by Aiden Bates
“If you like.” Tristan said with a grin, but Myrick noticed that it was soft, and his eyes were strangely gentle in a way Myrick couldn’t describe.
“Yeah,” Myrick said, feeling his face grow hot. “I just don’t know what to talk about.”
“Anything you like!” Tristan encouraged. “What else do you do with your spare time besides books?”
Myrick thought of all the figurines and miniature sets that he had painstakingly, lovingly spent hours of his life building and felt his face grow warm. “I, ah,” Myrick stammered, reminding himself to relax. “I like building models of figurines and buildings.” He sucked in a breath and held it as he waited for the laugh he was absolutely sure was coming.
“Oh, are they from shows you watch or something?” Tristan asked, tilting his head to the side. His tone was inquisitive, not judgmental, and it helped unfurl the tangle of nerves in Myrick’s stomach, just enough that he remembered how to breathe again.
“Some of them, yeah,” Myrick said, perking up at the question. Asking a question like that meant that Tristan was far less likely to mock him for it, and he found himself more open to talking in detail about it. “A lot of them are like mech suits from an old show from when I was a teenager, actually.” He let out a quiet, self-deprecating chuckle.
“Like Gundams?” Tristan asked with wide eyes.
“They are Gundams!” Myrick said, his nerves fleeing in light of someone having the same interest as him—the thought occurred to him that he hadn’t really been able to sit down and just talk about his passion with someone in a long, long time. “Or, at least, quite a few of them are.”
“Nice!” Tristan beamed. “I used to build them when I was a teenager!”
“Wait, seriously?” Myrick gasped. That someone else would build these models wasn’t surprising—the show was incredibly popular—but the idea of not only someone that he was conversing in a friendly setting with, but his own vice president actually knew of the show—and actually built the models at one point? He had never thought he’d live to see the day.
“Hell, yeah!” Tristan said, his grin widening. “I still keep up with the show, I just can’t build the models anymore—my hands aren’t as steady as they used to be.” Tristan’s smile grew tinged with a touch of sadness.
“What do you mean?” Myrick asked.
Tristan took another drink of his Coke, his eyes downcast. “It’s nothing that’ll affect me overly much, no worries there.” Tristan looked back up at Myrick as he set his drink down and waved his hand dismissively. “My hands just have a shake to them—it’s just enough of a tremor that I can’t really hold precision tools steady anymore.” He shrugged. “It’s all right, though—there’s actually types of models that can be built without tools and glue and stuff like that.” Myrick’s interest was piqued—he’d only known about the models with smaller parts that required the utmost of precision in their construction.
“They make models with that kind of quality that don’t need tools and stuff?” Myrick asked, his whole attention focused on Tristan.
“Absolutely, and I think that’s a great thing!” Tristan confirmed with a nod of his head. “I think it’s really important that people with all kinds of disabilities, however minor they may be, still have access to hobbies and things that they can still enjoy,” his eyes softened as he swirled some of his noodles around with is chopsticks. “I’m just…I’m just really glad that there are companies that see that and are starting to make things that keep people’s hobbies accessible to them, even if they have something holding them back.”
“You seem really passionate about this.” Myrick said, his own voice growing quiet.
“It’s important for everyone.” Tristan said with a nod. “But it hits a little close to home for me.” He shrugged a shoulder. “My mom—she’s the one that got me interested in building things, right? Working with my hands and all that.” He said slowly, as if he were working through the words. Myrick nodded to show he was listening, even if he didn’t know what to say in response. “She was a carpenter—used to build my furniture when I was a kid, even!” Tristan’s eyes sparked with nostalgia, though the corners of his smile were weighed down by sadness. “As I got older, though, her hands started to shake. It wasn’t so bad at first, but then it just kept getting worse.” He sighed. “She has Parkinson’s disease, and it’s gotten bad enough now that she can barely even talk.” Myrick’s heart broke as he watched the man stretch his smile wider to hide his pain. “But I still like making models of things and showing them to her. Her illness has progressed too far to be able to work with building things, but if she’d had the kinds of models I have now…” he swallowed thickly. “Maybe she could have worked on the things that made her happy for longer, you know?”
“I’m sorry—this must be really hard for you.” Myrick said, and before he could think twice about it, he reached across the table and grasped at Tristan’s hand. The motion seemed to shock both of the men, and for a moment, Myrick thought to pull away, but one look at Tristan’s face made him swallow his nerves and squeeze his hand. He’d seen that look in the mirror most mornings when he got out of bed, the mask that Tristan was trying to fix over his face slipping just a little, just enough that Myrick could see his grief. Myrick felt a sudden wave of solidarity between the two of them, and felt…alarmingly close to Tristan. Closer than he had felt to someone in years, and it made his heart flutter in his chest.
“Thank you.” Tristan said softly, earnestly, and there was something warm and unspokenly intimate in his gaze as he squeezed Myrick’s hand. “That means a lot.” Time stood still in that moment for longer than Myrick could pass as friendly before he suddenly remembered that they were in the middle of a fairly crowded restaurant and this was strange behavior for two colleagues, though he squeezed Tristan’s hand back for a moment before easing himself away and leaning back. “Anyway,” Tristan said as he cleared his throat, his tone much brighter. Somehow, Myrick could tell that his cheerfulness wasn’t forced. “You didn’t tell me what models of Gundams you build!”
