[fanfiction: shi/ft] June 24, 2011

[perfectworry]

title: June 24, 2011
fandom: DrKotobuki 's shiftverse
community: writerverse + trope_bingo
prompt: Phase #5: Challenge #03: Table of Doom ("location: big city") + square: celebratory kiss
word count: 535
pairing: Abel Cross/Nikos Vallas
rating: G
summary: Nikos and Abel watch the news together the night marriage equality is passed in New York.
notes: Abel is, at the time this story takes place, a 61-year-old British Indian expat living in New York City. Nikos is his 29-year-old boyfriend.

"You're such an old fart," Nikos said, without any real venom, idly dragging his finger down the glass of his smartphone to refresh the news feed he was reading. "Who watches the news these days?"

He lay with his head in Abel's lap. Abel sat on the couch in his silk pajamas - "old man pajamas," Nikos called them, although he loved the feeling of the silk against his skin when they cuddled up like this - alternately running his fingers over the shaved part of Nikos's mohawk and taking sips of the brandy in the glass beside him.

"I hate squinting at those little screens," Abel replied, shrugging. "I spend enough time on my phone while I'm on the job."

"You should retire or something," Nikos said, but was an idle suggestion. Abel would probably die working. Nikos tried not to think about it, but turned his attention to the screen in is hand glowing in the dimly lit apartments. Maybe in another four years, not that Abel needed the Social Security money. Nikos rolled over into Abel, pressing his face against the silk of Abel's pajamas.

He didn't fall asleep, exactly, but lay still and quiet, breathing in the familiar scent of his lover: a subtle cologne, something expensive, and very faintly of his boss's cigarettes. He curled up against Abel, not really listening to the news, while Abel carded his fingers through Nikos's hair, no longer the candy colors of his younger days, but his own natural dark brown.

Nikos didn't know how long he dozed in Abel's lap when Abel shook him awake. "You might want to see this," he said softly. Nikos blinked himself awake and rubbed his eyes. The TV screen burned brightly; it was darker in their apartment than it had been when he first closed his eyes, and now the flatscreen was the only source of light. He squinted to read the text scrolling across the bottom, dazedly trying to make sense of the pretty news anchors words.

Then the scene switched, and Nikos thought it might not be Abel who died first. He could have had a heart attack right then and there. His heart swelled with love and pride and happiness and relief as the news sunk in: they could get married. New York was the biggest state so far to legalize marriage equality. Proposition 8 had hurt him deeper than he wanted to admit; California was on the other side of the continent, but he remembered avoiding Abel's gaze when they talked about it and worrying that Abel might not live to see himself recognized in the country he had come to call home.

Almost shaking with excitement, he threw his arms around Abel and kissed him fiercely. Abel started, not expecting the sudden burst of energy and intimacy from his sleepy lover, but he let Nikos kiss him and tried to share in this young man's joy. Marriage had failed him once before, but it still held promise for someone like Nikos, still young and in love with a lifetime ahead of him without hiding.

"I love you," whispered Nikos, his voice ragged in Abel's ear. "I love you so much."