[unedited; it's late and I'm tired, I'll fix this soon]
Marvin rushed back out of his bedroom where he had exchanged his black blazer for a green one. His way to the door was blocked by Whizzer, who had taken it upon himself to pick up Marvin's case that he had thrown into the corner of their living room carelessly.
"Why in such a hurry? You don't need to pick up Jason for another two hours." A smirk spread over Whizzer's face as Marvin stumbled past him. He wrapped an arm around Marvin's waist to hold him back. "Hey, we're having dinner tonight. You promised! I didn't spend the past hour cooking for nothing."
"Oh, shit, right. I'm sorry, Whiz, I completely forgot about that." Whizzer's smile dropped. "The parent conference at Jason's school Trina asked me to go to is today. I have like twenty minutes before it starts."
"Oh, I'm sure Trina didn't trust you to remember it and went there herself." Whizzer put the briefcase down.
"If you actually cared for our family life just a little bit you would know that Mendel and her are visiting Mendel's parents in Italy, so no. Trina certainly didn't go there herself. What are you doing?"
Whizzer was putting on his own jacket now. "Coming with you? If you want me to participate in your family life you should let me accompany you to the conference." And with that he was out of the door already. Marvin knew that fights between them two couldn't be solved in nineteen minutes, so he didn't even try to protest.
Marvin was glad the traffic wasn't bad this time. Although it would have been a good excuse to only make it last minute. At least for his own conscience.
"You know, Marv, in a way I'm happy you did forget about our dinner, because that means you didn't intend to wear that vile blazer to our little date. On the other hand, that black one was fine and you should have kept it for the conference."
"You just say it was fine because you bought it for me."
"I say it's fine because you didn't pick it."
Marvin swerved the car into an empty parking lot and glanced at himself in the rear mirror.
"The mirror won't help you. This can't be fixed in a couple of seconds."
"Thanks, Whizzer. I always appreciate your compliments."
Whizzer grinned, ran his hand through his hair so it flopped into place with all its glory and gave Marvin a peck on the lips before hopping out of the car.
As they both jogged to the building where a friendly couple was holding the door open for them Marvin suddenly remembered why he never took Whizzer to those occasions. Because they weren't that friendly couple holding doors open. Because noone would want them to hold doors open for anyone if they knew they were a couple.
They weren't the last ones to arrive at the classroom. Marvin hastily wiped the sweat off his forehead and followed Whizzer to the pair of seats he had chosen for them.
"Wow, half a parking lot and a flight of stairs. You're really out of shape. Gotta work on you stamina." Whizzer chuckled and nudged him.
Marvin wanted to tell Whizzer that he was sweating because of his building anxiety. And that he wasn't complaining about Marvin's stamina this morning. And that he didn't want to be nudged. Instead, all that left his lips was "Yeah."
So far, nobody was giving them looks. He sighed and sunk deeper into the uncomfortable chair. Whizzer was already starting a conversation with a parent Marvin had never seen before. In fact, he hadn't seen most of these people before. Apart from the Applebaums, who were sitting at the far end of the room, there were few familiar faces. Funnily enough, he was more out of place than Whizzer, even if this was his own child that went to the exact same school for the past few years.
The door closed and Jason's English teacher started speaking. It was what Marvin assumed would be the usual. Welcoming everyone, giving a basic overview over the upcoming school year, telling them about the different activities that their children could participate in, ... Marvin tried his best to remember as much information as possible so Trina would actually believe that he went and didn't just let it slide.
For the past months he noticed how accusatory his ex-wife had gotten with him. Apparently, he didn't spend enough time with his son, didn't care enough about his life. Whizzer told him he did great and that he was a great father, which Marvin didn't believe. Mendel told him it was probably because Jason was acting up more, now, that he hit puberty, and Trina was just stressed, which Marvin believed.
As so often when you want to focus, Marvin drifted off into his thoughts about how he could take more stress off Trina and help her with Jason. He was brought back to reality when Whizzer's foot brushed up and down his leg. Marvin shot him a look and Whizzer stopped, but smiled at him. Marvin steered his attention back to the front, where the teacher was now talking about the class in general.
"They are amazing children, really. I enjoy teaching them." She let her gaze fly over the parents, stopping on Marvin and Whizzer. She just smiled and continued. "We also have a new student in our class. It's been great to see how welcoming all of them were."
Her eyes flew back to Whizzer. "Are you Nick's father?"
Marvin began to sweat again, but Whizzer didn't seem to notice. "Oh, no, I'm with him." He nodded in Marvin's direction. Good. That could be interpreted in different ways.
"Ah, yes, Jason told me about your relationship." She turned her attention to another man in the room, but the other parent's kept staring.
The world relationship kept replaying in Marvin's head. That couldn't be interpreted differently. He knew that. And everyone else in the room knew that. And while he felt his blood crawl into his head and their gazes burning into the back of his neck, the echo ebbed down. For a second he thought he went deaf, but he could still hear the teacher talking to Nick's father. It's just that noone else was talking.
