There's a rubber stamp kind of printing I could do with her." Brendan waved him off dismissively. "I'll take her into the studio with me sometime soon. But I don't think she gets to come to the staff Christmas party."
"Maybe Whitney could spend a few nights with her, then," Marc suggested.
Brendan sighed and saved a few of the project outlines he had been working on. "Well we've got a week before the one here. And I can probably warn you, teachers can be some of the most embarrassing drunks, compared to how you might have seen them at parent teacher conferences."
***
"Whoever planned these parties must not like us," Brendan decided. "Having them both on the same night."
"It's a few days before Christmas, there's not a lot of other time to do it. Any later and no one would show up because they'll be out of town. Any earlier for you, and it's during the school week," Marc tried to rationalize it. "But we have our plan. Yours first, then we'll split and go to mine, and then home."
"You make it sound so easy," Brendan snorted. "Drunk people never want you to leave."
The school had rented out an event room at a hotel, and the alcohol was already flowing when they got there. One of the kindergarten teachers was already leaning heavily into a table, and the gym teacher had decided to profess his love of his old high school team by loudly singing their fight song.
Brendan set his gift exchange present in with the others, the piece large and rectangular compared to everything else. Making the print itself had been easy enough, but then he'd had to get it framed—that cost more than the printing process itself. Brendan wasn't very happy about having to just give it away. "I should be able to charge them at least a few hundred dollars," he grumbled sourly as they had to walk away. "My print alone is worth some money. Then the frame cost—"
"That's not the point of a present," Marc interjected, taking Brendan's hand as they went to check out the concessions table. They picked through the options of pretzels, marshmallows, and some fruits to all go in the chocolate fountain that was on display. Brendan quickly became more interested in playing with the flow of the chocolate, using pretzel sticks to part it like curtains.
"Stop that," Marc hissed, slapping his wrist.
Brendan rolled his eyes and took them off to socialize. Brendan walked Marc around and introduced him to a few of the other teachers, and gave the Dean an official introduction as the two of them dating. For once she wasn't wearing a resting bitch-face, which was hard for Marc to process. Instead she smiled excitedly, maybe a little on the drunk side, and clapped her hands. "My oldest son just told me he was gay last year," she informed proudly. "Not many other kids like him at his high school... he doesn't go here though, he doesn't want to be known for being my kid."
Marc was more shocked that she was old enough to have a son that could be in high school already. She gave Brendan an engulfing hug then, eventually leaning into him more for support than for an actual hug. Brendan gave Marc a pleading look for help, but Marc could only laugh. She was definitely drunk.
That was probably the highlight of Marc's time at the Christmas party for Brendan's school. The gift exchange took forever to get through, complete with Brendan grumbling unhappily when the first pick went to the biggest present, which was his. "Three hundred dollars, at least, for me to break even on that thing," he whispered angrily.
Marc elbowed him in the side. Everyone made a show about the print, and were so proud of themselves for being able to guess that it was Brendan's, out of all of two art teachers at the school. Brendan got to pick his present then, which ended up being a deluxe edition of a poetry book. Brendan flipped aimlessly through the pages as they waited for an appropriate time to leave and go to Marc's work.
Marc wasn't surprised that it was already in full swing when they got there, with more than a number of people beyond drunk. He nodded familiarly to some of his employees that worked under him, all while keeping Brendan close at his side and fielding stares. They didn't have a gift exchange, but the CEO had little gift bags with trinkets inside for everyone who had given him an RSVP.
It only took a few minutes for one of Marc's underlings to come up and introduce her boyfriend, all while giving Marc and Brendan an expectant look. Marc took a quick sip of alcoholic punch. "This is my boyfriend, Brendan," he finally introduced.
"Oh, didn't we go drinking?" she remembered. "You never said anything then!" she pretended to be offended for a few seconds.
Marc shrugged it off. "We weren't dating, then."
"Well, lucky you," she sighed dramatically, earning a playfully hurt glare from her boyfriend then. "Hey, when you get some cool tattoos, then I won't have to say that."
Brendan's face turned a little red and Marc couldn't help but laugh. A few other people came up and talked to Marc throughout the rest of the night, and he eventually got to introducing Brendan to all of them. Most of them had admitted to already figuring out, since they had shown up together and had been sticking to the same wall all night.
