just_another | [Open - Gathering

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[Open - Gathering - Baby Shower]

They're actually having a baby shower.

Joel is fairly certain his mother wouldn't have let them get away without something, even if he had insisted it be small and consist only of family, but for some reason he and Spencer have allowed themselves to be talked into a real shower. With invitations and food and little baby themed games to play. It's sort of strange, looking at it from his position, given that Erin is the one who's going to be giving birth and therefore is the one in the glowing pregnant woman position at this entire gathering.

She'd sweetly agreed to attend and had even whispered to Joel that she would take the brunt of the attention if she could manage it. He had whispered back that he knew they had picked her for a good reason.

But here they are. Several weeks have passed, the invitations have gone out and the decorations have been put up all over Joel and Spencer's living room. He had agreed to lift the enchantments on the house for the extent of the party, which means that anyone can open the door to their guests, they don't all have to be invited in by either Joel or Spencer, and it makes him a little nervous, but he understands the usefulness of others being able to answer the door. At least for today.

It's the decorations that keep getting to him. Sweet little ducks and zebras and monkeys, little jungle animals all over the walls. The bottle and rattle shaped cookies are pretty cute, but those aren't going to be left when the baby gets here. The animal theme, though, is fairly close to the nearly finished nursery Joel has been working on upstairs and he can't help but grin at the decorations.

Spencer, on the other hand, can't stop coming back round to the center of the living room to stare at the enormous sign that's been strung up above a table already stacked with gifts when a majority of their guests haven't even arrived yet. He'd been worried this morning that the day would overwhelm him, that knowing so many people would be coming into their home would be daunting when just a year ago, he'd never even once invited company over before meeting Joel; but so far, he feels calm, in spite of having had to watch Joel remove the enchantments that act as their security on the house. If someone wishes to crash a baby shower--which he doesn't imagine will happen anyway--then they'll have to face not only the wrath of a room that will be filled with witches and sirens, but the wrath of his mother- and sister-in-law, as well. That's not a sight Spencer thinks would be very pretty to witness.

Still, he feels light, perhaps a lingering effect of the having the chance to fall in love with Joel a second time during the spell that had taken over the town. Certainly, a great deal of his contentment has to do with the fact that he won't have to worry about losing his husband in a crowd but even beyond that, he's excited.

So much has changed in the course of the past year and weeks from now, they'll be holding their newborn in their arms for the very first time without another care in the world but for who they've been looking forward to meeting since they'd decided to take this journey together. There's something a bit strange about realizing that it's all coming to a head, that the waiting will soon be over and they'll be fathers at last, but when the first knock on the door comes, Spencer can't help but smile.

[Baby shower for Joel and Spencer's wee one. Erin, their surrogate, is present and is currently 31 weeks pregnant. If you're even a little friendly with either of them, Joel's mother sent an invitation, but the enchantments have been taken off the house for the event and so it's not an impossible party to crash. If anyone wants to crash a baby shower...]

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This town is stranger than anything Gabe's ever seen. It's nothing like Pennsylvania and it's nothing like the church community he'd known. Two men, married, having a baby. If he'd been here with his family, it would've been without an invitation and with picket signs against immorality. Now Gabe just lingers, alone at the edge of the property, staring in forlornly in increasingly wrinkled clothes from sleeping in the motel and then the bus station and then, embarrassingly in the furniture section of a local Wal-Mart.

He doesn't know if he should envy these men or abhor them. Religion, his upbringing, tell him one thing. His heart tells him another. His feet are cemented on the ground.

God, he's tired.

[if you want to tag him having been invited inside, you can say you saw hm fall asleep while left unattended]

Spencer had invited the young man in just barely half an hour ago while opening the door for another guest. He'd just been lingering out near the mailbox, looking nothing less than exhausted, and Spencer could not in good conscience just leave the man outside.

He's beginning to think that maybe he should have as he hovers about the other man, who seems to have fallen fast asleep on the couch. Spencer glances around the room, smiling reassuringly at the guests who cast curious glances their way and wondering whether he should go find his husband to decide what they ought to do when the man stirs.

"Hi," Spencer says, eyes widening as he leans in a bit closer, hands clasped behind his back. Hi, excuse me, are you alright?"

When someone speaks near his ear, Gabe sits bolt upright, almost crashing into his host in the effort. "Oh gosh. Oh...oh gosh I am so sorry!" he says, turning bright red and glancing down and away because he's just done something beyond rude, beyond embarrassing.

"I can go. I'm sorry. I..."

Spencer takes a step back, holding his hands out in front of him as if to show he means no harm--which he doesn't, though he's grown a bit wary of the stranger sleeping in his house--before lowering them so he can slip them into his pockets. "It's fine, I just wanted to make sure that you're okay. My husband and I wouldn't want any of our guests to want for anything, even the ones we don't know."

He smiles softly, gesturing toward Joel across the room. "That's him, by the way. Joel. And I introduced myself to you earlier but in case you've forgotten, I'm Spencer. I don't think I did catch your name, though."

"Gabriel," he replies, almost inaudibly, losing his voice from shyness. "I got to town a few days ago. I haven't...I'm sorry."

He glances at the other man. At Joel. His stomach turns a little when he thinks of Caleb and his black curls.

"Are you really married?"

"Gabriel," Spencer repeats, committing the name to memory. "Well, welcome to Siren Cove, and please don't apologize. You've done nothing wrong."

He hesitates before taking a seat next to Gabriel on the couch, making sure to keep enough distance between them for both their sakes, and tilts his head curiously at the question. "Yes, we're really married," he answers. "We've been married since September." He smiles softly as his eyes land back on Joel. "Though it does feel like longer."