Before, there were little murmurs here and there, but they had all stopped. Marvin didn't know if it would have been better to hear them talk about them. To hear them whisper about the gay men. About how disgusting it was and how it all became a trend now, that people are encouraged to turn gay because there's no penalty waiting for them anymore. About how they will go to hell. About how they will doom their children. Or all children in this school. About how everyone was scared they could do something to their boys and how they never wanted any homos near their children and how they would revolt if either him or Whizzer were allowed on any school trips.
Because maybe, Whizzer would then turn around and verbally slam them and their homophobic thoughts to the ground, like Marvin had witnessed a lot of times already.
But the classroom stayed quiet until the parent conference was over and everyone got up and collected their belongings. From the corner of his eye Marvin could see how Whizzer turned over to the parents he talked to before and started up their conversation again. He could also see that the conversation ended rather quickly. He also caught the Applebaums glance before they turned away and left the room.
He wasn't sure Trina ever told them why they divorced. But he was sure he would need to find another synagogue. He was sure it would soon be told around everywhere.
Marvin left without another word. Even Whizzer seemed to notice something is off and shut up until they're in their car and on the way to Trina's house, where they are going to pick up Jason.
"I think for my first time at a get together like this, I did pretty well. However, I don't think parent conferences are quite my scene."
"Yeah, usually you're not outed during those."
Whizzer looked at Marvin as they drove into Trina's driveway. "Oh, so that's what's wrong? You're embarrassed?"
"Not embarrassed. Scared."
Whizzer rolled his eyes and smiled. "I think it went pretty well. It was definitely the most interesting part of that hour. And, hey, noone beat us up afterwards, so it's not the worst coming out I've had."
Marvin doesn't respond. Instead, he leaves the car and goes to get Jason, who immediately tells him he didn't have to pick him up so early and that he was enjoying having the place all to himself.
"Jason, you're a child. You shouldn't be left alone at a house."
"Dad, I'm twelve and a half. I'm old enough." Jason popped into the backseat next to Whizzer, who had changed his place while Marvin was gone. The two of them were having an amazing time during the entire ride. Jason mostly talked about school and girls and baseball and Whizzer talked about baseball and gave Jason tips for the girls. Even though Whizzer was gay and probably didn't have that much experience with girls. Even though Jason was only twelve.
They finished their dinner rather quickly and Whizzer wasn't even mad he couldn't spend it with Marvin alone, since Jason loved the food and let Whizzer know. But Marvin was quiet the entire time. Even when Whizzer jokingly acknoledged that Jason had given him more compliments in the past hour than Marvin had the past week.
The first words that left his mouth that evening was 'fuck'. Thank God Jason was already in bed by then.
"I'd love to," Whizzer smirked and dove onto the bed, next to Marvin "but your son's sleeping next door."
"Shut up Whiz, I'm really not feeling well."
"I'm not your psychiatrist." Whizzer's arms fell around Marvin and the man started kissing down his chest. Marvin scooted away.
"Seriously, Whizzer, stop." Whizzer stopped when he heard Marvin's voice crack at the end. They laid in silence for some time until Whizzer moved up to meet Marvin's eyes.
"You know, I'm not your psychiatrist, but I guess I could listen."
"It's just a lot, you know?" Marvin started, carefully, grateful for Whizzer wanting to listen to him. That didn't happen a lot. "I mean, Trina is still dealing with us being gay", he heard Whizzer scoff but continued, "and her parents still won't believe all this and try to find a scapegoat, which seems to be me. And they're right. I flipped my steady life upside down for something this reckless."
Whizzer booped his nose. "I'll take that as a compliment."
"And honestly, I sometimes just want to have my life back. Because I didn't have to think. I just did what everyone wanted me to. And suddenly I'm having this whole crisis. But I have to be there for everyone. Especially my son, who, by the way, seems to be more ok with my sexuality than I am. And now the one decision I could make about this entire thing was taken from me. The decision when I wanted to come out and how and to whom. It was just taken away from me. I guess men get what they deserve, but God didn't even let me have this last bit of dignity."
Whizzer waited to make sure Marvin didn't have anything else to say before he cleared his throat. "Well, at least now you have one thing less to worry about: your coming out. Plus, you don't have to keep secrets and make excuses for us everywhere."
Now it was Marvin's time to scoff. "Yeah, fantastic. Did you even hear what I said? This was the one decision I had."
"You know what, Marv? Life never goes as planned. I thought you of all people would know this now. You're not gonna have it you way and sometimes decisions are made for us. And learning that is growing up."
For a while you could only hear their soft breathing in the dark.
"That sounded very smart, Whiz, I'm impressed."
"Sorry to devestate you, but I picked that up from Mendel. It's what he told Jason at his Bar Mitzvah."
"Huh. I guess that's less of a surprise than you actually spitting wisdom."
Both of them chuckled and Whizzer went back to kissing down Marvin's chest until he found his detstination.