The Meaning of Sanctuary

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Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, [and] what is happening.
- Coco Chanel

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“Alright! Alright! You win!” Too-thin, in Dave’s humble opinion, shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’ll stay with you until my parents get back!”

Dave grinned in satisfaction, and even Adrian smiled – after he took the boy’s backpack. Ignoring the glare thrown his way, of course. “Excellent! Let’s go.”

---0~0~0---

The small blue car finally stopped in front of a typically white suburban home, the soothing purr dying down as Adrian turned off the engine and pocketed the keys. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Alex stopped, hand on the door of the car, already halfway out. “Um... To get my stuff? I do need stuff, you know, if you want me to stay at your place for more than a few days.”

“Oh, I know. But we’re coming with you.” He stepped out, Dave going around the passenger’s side before locking the car with a ‘beep-beep’.

“You’re coming - ?! Fu-!” The boy bit off the curse at the martial arts teacher’s raised brow. “Sorry. But I’m just gonna pack a few things – I don’t need any help!”

“Who says we didn’t just want to see how messy your room is? Now go on, open the door.” Dave gestured, a calm smile on his face.

Grumbling breaking and entering and death threats under his breath – which of course the teachers happily ignored – the boy unlocked the door, waiting for the two men to come in, locking it again afterwards.

“Well?” Adrian grinned as Dave glanced curiously around at the simple, quaint décor of the house. “Lead the way.”

---0~0~0---

“Wow. I’ve gotta say, Alex, I’m impressed....” Dave remarked as the boy opened his closet. “I had no idea you were such a neat freak.”

The boy spared a moment to glare at the teacher, before turning away to jump for a suitcase that was stored at the top shelf, not –quite- able to reach it. Just as he was about to go and grab a chair, a bronzed arm reached past his head and took it down for him. “Here.”

“...Thanks.” Alex said, as Adrian set it down on the bed. He turned his attention back to the closet, and started taking out clothes. With the ease of long practice - this was not the first time that both teachers, by fair means or foul, had him stay over - he laid out long-sleeved shirts, various sweaters, pants, assorted pairs of jeans and underwear, and a couple of pairs of shorts and loose shirts that he wore when going to sleep. And if his nerves were at all affected by the presence of the two men in his room, the only thing that betrayed him were the slightest jerks and sudden stops of his movements under the scrutiny of two pairs of eyes.

Adrian’s gaze curiously took in the boy’s room. A fairly decent size for a teenaged boy, all in all. Whitewashed walls, with the one behind the bed painted gold. Dark-brown cherry wood furniture, from the sensible looking study table just beside the door, the large, tastefully carved bookshelves on either side of the window to the left of the bed, two smallish bedside lamps, to the four poster bed itself which, along with the faux-fur carpet on the floor with pillows scattered over it beside the bed, were the only signs of decadence in the room. Everything was almost scrupulously clean, except, Adrian noted with a grin, the carpet and the bed itself, which was covered with books in all manner of sizes and colors.

He had had to navigate carefully to avoid stepping on any of them when he’d placed the bag on the bed in much the same way, if not quite with the same amount of ease as Alex now did as he started folding the clothes into the bag and putting away the hangers. With his husband harping him all the way about his fashion sense, of course.

Or rather, lack thereof.

“Leave him alone, Dave,” Adrian said, finally coming to Alex’s rescue. “It’s not his fault he doesn’t have taste when it comes to clothes.”

“Gee, thanks.” Alex rolled his eyes as he put more clothes away.

“Anytime.” Adrian grinned, which earned him another roll of th eyes.

“Oh, c’mon, Adrian! You have to agree! I mean look at this!” Dave was holding up a drab-looking shirt that was at least two sizes too big for the boy.

“Gimme that!” Alex grabbed the shirt back, putting it back into his bag. “Besides, it’s a nice shirt. I like it.”

“It’s disgusting!”

“It’s comfortable!”

“It looks like a dishrag that should have been thrown away years ago!”

“Does not!”

“Does too!”

“Does not!”

“It makes you look like a homeless person!” Dave threw up his hands, before going over to the open closet. “Don’t you have any decent clothing? Ones that actually fit the real you? Not the you if you were about a hundred pounds overweight?”

“Hey!”

“Like.. Oh! What about this one?” Dave turned around, holding up his find with a flourish.

It was a button-up silk shirt in a dark, maroon color that when worn would cling to the wearer’s body in a very flattering way. Adrian had to admit that it was a good choice, even if it was just a little provocative.

“Yuck! That shirt makes me look like a pimp!”

Obviously, Alex didn’t agree.

“And this would go perfectly with it!”

This time, it was a pair of black slacks that, though admittedly looked very good, seemed like they would fit a little too well.

“Are you sure that would even fit the boy, Dave?” Adrian asked, examining the pants again. “They seem a little small to me.”

"They are too small for me!"

“They were in his closet, weren’t they?” Dave remarked a little impatiently, folding it away into the bag despite the boy’s protests. “They’ll fit.”

“Oh hey... This isn’t half bad either.”

“I hate that one even more than that red horror!”