“You’re right!” Myrick picked up on the chance to change the topic, or at least, drift away from the somber mood, and readily took it even as his heart melted at Tristan and his softness, if only just a little.
They shared their love of building miniatures and compared which kinds of models they had built and how long they had been doing it, fascinated by the other's choice in builds. They laughed over movies and games they had played that they enjoyed, whatever niche they may have been, and laughed over some of the pop culture cult following that had sprung up around the types of things they used to think that no one else had been a fan of when they were younger. Before long, the two men had polished off their respective soups and were simply enjoying sipping at their drinks and taking pleasure in one another's company as they chatted.
“I didn't think I'd already be saying this, but,” Tristan began, casually slinging an arm around the back of his chair and reclining in a more relaxed position in his seat, “we've got a lot more in common than I thought we did.” He leveled an alarmingly heavy stare laden with meaning that Myrick didn’t know how to untangle. “ I don't think I've felt this close to someone in a long time.” Myrick’s face suddenly felt hot, and Tristan’s stare was too heavy for him to bear, his own gaze skittering away sheepishly.
Neither of them were drunk, that much was apparent, but there was just enough alcohol in their systems to make barriers they had established seem a lot more optional now. Instinct was a voice in the back of Myrick’s head that was just a little bit louder, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore. The fact that Tristan was an Alpha, staring at him with such open want and meaning suddenly made Myrick feel exposed, open to things that he didn’t want to feel open to, though his lowered inhibitions were making it more and more impossible to ignore that little lonely corner of his heart that yearned for companionship, had always ached for it.
“I'm wondering some
thing, if you wouldn’t mind indulging me for just a little longer,” Tristan continued, and Myrick was startled out of the panicked swirl of thoughts that had so quickly assaulted his head, alarmed that he was suddenly being this casual with Tristan, how little it had taken for Myrick to lower his walls around him. Myrick swallowed around the lump in his throat, opting to nod as opposed to simply answer with words, despite how much tea he had been drinking over the course of the night, his throat suddenly felt shockingly dry. “Is there someone waiting for you at home, wondering where you are?”
Myrick’s stomach dropped.
He knew where this had gone, the turn that this had taken; ‘Are you available to be courted?’ It was the unspoken question, one that he never wanted to answer for anyone—answering that question meant he was left vulnerable, exposed, and open to being used and manipulated to suit someone else’s needs at the cost of his own. He mentally cursed himself for allowing the conversation to be taken to the one place he had been fighting to keep every conversation he ever had from going to, and desperately tried to rack his brain for a way to pull it back to a more cordial and friendly place without putting himself at risk, without putting his very life in danger.
Any words that might have been formed in his head turned to static in the wake of the overwhelming sickness that twisted his stomach into a gnarled and tangled mess of emotions that he couldn’t find the beginning or end of. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the room was beginning to tilt and suddenly he needed to not be here. Such tumultuous feelings didn’t seem to want to coexist in his gut with any of the food he’d just eaten—which was such a shame, because that was some of the best udon that he’d had in a while—and a wave of nausea began to wash over him. In spite of the lump in his throat he forced himself to swallow heavily around it, though it did nothing to dispel the feeling that he was going to be ill.
“...Myrick...?” Though his vision was swimming, he was aware of Tristan moving—closer? He hoped not; he was panicking, he realized this distantly, and he knew that he didn’t want anyone or anything to make him feel even remotely boxed in when he was feeling like this, like a cornered animal about to be devoured. “You don’t look so good—are you all right?” He shuddered when Tristan was suddenly in his personal space, perhaps intending to take advantage of him?
His fear gripped his thoughts, and while he was fully aware of that, he couldn’t stop the way that he completely and utterly reverted to the feeling of being near an Alpha automatically equalled danger, hurt, and fear. When he saw a large hand reach for him it was difficult to conjure anything in his head but the words ‘get away get away get away GET AWAY,’ and suddenly he was pushing past the towering man, rushing toward the sign that pointed toward the bathrooms.
He just barely managed to stagger into the correct bathroom before he did his best to lock himself in a stall—the lock was misaligned, and it didn’t want to slot into the bolt but he didn’t have time for worrying about that because the nausea became a very pressing concern, and he barely managed to whir around and sink to his knees in front of the toilet before he began to empty his stomach.
The udon didn’t taste nearly as wonderful coming back up.
At some point in the middle of him being sick, he felt a large hand on his back, and he tensed, waiting for some abstract concept of pain to come for him, when it merely began to rub gently up and down his back. Faintly, somewhere far away from where his focus was, he could hear Tristan speaking, his voice deep even for him, and while he couldn’t make out specific words over the sound of his own retching, he registered that the timbre of his voice was of someone comforting and reassuring him. There was no real reason for that voice to soothe him in the way that it did, and while it did nothing for his nausea, the source of it became marginally more manageable.
