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Roman liked fixing things. Shelley brought her broken pens to him to be Scotch taped back together; the buttons on his over coat were all stitched with peak of gold thread that came from him yanking them off just to be able to sew them back on all over again. He considered himself a fixer: had told Peter that while they were falling asleep to High Noon.
“I like the way pieces come back together,” he mumbled into Peter’s pant leg. They had begun the night on different ends of the couch but slowly Roman had drifted into a lounging drape across the cushions with his head pressed against Peter’s thigh and feet hanging off the armrest. “Like whatever it was never broke in the first place. Or something deep like that.”
Peter was not a fixer; he lived in such a way that he could see the continuous flow of all things and knew that eventually what was broken would right itself again. His fingers never itched to put thrift store radios back together when instead he could steal one from the rich boy who left his carelessly on the doorstep. Except now he didn’t have to steal the radio because he had stolen something else instead. It slept next to him every night and kicked the back of his knees until Peter finally would give up, turn over and spoon Roman’s stupid stick bug body. He just hadn’t expected this. Roman was not a continuous flow nor did he ever even attempt to right himself. Instead he would limp his way through situations, spilling out of his skin because the one thing Roman never taped up were his old wounds. Now he was all Peter’s to hold while he bled like a great gross geyser all over Peter's hands.
Nadia wasn’t a good band aid either even if Roman pretended she was. A baby was only as good as holding a hand over the bleeding until something real came along. Peter liked having her around anyway; she was nearly one now and her little telepathic mind whammy powers were only strong enough to knock over baby food cans now that she wasn’t sucking of the demon teat (which Miranda had very promptly cried and apologized for and Peter had told her they forgave her even if Roman refused to let her near the baby again). Being a father was fucking hard. Peter was tired all the goddamn time and tried to read thick ass parenting books that all said different things, none of which he seemed to be doing right at all. He had once eaten baby food; Roman had taken a picture and made it his phone background which was more than a little embarrassing because
- It was Peter, eyes half lidded, with a spoonful of mushed peas sticking out of his mouth as he very clearly was falling asleep.
- Signaled to everyone that looked at Roman’s phone that the two of them lived together, had lots of baby food and were gross children who took pictures of each other’s misfortunes.
So Peter felt a little broken too and Roman tried to fix the broken things about him with weird fancy food he found recipes for on blogs and sex. Peter wasn’t complaining about either of those things, of course. He liked sex as much as the next guy even if the last time they’d tried something new (re: rim jobs) he’d farted on Roman’s face and food was nice all around since Roman used fancy ham instead of the kind that came in plastic tupperware. He just felt bad because fixing Roman was, well, fixing Roman. He didn’t like to talk about things that hurt him so Peter couldn’t reconcile that, he was incredibly rich so Peter couldn’t buy him things and Roman, despite being almost scarily enthusiastic about sex, had experienced too many peculiar sex related betrayals for Peter to feel comfortable trying to deal with. He was holding a ship that was taking on too much water; Roman’s broken pieces were all spilling out on the floor no matter how many times Peter tried to hot glue them together.
“I just don’t understand,” he told Destiny. “It’s so weird, right? That I’m getting upset about this?”
“Not really,” she said, shrugging. They were sat in her living room and drinking the leftover party beer from Halloween. Destiny’s parties, while always well attended, left her with a surplus of cheap beer that Peter happily assisted her in getting rid of. “You saved a baby together; that changes people priorities”
“But I feel like I want him to be happy,” Peter said and then gulped back more beer. “I don’t know what to do. If it were anyone else I would just get out of the situation, you know, book it until I just forgot about them.”
“But it’s not anyone else,” Destiny said, nodding to herself. “It’s the guy who ripped a werewolf in half and stuck his hand down its throat to pull you out.”
“Exactly.”
“But how do you go about solving the problem of Roman Godfrey?” she mused and then tapped a finger to her knee.
“I have no idea,” Peter said and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. “I am really stumped here coz.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she said and got up. “Now scram. I have a customer in an hour and I need to my fake vomit ready.”
The heart of the matter was that, for all that Peter found Roman to be a huge jackwad asshole fucker, he liked seeing the little prince happy and if he could find something that would stop his lizard boyfriend (and shee-it, they were boyfriends, who farted on each other’s faces and took pictures of each other being embarrassing) from looking so damn sad all the time. He didn’t like it when people yelled at Roman and he didn’t like it when Roman got all curled up in a ball over Olivia because it did super gross things to his heart like make him upset for someone else. Peter found his feelings a threat to his own selfishness. It was what had made him shave his head and drive across the country to get away from Hemlock Grove and now it was what kept him there. He just wanted to make the cracks in Roman’s stupid un-beating heart fill with gold and be once again renewed.