A week ago, Gabe would have stood up and denounced them. Now he's just confused. Shouldn't that be wrong? Shouldn't they be surrounded by the sense of wrongness instead of the same kind of posters and smiling friends and family that he would have seen at his own mother's baby showers?

"I can't imagine..." he says. He really can't.

"You can't imagine marriage?" Spencer ducks his head to laugh, though it isn't mocking, just understanding. He'd felt the same way for so long, had fully accepted that he would be alone for the rest of his life by the time he'd met Joel until he'd finally realized that he was never meant to be alone--he'd just been waiting for Joel.

"To be entirely honest, I wouldn't have imagined any of this for myself a year ago. But now..." He holds up a hand to show Gabriel his wedding band. "Well, obviously quite a lot changed. A husband and a baby, sometimes it's still hard to believe all of this has happened."

"It's...the Bible says..." Gabe will never have the fiery oration his father and elder brothers have, always to prone to stuttering and losing his word the way he is now. "It's not supposed to..."

It's obvious he lacks conviction, glancing between Spencer's beautiful ring and his husband and all the family around them.

Spencer's smile wavers at that and if it weren't for the way Gabriel's words have come out so stilted and uncertain, he thinks he would have already stood up to ask the young man to kindly leave the house. Siren Cove, for all its faults, has proven to be good to him as far as his marriage goes. They've gotten looks while walking down the street hand-in-hand, to be sure, but Spencer has never felt that they've been out of malice or disgust--more likely, it's a reaction of those who wonder how on earth the town's notoriously reclusive bookshop owner and the former librarian-slash-accused-murderer had gotten together in the first place.

That this is the first time he's come across anyone who's dared even hinted that anything could possibly be wrong about his marriage is a good thing, he supposes, in a way; but it's also not something he'll stand for if that's the stance Gabriel wants to take. He loves his husband, loves that he gets to fall asleep with Joel every single night and wake up to him every morning, and he will never make apologies for that.

Still, he's willing to give Gabriel the benefit of the doubt here, if only for a moment, because the last thing he wants to do at the baby shower his mother-in-law has worked so hard on is cause a scene where it isn't yet necessary.

"Is that what you really believe?" Spencer asks, something in his tone growing slightly harder, even as he tries to keep that impulse to snap in check. "I love someone deeply, and I'm loved in return. We make each other happy, more than either of us ever thought possible, and we plan to stay that way for the rest of our lives. Does it matter, then, that we're two men?"

He can see the wavering smile and Gabe tenses up a little, back going straight except for his head, which he drops down. Eye contact is hard when people are friendly but when they've gone cold like this it's just about impossible. He knows that tone of voice in his family very well; it's the one that indicates a transgression and coming discipline.

Yes. It should matter. Everything he knows tells him that it should matter because marriage is one man and one woman, being fruitful and multiplying. That's what God said.

But Spencer has been generous and he looks at Joel like...Like he can't even imagine ever looking at someone or being looked at the same way.

"I don't know. I'll go." His whole chest is heating up with something like panicky terror. He has to go. "I'm sorry. Good bye."

"Hey," Raleigh says quietly, because there's a guy who's been asleep on the couch, and she's never seen him before, but she's totally seen the looks that people are giving him. He stirred a minute ago, and so Raleigh put together a plate and just sort of plops next to him, enough away to not be scary, hopefully. "Are you hungry?" She offers him the plate, with what's hopefully a reassuring smile.

Gabe startle a little before he realizes what's being offered and he nods mutely, staring at the cookies and the potato salad. Again, he's struck by the normalcy of it all. This is the same kind of food his mother would have served.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"Didn't mean to what? You didn't do anything to apologize for. I just thought you might be hungry." She smiles again, bending a little to catch his eye. "I'm Raleigh, by the way." He just looks... a little... lost.

And she gets lost, more than a lot of people.

"Gabriel..." His voice is so soft that it's nearly inaudible, even as he takes the plate. "It's nice to meet you."

"Is that food okay? I don't know if you're... I don't know, vegan, or anything?" She tries to smile again, not wanting to get too friendly so she doesn't scare him, but he is sitting on the couch, and she's just... worried. She's worried, and she's maybe just trying to make things a little better, if she can.

"Don't think I even know what a vegan would eat," he admits, still quiet and soft but managing the tiniest of smiles for her. "So I don't think I am one."

She smiles back, glad that he's taking the plate, and that he'd eat. "Uh, hummus and salad and tofu, I think? I don't know. Close? I'm not a vegan, either, but I figured I'd ask."

"At least hummus isn't so bad," he says. Quietly, he plays around with the food on his plate before taking a slow bite of a carrot stick.

"I didn't mean to be so rude when they invited me in."

"Rude?" Raleigh's brows shot up. "What do you mean, rude? I'm sure you were fine." She doesn't even know what he could have done that was offensive-- not if Spencer or Joel actually let him in, and he ended up on the couch.

"Being invited in and then falling asleep like I own the place. I mean..." Gabe sighs and looks down, more than a little ashamed.

"I wasn't raised to behave like that."

"You didn't fall asleep like you owned the place," she said gently. "You fell asleep like you were exhausted, which you are. There's nothing wrong with that, and I know that they'd rather somebody slept on their couch than not having anywhere to sleep."

"I have a place to sleep," Gabe fibs. So what if he's run out of money for the motel? There's still the church...

"I just meant in general," she says with a shrug. "They'd rather people slept here, if they're tired. Believe me, they don't mind. If they did, they'd say something." Whether that's actually true is debatable, but Raleigh really does want to make him feel better.

Gabe nods, though he's still uncertain, clearly wavering at the idea. "I hope that's true. I don't want to be a problem."

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