When he finally had nothing else to empty into the porcelain bowl, he simply flushed the toilet and stayed knelt there for a few moments longer, gulping in air and trying not to use it to heave sobs out of his chest. All the while, Tristan stayed behind him, his hand rubbing vague, abstract patterns on his back gently, voice making soft, soothing noises until Myrick was confident that he could stand without risking nausea again.
“I’m so sorry about that, boss man,” Tristan said, helping him stand up, large hand still solid and warm at the small of his back. “I never wanted to make you uncomfortable.”
“It wasn’t—you didn’t—” Myrick wanted to say that Tristan wasn’t the one to set it off, though it would have only been a half truth. “You didn’t mean to,” was what he finally settled on, and he found that it was the truth; whatever he had intended, it was clearly not to scare or hurt him.
“Doesn’t make it okay.” Tristan shook his head. “I…ah, I’m something of a serial flirt, and I didn’t mean for that to come out—it’s unprofessional, and you’re my boss—”
“We’re not in the office,” Myrick went to the sink, swishing water in his mouth to chase out the lingering taste of being sick. It was a small thing, but it made him feel noticeably better, made talking marginally easier now that the burning in his throat was somewhat quenched. “And we were having a good time. I’m not going to hold one off comment against you.”
“I’m not gonna bring it up again, I swear.” Tristan removed his hand, and Myrick winced at how keenly he felt the loss of the solid warmth at the center of his mass, grounding him as he steadied himself. Myrick couldn’t bring himself to stare directly in Tristan’s eyes in that moment, lingering fears tingeing his thoughts even still, so he focused on his neck, an easier thing to stare at.
“Thank you,” Myrick finally spoke up softly, earnestly. “For respecting that boundary, now that you know it’s there.”
“That’s a basic human decency thing.” Though Myrick still wasn’t looking up at his face, he watched Tristan’s body language as he shuffled his weight from one foot to the other. “That’s not something you have to thank anyone for, boss.”
“I don’t really get it from many people in this regard.” Myrick raked a trembling hand through his hair. “Usually, when people get to this point they don’t stop, because they only want one thing from me. It’s only ever one thing.” He let out a self-deprecating laugh. “So I wouldn’t know, I guess.” There was a long moment when neither of them said anything, where the only sound in the room was Myrick taking deeper than normal breaths to try and center himself under his own power.
“Will you be able to get home on your own?” Tristan asked after another moment of silence, when Myrick leaned against the cool bathroom wall. He didn’t even care that it was probably the least sanitary surface he had ever pressed his face against in that moment; it was colder than his fevered skin, so it was heavenly as far as he was concerned at present. “It doesn’t have to be me that drives you home—do you have someone you can call?”
“No, no I’m fine,” Myrick stammered even as he swayed on his feet. “I just need a minute, yeah?” He groaned at the way his legs shook, and he found himself leaning against the wall again. Wall was stable, wall was good, he decided, pressing the center of his weight there.
“You don’t look fine,” Tristan shook his head, though made no move to touch him. Myrick was grateful for that, for him being conscious of what Myrick was feeling.
“Yeah,” he sighed, admitting defeat. “Yeah, I don’t feel great all of a sudden.” He cursed the fact that he couldn’t seem to get his heart rate to drop, his legs to stop trembling. His mental state made it far too risky for him to even attempt operating a car, even for the short distance as he had to get home.
“Can you call someone?” Tristan asked again. “I don’t mind waiting with you for them to get here if you do.”
“Could try Isabelle.” Myrick noted, hands shaky as they fished his phone out of his pocket, clumsily dialing her number and holding the phone to his ear. It rang, and rang, and just when he began to worry, he heard what he thought was the phone being picked up.
“Hey there—”
“Isabelle, I—”
“You’ve reached my voicemail! Sorry I can’t get to you right now, just please leave me a message and—” he hung up the phone without bothering to leave a voicemail, despondent.
“Answering machine?” Tristan asked him softly. He groaned and nodded, regretting the motion when his head swam. He stuffed his phone back in his pocket with a huff. “I’d say you could call a cab or something, but I’m not sure you’d make it to your door in one piece.”
“Me neither, honestly.” Myrick slid down the wall and put his head in his hands. He felt wrung out; the crash after anxiety attacks always left him feeling shaky, and that typically wasn’t an issue because normally when he allowed himself to have them, he was already home or in his office. He’d spent more than one night sleeping at his desk because he knew he wasn’t in any condition to drive after having an attack seize him up like they always did.
“Are you comfortable with me driving you home? I can explain what happened to the manager of the establishment, and if they won’t let us leave your car here, I can just drive it back to the garage and run back here—”
“Tristan.”
“Yeah?” He stopped his rant halfway through when Myrick spoke up, and when he sucked in a breath and lifted his head, he saw that Tristan was completely focused on him, concern etched in his every feature. Seeing someone so worried for him made him feel at ease in a way he wasn’t expecting to feel considering this was also the person that set off his panic attack in the first place, however accidental it may have been. It was likely because Myrick was just tired and wanted to go home, he didn’t really care about the reason for him relaxing a little more; what mattered was that he felt a little less like needles were trying to poke out from beneath his skin, so he would just be grateful for what he was feeling and not dwell on it.
