Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’m not panicking.”

“You are.”

“I’m clearly not.”

“Elliot. You’re panicking, and that’s okay, because I’m a little bit anxious, too.”

Okay. So maybe Elliot is panicking, and maybe Leo admitting to it makes it a bit easier to accept that. He lets his shoulders slump and takes a deep breath. He knows that it’s a stupid thing to do this now of all times when Leo has his surgery in three days, but also that’s exactly why he’s doing this. Because his parents would scold him for spending so much time at the hospital when he should be studying, and they wouldn’t excuse it if it was a friend.

Okay, bullshit reasoning.

In fact, Leo has been Elliot’s boyfriend for ages now. And he’s known he’s gay for ages, but he’s never quite managed to make himself tell his family, which is incredibly stupid and upsetting and stressful. It’s just lies piling up and up, and Elliot wants nothing more than to be honest because he was raised to be by those very people.

The issue just lies in the fact that his family doesn’t appear like the most accepting family to him. Ernest might just be fine. Claude? Debatable. Fred? Probably a homophobe. Vanessa? Don’t even get Elliot started, he just knows this girl would call him the f-slur or worse. Is there worse? Elliot doesn’t know if there’s worse.

He’s still pacing around Leo’s small room though, which, yeah, is definitely small. Not even half the size of his own. Leo’s only been at his three times, and only together with Oz. Usually, they just meet up at Oz’s, because no one really likes Elliot’s parents (understandably so), and Leo only has this small room which makes it quite hard for studying. And it’s still bigger than Lily’s at that – she’s got the smallest in the entire house, and it’s basically just her bed, a desk, a small wardrobe, and like half a meter between those so that she can walk.
Basically, it looks exactly like the university student accommodations Leo has been looking into that he might be able to afford in case he gets a scholarship.

“A bit,” he admits out loud eventually, and Leo looks at him, rolling his eyes behind his glasses.

“Finally you admit it, Jesus fucking Christ, Elliot. And now, you sit down, and stop driving me mad with all that stupid running around.”

“I can’t,” he says, “if I sit down I’ll actually start panicking.”

“If you don’t sit down right now I’m actually going to lie to our teachers that the one who stole the sports day medal was you, and not Noise.”

“God, fuck, don’t you dare,” Elliot hisses, and immediately walks over to Leo’s bed to sit down on it.

And starts bobbing his legs up and down, because he’s completely restless and not okay at all.

“This is a horrible idea,” he says, “I’m sorry, we shouldn’t do it. I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

Because his family will totally reject him, and he knows it. So why is he still so adamant on telling them? What’s wrong with him? Well, clearly, being gay is the thing wrong with him. In fact, he still thinks that sometimes. It took a lot of Oz’s encouragement and Leo’s snarky comments about how he can’t do any independent thinking to even admit that he’s gay, much less accept it.

It took a while.

He’s coming around, but he feels like his family rejecting him might just make him take a step back.

But on the other side?

God, Elliot is just so done hiding. He’s so tired of it. Tired of saying ‘friend’ instead of ‘boyfriend’, tired of saying he’s going to Oz’s when he’s going to Leo’s just so they don’t suspect it.

God, that’s the next problem – Leo is an orphan. His family probably doesn’t think the highest about people without parents, either. Or well, poor people for that matter. Fred and Claude and his father look down even on their own workers around the house. To be fair, his mom, Ernest, and Vanesa have a much better track record with that. Vanessa still seems really bigoted though, so that’s nice.

Oh, this is all a disaster.

“You are, Elliot. You don’t want to hide anymore. It’s okay. There’s always a solution even if they kick you out and stuff. I mean, you could camp out here. Or at Oz’s. I’m sure Oscar wouldn’t mind, they’ve got enough money to get you through if your parents cut that off, too, okay? Or Alice’s, and I know you don’t like her, but I’m sure Levi would be okay with that. Or Gilbert’s. Or Vincent’s.”

That much is true.

Because… of course, his family rejecting him would hurt.

But that wouldn’t be all of his family, because he still has Gilbert and Vincent, even if they aren’t blood-related. He still has his friends.

“And if they don’t accept you, then… they’re barely family anyways, right?” Leo says, and he even offers him a tiny smile.

Usually, Leo is all snark and sarcasm and criticism, but when it counts, then he’s going to be there for you. He’ll drop all the façade and try to make the best of a situation, because he’s headstrong and stubborn, but that also means Leo always goes on, that Leo doesn’t give up.

“Yeah,” he whispers, “you’re right.”

“I always am.”

Ah.

And there it’s right back. That side of Leo.

But oh, Elliot loves him regardlessly, because of course he does.

“Alright. Then, we’ve got to get ready. You need to get properly dressed. I’m not introducing you to my family as my boyfriend in sweatpants and a grey hoodie with pasta sauce stains on it.”

“It’s the canned baked bean sauce, actually.”

“Leo, I don’t care what sauce it is, get out of it.”

“Ugh. Fine. You want to see me strip, I get it.”

And the guy actually has the guts to not take off his clothes in a normal manner, but make a little dance out of it. Pointedly, Elliot turns around, because he’s not bothering with this today.

(Or rather, Elliot doesn’t want to get horny when he’s in a very panicky state anyways.)

So, to make himself useful and attempt Leo’s admittedly rather poor attempt at seduction – the guy can’t dance for the life of him, maybe Elliot has to teach him one of these days – he turns towards his wardrobe.

