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Post by Tristan Dunn on Sept 24, 2020 12:59:32 GMT -5
Having moved in with Alex's family a few days before meant that Tristan was now somehow allowed to manage his own time however he wanted. It was odd, not having such strict limitations on where he was allowed to go and when. They were even talking about getting him a car? Sure, he'd gotten his license at the same time that Alex had but his parents had always said that he needed to save his own money for a car and so that's what he'd been doing. He'd instructed them to put aside half of his allowance a month to go toward the car, but he was still a while away from getting it when he'd left and now that money was gone. It didn't bother him as much as it seemed to both Alex and Leslie, in fact both of them seemed very on board with the idea of Alex's parents getting Tristan a car. He understood why, Alex so he could stop having to drive him everywhere and Leslie because she liked hte idea of the freedom that would come with Tristan owning his own car. It made him uneasy though and he'd tried to stop the talk of a car as much as possible.
Today he'd simply gone back to the Aldridge house with Leslie and Chace after school. It was the first day of Christmas break and so it wasn't like he had homework to do. Even so he'd called to check if it was okay with Mr and Mrs Mitts if he did so. Mrs Mitts had confirmed that it was more than fine and wished him a good time. And he'd been having one, just spending time together with Leslie was very nice. They'd just finished watching a movie in the home theater and made their way back upstairs, to do what was undecided though Tristan had a feeling dinner was going to be soon. So before they started up the stairs to Leslie's bedroom he stopped her, raising an eyebrow as he asked, "Isn't it going to be dinner soon?"
She shrugged. "Probably," she answered, before stepping closer to him. "I'm sure we can get up to enough in whatever amount of time though." Now she was looking at him with a glint in her eye that made his mouth feel drier and she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Automatically his own arms wrapped around her waist, the natural place to put them there. "You're not the one who needs to worry about how you'll look if things get too much," he pointed out quietly.
"Oh you like it," she grinned and winked at him.
Before he could defend (?) himself, Chace came from the other direction and looked at them unimpressed. "Right in front of the stairs? Come on guys, gross," he rolled his eyes and bumped into them purposefully as he tried to go around and get up the stairs.
Only Tristan reached behind him blindly to try and steady himself, for his hand to come in contact with a small table. On that table was a vase that he'd seen dozens of times and though he had no clue what the value of it was, he did know though from the shattering sound that it made when it hit the floor that there was going to be no salvaging it. With a look of horror he turned to confirm that yes, the vase that had sat on the table was now on the floor in pieces.
"Oh my God, Chace!" Leslie exclaimed turning on her brother to glare at him as she pulled away from Tristan. "Look what you did!"
"What I did?!" Chace responded indignantly.
The sibling bickering felt to the wayside for Tristan, who was still looking at the vase on the floor as if he could somehow will it to put itself back together if he stared long enough at it. Probably because Leslie and Chace were quite loudly arguing over who was at fault here - Chace for pushing them or Leslie for blocking the stairs in the first place - it was Tristan who first noticed Mr. Aldridge coming to see what happened. He didn't look happy, not in the slightest and Tristan felt a tendril of fear spike in him for the trouble that either Leslie or Chace could be in. He wasn't going to let them get into trouble. Sure, the Aldridge parents were reasonable people who didn't punish their children for anything that wasn't a big deal but now they'd broken something and there was no fixing it. He remembered the first time that he'd ever dropped a plate in his house. The way that his parents had looked at him in a mixture of disgust, disdain and anger. The words came to mind so quickly it was like they were branded in his mind, he was stupid, he couldn't do anything right, he was clumsy and had no regard for others or the work they put in to afford the things that they had.
Without a second thought Tristan was on the floor, hurriedly trying to move the pieces into a pile. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Aldridge. It's my fault. I'm an idiot, I should have paid more attention. I'll pay to fix it. I promise it won't ever happen again. It was all my fault," he spoke hurriedly, his hands barely shaking as he stacked the pieces of porcelain together. He didn't notice that it got quiet as he spoke, Leslie and Chace falling silent. He didn't look at them, didn't seem the way that Leslie's face fell or the way that Chace's opened in surprise. "Whatever you need me to do to make it up to you-"
"Tristan, don't pick that up with your hands," Leslie was down on the floor with him, trying to reach for his hands to get them away from the broken shards.
"I'll clean it up. It's my fault," he repeated.
Now both Aldridge siblings were speaking over each other again. "No it's not!"
"What? No!"
"Tristan." Mr. Aldridge's voice cut through the siblings' and it was hard in a way that made Tristan twitch, pushing his hand into the shard that he still held onto and causing a gasp of pain as it split open. Even so he looked up to meet Mr. Aldridge's eyes, expecting to see anger there or disappointment. Instead he saw something much softer... was he imagining it or did the older man look like he was apologetic. "Tristan, let go of that." Obediently he dropped the shard which was now bloodied. Leslie was fussing over him, grabbing his hand to look at it. "Leslie, let's bring him to the bathroom and get out the first aid kit. Chace, get a broom, some shoes, and a dustpan. After that we'll vacuum over the area to make sure we get everything."
Leslie was bringing Tristan to his feet and surprisingly Mr. Aldridge followed the couple over to the bathroom where a first aid kit sat under the sink. Tristan reached for it, planning on taking care of the cut but Leslie batted his hand away. "Stop that," she muttered, looking at him worriedly as she opened up the kit and grabbed out some gauze and cloth.
Before she could start working on his hand though, Mr. Aldridge spoke up. "Leslie, can you give me a minute with Tristan?" he asked, holding his hand out for the material that she'd just taken out.
