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‘Fuckity fuck... oh fuck me what the fuck. Shiv, how the fuck are you supposed to cook rice. I swear, you have to be a wizard or some shit to figure this bubbling shit out. ’
Thankfully for Roman, he’s too busy cringing backwards and trying to duck the huge billowing cloud of black steam that erupts after he lifts the saucepan lid to hear the loud groan from his sister. ‘Roman, are you actually twelve years old? You need Tom to come over and teach you all the big boy stuff?’
Roman nudges the mobile down from where he had it nestled between his shoulder and his ear, and flips an incredibly dramatic finger at the screen. The tinned voice of his sister muffles out from his palm. ‘You know-’, she echoes through the glaringly capacious halls, ‘I can feel you doing that. You want my help or not? You wanna call daddy instead and beg him for help?’
‘Fuck you’, he tucks it back up and turns back to the pot that has now started to sizzle the hobs surrounding it in plumes of smoke. Roman clenches his teeth, glancing up at the clock and daring to try and put the wooden spoon back into the rice without it spitting up and singeing his arms again; every one bites against his skin and makes him recoil, a far too forthcoming and browbeating memory of the way his father used to punish him for pulling Shiv’s hair when he used to lose at tennis as a child. ‘Can you just - shut the fuck up for ten second and use your witchy... wise woman ways to tell me how the shit someone is supposed to cook this without it looking like all of Kendall’s crushed hopes and dreams?’
The silence on the other side of the line fills him with a piercing dread. ‘Come on - please. Y/n will be home in like, ten minutes and I have none of this stuff ready. Shiv, come on, I want this to be perfect. I need this to be perfect. I can’t fuck this up. If I am, I’m fucked. I’m done. That’s it, all my hopes and dreams ruined. You really want to be responsible for that?’
After a few seconds, his sister’s voice rings out for a final time, disinterested in the way Roman’s hand is pressed to his forehead to try and stop his hyperventilating breath from pushing the bile out of his throat. ‘You just put the rice in the pot and add some water, I don’t know what else to tell you.’ She hangs up. It reminds him of the sardonic way his mother used to give him instructions, on those rare times he wanted to impress his father as a five year old and try to bring him breakfast in bed. She seemed to take great enjoyment in Roman getting it wrong, or perhaps in the scowl on her husband’s face as he slaps the burnt toast off his desk and yells at them to get out. He feels like his legs are about to give out, but before they even can the fire alarm starts piercing with shrills into his skull.
He can’t think of anything else to do: no rational thought will enter his head, no idea to try and shove the saucepan into the sink or flame out the fire with a dish towel. He’s fucked up. He’s failed. He’s ruined it, again and again and again again and again. He can’t do a single fucking normal thing right. Something is wrong with him. He’s sick. He’s crying out for help. He’s drowning. He’s poisoned. He’s the king of the world. He’s beaten. He’s everything. He’s a dog. He’s a child. He wants his mommy. He wants his brother. He’s not real.
He tries to focus again, sliding his back down the wall and screwing his eyes shut to try and stop the sobs from heaving out of his shuddering chest. His palms cover his ears, begging the thoughts to leave him alone for one night; all the anticipations and desires for you that was weighting him down to this world seem to dissipate like fog and leave him blinded by the pain. If only you were here; if only you were here with him, he would be okay. He would be grounded again. He would become a real person, when someone was around to see him to care about him. To love him, instead of kicking him out into the kennels. He can’t stop himself from hyperventilating, though, no matter how hard he tries to focus on you again: to let back in the only shred of happiness he’s ever really had in his life.
Instead he finds himself crawling along the sleek floor on his hands and knees, slipping about in his dress shirt and suit trousers while his throat is busy choking with your name. It tumbles from his bewildered, pouting lips like a mantra, and he hopes the prayer of it will help him turn into something gentler. Hoping it will break through the leash that seems to tighten around his neck with every inch he slides towards safety. He shrivels under the table like a decaying flower; he’s so far gone, he can’t even hear the alarm anymore, or the bubbles that begin to pour over the shaking pot and spit peas around the tiles.
It takes approximately twenty minutes for you to finally arrive home, and in that time Roman hasn’t moved an inch. You find him in the exact same position he caved into: he’s peeking out from the corner leg of the black marble dining table, his slender fingers quivering like a withering shadow over the shrouded cheeks of his face. He’s doubled over on himself, knees tucked tightly up towards his chin as if in an instinctual strategy to make himself as small a target as possible. He only looks up when you drop the keys in the crystal dish, quickly running over to switch the hob off, before coming back to lean down and look sympathetically at the set of him.