His wardrobe is…

Well, a mess, to put it as briefly as one could. Elliot wouldn’t be willing to describe this thing in greater detail, not even for a creative writing assignment.

He combs through tons of loose t-shirts and button-ups, but most of them are either flannel or checkered, which isn’t formal enough for Elliot’s family at all. After more searching, he finds a black button up and a dark purple v-neck t-shirt, which he thinks should compliment Leo’s eyes very well, so that’s what they’re going for.

…However, the most formal pants he can find are grey skinny jeans. With holes in them. Well, that’ll have to do. They’re teenagers. They see teenagers with ripped jeans all the time. His family will survive that.
Ugh, Elliot can already smell the ‘doesn’t he have money for proper pants’ comment that Oz gets every single time he wears his single pair of ripped jeans and he shows up at his house.
Not that Oz cares, but.

“Alright. This is what you’ll be wearing to meet my parents properly this time,” Elliot says and hands the bundle of clothes to a half-naked Leo, only in binder, underwear, and socks now. He takes them with a look that tells Elliot that he’s okay with the choice in theory, but he’d much rather go back to his sweatpants and stained hoodie.

Grumbling still, he changes into them, then presents himself to Elliot.

“Fine like that, Sir Rich-ass-family-that-can’t-be-pleased?”

“Sort of,” Elliot sighs, “put your hair up. You can wear your glasses.”

He knows Leo has a weird complex about his eyes, so wearing glasses is fine, but he should at least try with his hair. What is he, some rat in a big city subway carrying a large, moldy piece of pizza?

Why’s he in love with him again?

“I don’t like putting my hair up.”

“Get used to it, you won’t want it getting caught in your post-surgery binder and that stuff either now, do you?”

That gets Elliot another scowl, but in the end, also a small nod.

“Alright. Get Lily, because you suck at doing anything with hair,” Leo commands, and for once, even though he wants to complain, Elliot has to admit that he’s right.
Elliot couldn’t even give him a ponytail, probably. And Leo can’t do more than the messiest ponytail in the world, either. He only has a few very old and strained hairties, so it’s probably for the best if he just gives up, doesn’t argue, and fetches Lily.

So, two minutes later, Elliot returns to Leo’s room with Lily, and her huge basket of hairties and hairclips that she got gifted both from her friends at school, as well as Fang and Doug, and some that she bought herself with her pocket money.

“Oh no, Lily,” Leo warns, “you’re not going anywhere near me with pink-“

“Don’t worry!” she says, all cheerful and grins and smiles as she approaches him, pushing some books off his nightstand to put the basket down on it and fiddle around in it until she retrieves a purple hairtie and black bobby pins.

And gets to work just a second later, kneeling behind Leo on his bed.

“So, you’re actually gonna try coming out to your family, Elliot? Do you think you’ll be fine?”

“…Probably not,” Elliot sighs, staring at Lily combing through Leo’s hair to force it back as much as she can, given just how uneven the strands really are, and damn, Elliot really has to force Leo to sit through a haircut one of these days.

“Well, it can’t be worse than mine,” Lily says, and Elliot wants to really and sincerely say that yeah, nothing could get worse than abusing your child and kicking her out for saying that she’s trans, but he won’t, because Lily is smiling a little, as if this is meant to be encouragement.

Elliot is going to let her keep that belief for now.

“I mean, you can just live with us if something goes wrong, right? I doubt Fang and Doug would mind.”

“They did already offer,” Leo explains, looking more than just a bit peeved at Lily stroking the last bits of hair out of his eyes for now, which Elliot thinks looks so much better already. Leo has a nice face, and he should learn to show it off more than he does. He looks good, really. Otherwise he might not have fallen in love with him.

Ah, who is he kidding, Leo could look however bad, and Elliot would still want him.

“Did they?” he asks though, remembering the conversation topic and scolding himself for the fact that he prioritized Leo’s godforsaken beautiful eyes over both the conversation with Leo and Lily, as well as over his own panic about the fact that he’s about to come out as gay to his family. That’s news to him – sure, Leo said that he might be able to stay here, but he didn’t say that they straight up offered.

“They did,” Leo affirms, “I just didn’t want to tell you earlier because I’d rather you stay literally anywhere else.”

“You-“ he starts, but drops it, because he’s not going to argue with his boyfriend in front of Lily, actually.

Elliot is better than this.

A snicker is his only answer.

“So, calm down. You have nothing to worry about. Housing wise. And you know I can land a punch if I have to.”

“So can I!” Lily exclaims, “if anything happens, call me up, and I’ll punch your parents!”

Not knowing how to break it to her that she, a twelve-year old girl, couldn't take it up with his brothers and parents, Elliot decides to instead just lean over and ruffle her hair once, disturbing the process of her sticking another bobby pin into Leo’s unruly hair, but at least making her chuckle.

“Thanks, I might take you up on the offer,” he says, but casts a glance at Leo that’s meant to say ‘I’m never taking you up on that offer, ever’, and given Leo’s small chuckle, he seems to know.

It doesn’t take much longer until Leo’s hair is completely done, only one single strand dangling down the side that Lily got out at the very end.

When Elliot looks his boyfriend dup and down this time, what he sees is, in fact, not a rat straight from the New York City subway station, but a fine young man with the most beautiful eyes known to humankind.

No wonder he fell in love with him.

And having fallen in love with him will have been worth it, no matter what his parents are going to say when they learn that he’s more than just a friend.