Adrian sighed as he sat back on the swivel chair beside the study table, picking up a reader’s digest magazine as he did so.

This was going to take a while....

---0~0~0---

About an hour later, the sensible blue car rolled up in front of a one-story house of medium size, about a few streets away from where Alex lived.

Alex never could understand how Mr – Dave – and Adrian could afford such a nice house with the salary they were living on. Sure, they were good teachers. But teachers, even good ones, don’t really get paid enough to be able to afford a house. At least, not until they’d been teaching and saving for a while. But Dave only started about a year ago – about two years later than Adrian when the oriental man started teaching martial arts.

Oh well. Chalk up another one for the weirdness that is Dave and Adrian, gaily married couple extraordinaire. Pun intended.

“Come on, sport,” Dave gestured, somewhat impatiently, for Alex to come in. Too late, Alex realized, Adrian had already carried his bags inside for him. “You’ve seen the house over a dozen times. You can gawk at it again later – gotta get you settled in first.”

Alex walked into the house, automatically locking the door behind him with a flick of the wrist, ignoring the flash of pain the movement caused with practiced ease. “I guess I’m in the blue room again?”

“Of course.” Dave nodded, gesturing for him to go to said room. “Adrian’s unpacking your stuff. Tell him what goes where. I’ll be in the kitchen making dinner if you need me.”

Rolling his eyes at the other’s concern, though appreciating it nonetheless, Alex walked away and into the what he had – terrifyingly – begun to regard as ‘his’ room in Dave’s house, stopping at the sight of all his bags unpacked and neatly put away in the open closet, with Adrian lying in his – Dave’s – guest bed.

“You started without me.” He said, accusingly.

“And finished it too.” Adrian lifted his head, raising a disapproving eyebrow at him. “Why don’t you have more things?”

Alex shrugged, pulling out a chair by the study table and sitting down, hands resting on his lap. “I’m only gonna be here for a month.”

“Exactly. Why don’t you have more stuff?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“You’re gonna be here for a month. You should have a huge suitcase full of clothes. Instead, you only have two small bags’ worth.” The man let the silence linger pointedly. “Why?”

Alex stared at him blankly, not certain where the man was getting at. “...Because that’s more than enough for a month?” He hazarded a guess, phrasing the question as if he were talking to the mentally unbalanced.

The martial arts teacher stared at him like he was insane. “...Don’t you have any more clothes?” He finally asked.

Alex grew even more visibly confused. “What are you talking about? We brought practically my entire wardrobe!”

The teacher’s gaze sharpened. “You mean you don’t have any more clothes?”

“Sure I do.” Alex shrugged. “We left the rest back at home.” At the teacher’s uncomprehending look, he elaborated. “Home. Remember? In my closet? Which your husband ransacked in his search for the most disgusting outfits I had?”

“You mean that was all you had? In the closet? There wasn’t anything... in the wash, or out being laundered?”

“Well, other than a shirt or two, and maybe a pair of briefs… No. What??” The boy asked almost defensively at the narrowed eyes. “So I don’t need a lot of clothes – so what?”

“...Alex.”

“What?”

“A couple of stacks of shirts, several pairs of pants, jackets, and a drawer’s worth of underwear is ‘don’t need a lot of clothes’.” He explained. “And by ‘a couple of stacks’ I mean more than that pathetic little pile of bits of cloth you call shirts. ‘Several pairs of pants’ are – I don’t know, but they would certainly mean more than the few that were hanging in your closet! I can’t even believe that Dave managed to ‘ransack’ it – there wasn’t enough in there to ‘ransack’ to begin with!”

“Eh...” Alex shifted a little nervously in his seat. “So maybe I don’t need as much as other people do. So what?”

“You have maybe, maybe 10 – or 15 tops – worth of shirts – total. You have three pairs of jeans – all of which you brought. You only have one jacket. You have two pairs of shoes. Your closet was so close to empty, I could barely tell the difference!!”

“...I have 18 shirts.”

“Alex!!”

“What?!?!”

“You barely have anything in your closet! In fact,” Adrian’s eyes narrowed again. “You had more clothes a few months ago than you do now. Where are they?”

“..meabrrwodem.”

“What?”

“I said I borrowed them! I figured it’d look weird if that was all you saw in my closet, so I borrowed some clothes from a couple of people then gave it back after.”

“No wonder you didn’t want us to bother coming down... You didn’t have time to prepare anything...” His eyes widened in realization, then is suspicion. “Would your parents buy you clothes if you need them? Do they buy you clothes at all?”

“Of course they do!”

“Oh, really?” He raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “And exactly how often do they buy you clothes? Once every few years, maybe? And when they do, how much do they buy? It’s not as if you can’t afford it – I know that for a fact – so I’d be very much willing to listen to your explanation of why you have even less clothes than I do.”

Alex glared at him before pointedly turning away. “I’m not answering those questions.”

“Alex - ”

“You’re violating my privacy!”

“Alex - ”

“Why should I answer if I don’t want to? This could legally be considered harassment, you realize?”

“ALEX!!!”

