his brown eyes ➵ thomgelica

ix.

a few hours later, he drives back to his parents because she didn't ask him to.

he climbs into his old bedroom window after dodging the backyard sprinklers, thinks maybe he ought to clean the gutters and finally tend to the garden that caused so much strife.

his room is still angsty and fifteen years old, memories of angelica everywhere, and before he steps out, he takes the eye-liner and the smokes stashed away and trashes them. the second step from the top still creaks, and the fifth one from the bottom does now, too, and he suddenly feels guilty. he grew up here and the house got old without him all these years he spent running and resenting and eating in his room.

oh, god.

He brings a yellow plate from the kitchen into the dining room like he's been doing it for years, never mind how long it's been since he moved out. Same place, right next to his mom, but his dad's standing next to it looking so cavalier and happy.

"We saved you a seat," Peter says, and c'mon, dad, don't be an ass. He's grinning, though, and he doesn't miss the subtle way his eyes flicker behind him to his mom.

Then he realizes for the first time, probably, that he'd gotten taller than his old man just barely. Maybe an inch or three, not a whole lot, but when he's standing across from him for the first time in he doesn't know how long, it's.. he realizes he has to look down at him instead of on him, and he has been, and it doesn't feel right suddenly. It twists wrongly in his stomach, cuts jaggedly and twists in his chest cavity, and it's all so wrong. Feeling.

"I'm sorry," he tells them, a few years of being an awful son stuck to the roof of his mouth.

They both hug him at once.