"But Daddy," she whined looking hurt at him and then looking back to Tristan.
"I know how to take care of cuts probably better than you do," he pointed out. "If my memory serves me, you always wanted me to take care of yours."
"I don't see why that means I should leave you alone," she challenged, clearly not wanting to leave her boyfriend.
"Leslie, it's fine," Tristan answered although his heart was beating faster. But now, this was what he wanted. If someone were to get in trouble, it should be him, not Leslie or Chace. Besides, Mr. Aldridge already didn't like him. He didn't think there was further that he could fall in the eyes of his girlfriend's father. And then anything that he said couldn't really be that much worse than what his own parents said.
She pouted and fixed her father with wide eyes, but he pointedly nodded to the door and she huffed before giving a light kiss on the cheek to Tristan and heading out.
Mr. Aldridge reached for a wash cloth and ran it under warm water before adding a small bit of soap to it, then in a surprisingly gentle way, he took Tristan's hand in his own and gently wiped away the blood from it. If he could feel the way that Tristan shook he didn't say anything. In fact, while he cleaned the cut the only sound was that of the running water that Mr. Aldridge would sometimes pass the washcloth under to get some of the blood off. The cut bled more than Tristan had expected it to.
"You know you don't have to worry about Leslie and Chace in this house, right?" Mr Aldridge spoke up suddenly. "I know-" There was a heavy sigh. "Val and I would never mistreat our children. If they get punished for something, it's only because we feel they really deserve it and the punishments aren't going to hurt them." The cut was clean now and Mr. Aldridge turned off the water, reaching for a dry washcloth to gently dry Tristan's hand.
"I know," Tristan answered quietly because he felt he was supposed to and because he did know that, logically. He knew that the Aldridges were much like the Mitts when it came to punishments in their household. He'd never heard them call their children stupid, never saw them take their phones to look through them, never heard them have to explain away a less than perfect mark. Even so, it was hard to shake the fears that he had that maybe it was just something that everyone else didn't see. Maybe he was missing pieces of the puzzle and he couldn't risk that happening, couldn't risk anything else happening to Leslie or to Chace (whom he had an affectionate bond with despite the fact that they didn't spend all that much time together, he found himself thinking of the guy as a younger brother of his own - especially the times that they'd ended up kicking a ball around over the summer while Leslie longed by the pool).
"So you don't have to always take the blame for when things go wrong," Mr Aldridge was gentle when he said this and he looked at Tristan. Now he was applying some ointment against the cut, covering it entirely before he covered that with some gauze. Everything was done so steadily but with an underlying amount of care that it was no wonder to Tristan that Leslie had wanted to be taken care of by her father when she'd gotten hurt - he was actually good at it. "And you don't have to prove yourself to anyone. You don't have to prove yourself to me."
Now Tristan swallowed hard, his eyes burning as he looked up in confusion at Mr. Aldridge. He didn't have to prove himself? Of course he did. He was just Tristan and he was trying to be a part of this family, there was no way for him to stop trying to prove that he might someday earn the right to be around if he worked hard enough. No he wasn't near on the level that he needed to be to stop trying to prove himself. "But- I'm not good enough for Leslie."
At that Mr. Aldridge chuckled and nodded, wrapping some of the gauze around his hand to keep the smaller pieces pressed to the cut. "Well that's true," he acknowledged. "But no one ever will be. So we've got to settle for someone who is good to her." Then he looked at him square in the eyes, blue meeting blue. There was a serious message there, one that was hard to doubt. "Tristan, I trust you. More than that, I respect you. You might not be perfect, but even I realize that you worship the ground Leslie walks on. I'm always going to put her first, but, kid, you've got to stop worrying about getting my approval. You've got it."
Tristan nodded jerkily, taking his hand back and wondering how he was supposed to say anything at all when his throat felt so tight. He'd... Mr. Aldridge didn't hate him? Didn't think he was some creep that wasn't good enough to even be in the same room as Leslie? The thought was baffling and he didn't know how to accept it.
"You're a good kid, Val and I both think so. You don't have to make yourself any more than you already are. We aren't expecting you to be perfect any more than we expect our own kids to be perfect," Mr. Aldridge put everything back into the first aid kit and moved to put it away as Tristan moved out of his way. "And you're always welcome here. Breaking some ugly vase isn't going to change that. Though," he paused for a moment. "Don't tell Val I said it was ugly."
At this, weird sort of confession that he'd just been granted Tristan quickly nodded again, not trusting himself to say anything still.
"Thanks," Mr Aldridge reached for his shoulder and squeezed it gently. "Now, let's go before Leslie bursts in demanding to make sure I'm not being too hard on you." He shook his head as he let go of Tristan's shoulder. "Also, you should know that I am still going to have to sometimes show mild disapproval. I can't let Leslie know that I totally approve or she'll use it against me when I try to say no to things and I'm not ready for that yet."
That somehow made sense to Tristan and honestly, he wasn't sure what he'd do if there ever came a point when Mr. Aldridge was like this with him all the time because the almost fatherly way that he was acting toward him made him want to cry a little. Maybe a lot. He couldn't dwell on it at the moment because if he came out of here crying Leslie was certainly going to get the wrong idea, so he pushed his emotions back as much as he possibly could and followed Mr. Aldridge back out, still mildly stunned and really only starting to fully realize how much his hand actually hurt. Even so, maybe it was a good thing that he'd broken the vase because he felt a lot better now.
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