“No, alright?!” Alex whirled back around, brown eyes hot, fists tightened and trembling in anger. “No – they don’t buy me stuff. How could they when they’re barely at home long enough for me to ask?!”

He took an angry step away towards the teacher, before restraining himself and holding his position, though uncaring that his voice was rising in volume.

“They always go off on their little trips and tours, with barely a by-your-leave. They don’t tell me when they’re going to leave, they don’t tell me when they’re coming back – and they couldn’t care less. With the amount of time they’re gone and all their busy schedules - hell, I’m lucky they remember I need money for food every so often! Not that the money’s ever enough even when they do remember!”

“Alex - ”

“No!” The boy cut him off, making a sharp, slicing motion with his right hand as he stalked towards the bed, before folding his arms angrily. “You asked, I’m answering.”

“No, they don’t buy me stuff.” The boy repeated, a little more calmly. “I buy everything I need.”

“How do I afford everything I need?” Alex continued, anticipating the next question as the teacher opened his mouth. “I work. When do I work? Everyday. How long, because the stuff in my room looks like it costs a lot? As many hours as I can, but that doesn’t matter because the furniture in my room I got at a bargain rate – I just fixed it up myself with varnish, paint, and some tools when I had the time. The only thing I had to buy in regards to furniture’s the carpet and the mattress, which took me a long time to save up for.”

“The only thing I didn’t buy was the closet – and that was because I didn’t have enough clothes to need a big closet. Not that it mattered – I care more for my books than I do for clothes. I’m willing to spend on books – not on clothes. Why do I have the silk shit Dave was packing away? Gifts from some people I work either with or for.”

“There.” Alex finished with a snap as he stalked away to the open closet, digging through it to grab a pair of jeans and a drab brown shirt. “Have I answered all your questions?” Not waiting for the teacher’s reply, he continued. “Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a job to go to.”

Before he could take so much as a step towards the door, Adrian grabbed his shoulder and twisted him around forcefully. “What??” He almost snarled as he tried to jerk away, and failed. “Let me go! Or do you want me to starve for the next month? Not that I care, but I think going to school looking literally like nothing more than skin and bones will raise more than a few eyebrows.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Adrian demanded, grip tightening on the boy’s shoulder, stance shifting so that his frame blocked the doorway should the teen suddenly decide to try and make a run for it. “You know we would have helped if you had just asked! At the very least we could have – ”

“What? Called Social Services?” Alex sneered, trying to jerk out of the man’s hold, and glaring when he failed. “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t have the patience to deal with airheads who think the best way to solve problems is to drag me away from my family and stick me somewhere else I don’t know about.”

“Calling Social Services is only the first of several things we could have done! And despite your prejudices, at least they will make sure that you’re placed in a family that will treat and provide for you properly!”

“My family does treat me properly!”

“Your family abuses you!”

“They do not! They’re – they’re just a little forgetful sometimes!”

“Alex - ”

“And anyway, who cares?” The boy wrenched his arm away from Adrian, ignoring the sting that meant a bruise was already beginning to form with practiced ease. He walked away from the teacher towards a mirror, straightening his shirt with jerky, agitated motions that belied the calm look on his face. “I certainly don’t. With or without my family, I’ve been doing perfectly fine on my own, and I’ll keep doing fine on my own regardless of whether you or Mr. Matthews does a thing about it! And I don’t give a flying fuck what you think about it!”

Alex walked to the door and once again attempted to slip past the tall form of the martial arts teacher, growling with audible frustration as he was once again stopped, this time by two arms that wrapped around his frame and effortlessly held him immobile. He stiffened as the man pulled him back, practically molding their forms together as exercise-callused hands tried to soothe his angry, tense, and almost vibrating body into relaxation.

“Shh…” Adrian hugged him tighter, comfort radiating off him in waves even as the man internally warred between fury at the boy’s treatment from his family, or sadness that it happened to Alex, who he firmly believed deserved none of it, no matter what anyone else says.

“…It hurts…” Alex whispered, sounding almost bewildered as his body relaxed into the man’s hold.

“What?” Adrian loosened his grip slightly, concerned. “I’m sorry – was I holding on too tight?”

The boy shook his head dazedly, looking around as if unaware of where he was. “No, I…” He reached an arm up to absentmindedly rub at a twinge in his chest, wincing as some unnamable emotion throbbed in his heart once again. “I…” Brown eyes abruptly widened in panicked realization. “I have to go! I’m going to be late!”

Taking his chances, he broke out of the teacher’s loosened hold, scooped up his backpack, and ran for the front door of the house, loping stride speeding up as he heard the sounds of pursuit. He frantically scrabbled at the lock, almost fainting with relief as the door gave way and let him outside, just barely managing to avoid Adrian’s grasp, the tip of long fingers brushing against the back of his neck and causing a curious shiver to work its way up his body.

Ignoring it he continued to run down the pavement, half-turning as he ran to call out behind him to the figure standing on the porch. “I’ll be home late – don’t wait up!”

“Alex!”

“Go ahead and eat without me!” The voice was fainter now, farther away. “Bye!”

“ALEX!!!”

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