What made Roman happy? He liked old horror movies and when Peter watched the original Fright Night on Halloween with him instead of going to Destiny’s party he’d spent the whole time curling his fingers around Peter’s hand, dragging his thumb across the knuckles. Roman liked shopping at rich people stores like fucking Hugo Boss or some shit and he dragged Peter there to make out in the dressing rooms while under the guise of trying on thousand dollar coats. Roman liked cooking for Peter and he liked getting Nadia dressed for the day and he liked seeing Shelley at the institute even if afterward his fists would go white while he ugly cried into Peter’s chest on the bench outside her room. Roman liked spending time with Peter; he liked Peter’s dick and he told him he liked Peter’s hair while simultaneous complaining that he needed to wash it. He liked being the little spoon; he liked to hold Peter’s hand.
It was late November and Roman opened the door to his house to find it empty. Everything was quiet and even though Nadia’s baby monitor was making little wheezing sounds in the kitchen Peter was not sitting next to it. He went upstairs, stomping up each stair so as to alert the entire house to his presence. The door to Nadia’s room was ajar and when he stepped inside Peter was asleep with her settled in his lap, one hand holding a block and the other propping her baby head up. Roman tapped Peter on the top of his head.
“Hey Fido,” he said. Peter opened one eye and dropped the block to give him the finger. “Want to hear about my day at work? I yelled at five people.”
“I don’t want to hear about your tantrums Roman,” Peter said as he got up, sliding Nadia easily into the crook of his arm. “I’m too tired from taking care of this baby to deal with another one
“Shut up,” Roman said but his face was too soft for the words to come out sounding anything but fond. Peter smirked and put Nadia in her crib.
“So I have something to tell you,” Peter said and nearly missed how Roman’s entire body stiffened. He looked at the floor and sucked in the side of his cheek.
“Yeah,” he said, sharply. “What the fuck is it?”
“Calm down,” Peter said and pulled out a little box from his pocket. "Just like, wait a second."
But now Roman was not even paying attention to Peter anymore. He was rapidly chewing at the flesh of his cheek and clenching and unclenching his fist. Peter knelt down on one knee. Roman started crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at his own shoes. Peter wished that punching Roman in the shin wouldn't ruin the mood because he really, really wanted to pop him one so he'd stop fidgetting.
“If you want to leave,” Roman breathed out. “Okay, you want to leave. You are finally just going to leave. I can’t believe it’s, I’m, that you’re just going to get up and go. I mean, whatever, you’re a gypsy and you need to run but what about what I need? What about if I need you here? What about –“
“Hey asshole,” Peter shouted and when Roman glanced at him gestured to the box. “I’m not leaving.”
“What’s in the box?” he asked and took a deep breath like he expected it to be spiders.
“It’s a ring dumbass,” Peter said and opened the lid to reveal a tiny gold band. “I'm telling you I want to marry you. Idiot.”
“Oh,” Roman said. “Well.”
“Yeah.”
“Shee-it”
“Don’t fucking say shee-it to my proposal,” Peter said loudly and then Nadia started to cry so he dropped the box to go pick her up. When he turned back around Roman had picked up the box and was turning it over and over in his hands. Peter cleared his throat and the other boy’s head shot up.
His gross stupid boy face was tearing up. Peter cleared his throat again.
“So,” Peter said, half to Nadia and half to Roman’s knees, “is that a yes or a no?”
“I can’t believe this,” Roman said and in one step squeezed Nadia and Peter in a long limbed hug.
“That’s not a yes or no,” Peter mumbled but he could see how Roman was holding the box.
“You dumbfuck,” Roman sobbed into Peter’s neck and then pulled back, looking Peter straight in the eye while grasping his shoulders. “I’m going to marry the shit out of you.”
Peter started to cry a very weak sort of leaking cry, and then all three of them were crying except Nadia ended up crying the loudest and getting her diaper changed while Roman and Peter sort of sniffled like idiots. Roman kept kissing the side of Peter’s face and looking at the ring inbetween.
“I’m going to tell Shelley,” he said and then punch Peter’s arm. “I’m going to tell her she’s going to be my best man and she’ll look so beautiful Peter. I’ll buy her the best fucking dress anyone has ever worn. She’s gonna look so beautiful.”
As they were getting into bed that night Roman leaned over and kissed Peter’s forehead. He’d taken off one of his many ridiculous clunky rings to replace it with the thin gold band and it looked warm in the lamp light.
“This almost makes up for you farting on me,” he said and then kissed Peter’s mouth.
And maybe it did sort of make up for that and other things that Peter had done or wanted to make up for. Maybe it also was a weird small bandage around a too big wound but Peter was starting to be okay with that.
Peter wasn’t a fixer but he could try to be something else. Something that kept its promises and married boys who liked horror movies, their sisters and holding his own gross hand.