‘Hey Rome, you doing alright down there?’ He manages to lower his shaking hands back down to rest tentatively on his knees, but even though he tries to open his mouth no more words will come out. With a full view of his face now, you can tell he’s obviously crying from his bloodshot eyes and the absolutely heart-breaking desperate look he gives you. Like a dormouse peeking out from the hay after a hurricane, his eyes are wet and wretched and wracked as you settle down to sit as best as you can beside him. You don’t talk for a moment, just trying not to cry yourself as you reach out gingerly to put your left hand on top of his right and he flinches away.
‘Don’t be mad...’, he finally manages to mutter out after a few comfortable minutes of him wracked by shame and embarrassment, but being basked and solaced by the love and gentleness you naturally emit. He’s never felt anything like this before, and he finds himself sniffling dejectedly to know how long he’s been missing out on being this happy. It’s the strangest feeling, he finds: being so torn apart and yet overjoyed at the same time.
‘Please don’t be mad at me - I- I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean it. I- I tried. I’m trying.’ His fingers twitch as they turn to envelop yours and squeeze.
‘Romy, I’m not mad at you. Of course I’m not mad at you. How could I be? It was very sweet of you to try and cook dinner for me, even though I’ve only seen you cook once before - those eggs were so hard I think we could have bounced them off the floor.’
A glimpse of that hyena chuckle of his breaks through as he uses his elbow to rub his numbed nose. Although he doesn’t leave his hiding place completely, he does shuffle away from the back enough that he’s able to lean against your side and place his head heavily on your shoulder. ‘I’m a great fucking cook, ‘cause I’m naturally great at everything.’
‘There’s my boy’, you sigh, before pressing a soft kiss against the top of his forehead. You pretend you don’t see the way his face crumples, the way he shivers at the feel of your lips and rolls his eyes up sadly when you pull away. He looked at you as if you were a vision: a lingering ghost haunting the site of his misdeeds, a luminous glimpse into the life he’d die for. You stroke back his hair, and he has to bite his tongue and let the blood wash down his throat to stop the biting remark that’s programmed to snap out of him. Instead he leans into your touch, and swallows thickly as he allows himself to feel the love he’s never deserved.
‘Do you want me to call the Chinese instead? We could recreate our first date, maybe start a food fight since the kitchen is a mess anyway.’ You snort, trying your best not to laugh at the memory, and Roman raises his head to look at you. For a moment he still seems as if he’s about to burst into a new stream of tears, but after watching you push a hand to your mouth to stop the giggles from ringing out, he finds himself smiling again.
‘This time though’, he crosses his leg on top of yours and rubs his thumb over the back of your hand. ‘you’re going down. I won’t be satisfied until you’re literally dripping with chili sauce.’ You laugh, and startle him out of his dissipating misery by kissing him, lingering and sweet and breathless against his pliant lips. His eyes widen with the weight of all the world’s adoration as you pull away, near vibrating before he rushes forward again and goes in for another, the delight evident in the way he’s grinning against your bottom lip.
Before the food arrives, you manage to pull him up from the floor and hobble him over to the sofa, swinging his one lone fleece blanket around his shoulders. He grumbles as you do it, squirming like an upset caterpillar, but he eventually settles into his cocoon once you have it firmly around his shoulders. He only opens it again once you’ve come back with a few containers, which are left abandoned only a little while later on the coffee table. He curls the blanket back around the two of you, making sure to be careful and not jostle you from where you’ve tucked in against the front of his chest. You begin to run a hand up and down the front of his shirt in languid strokes, enjoying both the warmth from the open fire and the feel of his breath settling against the side of your cheek.
The comfortable silence as the two of you lounge in your embrace is broken only by Roman’s tired hyena laugh as the two of you begin to kick each other’s socked feet. You slide as one until you’re lying down on the sofa, and you’ve nearly knocked Romy to the floor with a solid kick. The childlike glee as he retaliates by entangling his legs with yours and ensuring that if he goes, the two of you will go down together only punctuates the kindredness during this moment of vulnerability.
‘Thank you.’ You barely hear it, the whisper being overshadowed by the intensity with which he flops his chin back down on top of your head. You feel his arms tighten around your side, though, and the slight tremble in his breathe.
‘Always, Remy. I’ll always be here for you. You’ll always be safe with me.’