The party started to die off then, and Marc excused them so that they could get home before he lost Brendan to the realm of sleep. "Alcohol makes me drowsy," Brendan murmured. "I'll sleep well tonight."
Marc hummed to himself and ushered Brendan upstairs. "Maybe you can stay awake a little longer, yeah?" He put his hands suggestively on Brendan's hips then as he guided him into the bedroom.
Brendan chuckled and threw himself back onto the bed. "Only maybe if you can keep me entertained."
"I might be able to." Marc began to help Brendan wiggle out of his clothes, which was more on the difficult side as Brendan seemed to not want to move his limbs of his own accord, all while giving Marc a mischievous grin. "Brat," Marc complained when he had gotten them both down to their skin.
Brendan laughed and wrapped his arms up around Marc's neck as he pulled in the other man for a kiss. Brendan was more sloppy than usual, and his hands clumsily felt over Marc's back and chest. Marc worked his kisses downwards, stopping to play with Brendan's nipples before sinking lower. He gave Brendan's erection a brief few strokes and then went aside for the condom and lube.
He drew the preparation out longer than he had before, twisting his fingers and rubbing deep inside. Brendan squirmed and groaned, half in pleasure and half in frustration as Marc wasn't taking it much further. After receiving a prompting kick from Brendan, Marc laughingly put on the condom and debated risking more teasing.
Brendan was giving him a hearty mix between a glare and a pout that was hard to resist, though. Marc let himself sink slowly inside of Brendan then, all while making sure to take his time. He didn't let anything go too hard or fast—he just kept a slow and gentle place.
He could see it frustrated Brendan a bit, but he was enjoying himself nonetheless. It was almost lethargic, keeping them both at a point of pleasure but not nearly as close to orgasm as they wanted to be. Marc made sure to milk it for as long as he could though, watching Brendan's eyes flutter with each slow thrust.
Eventually Marc got tired of Brendan impatiently pinching him from time to time, and so he used a free hand to help bring Brendan up to climax. "Fuck," Brendan groaned, straining back against the bed as Marc continued to grind inside of him. It didn't take very long from there before he was coming, and only then did Marc quicken his pace enough to bring himself to an orgasm as well.
Brendan happily wrapped his arms and legs around Marc's body then, keeping him in place for a little while as he buried his face against Marc's neck.
"You okay?" Marc asked, half-heartedly trying to escape Brendan's death grip.
"Tired," Brendan continued to complain.
"Let me go and we can go to sleep," Marc promised.
Brendan relinquished and flopped back into the bed, but with his eyes still open and fixed up on the ceiling. Marc went into the bathroom to get a warm washcloth so that they could clean up a bit before actually falling asleep. He joined Brendan on the bed and gave him a slow rubdown while the cloth was still warm. "Tomorrow is going to suck," Marc began. "Waking up, getting out of bed to brace the cold, cold day..."
Brendan let out a groan of distress and closed his eyes. "Shhh."
"You could just not leave the house," Marc theorized. "Ever."
Brendan frowned and peeked at him. "Holding me hostage?"
"Try a lame, when your lease ends, maybe you could consider moving in?" Marc put it out more plainly. Maybe both of them had had a little too much to drink.
Brendan stared at him for a few seconds. "Explain that to Ariel?"
"I think she already gets most of it, and at this point, you're over here pretty often... but I mean, I'd like you to," Marc admitted sheepishly.
"And to think," Brendan sighed dramatically. "There was a point when you were straight."
Marc gave him a light smack in the arm. "Says the one who dragged me out."
Brendan shrugged, not even bothering to defend himself. "I'd need an extra room."
"For what?" Marc chuckled.
"Art." Brendan dramatically extended his arms up to the ceiling. "I need a space."
"You and Ariel... this whole place is going to get covered up in artwork, isn't it?" Marc pretended to sound irritated about it. "But yeah, obviously we'd work something out."
Brendan rolled over on his side and got comfortable with one of the pillows. "My lease is up in August."
"August it is then," Marc chuckled, stroking Brendan's hair as he drifted off to sleep.
~~~~The End
****
A/N: I'm bad with conclusive endings...