Perception ((Jack Emmanual-Wheelan)) [PG-13: L, S]

Elijah and Jack had known that they couldn't afford a "real" honeymoon.  Traveling was expensive, and obviously neither of them had the money to do so.  But at least there was a small inn in New Rome...technically it was there for demigods and legacies living in the mortal world who needed a place to stay if they wanted to visit or an important meeting was called, but it was nice enough that the newlyweds could stay a couple nights to escape Camp Jupiter 2.0 after their wedding.  They knew eventually they'd be able to have a real honeymoon, but after scouting the inn, they liked it enough to book some time for...a honeymoon "light".  And Elijah was certainly glad they had.  The two hadn't done much...plenty of sex, of course, but there were other things.  One of the small man's favorite things was laying side by side with his new husband, talking about the future they had together.  Of course, there had always been a future, but it seemed different after getting married.  An intangible construct made tangible by the wedding rings they now wore.  So they'd talk about silly stuff...Jack moving all his stuff into Elijah's room in the Principia, or joking about the nights Jack would still have to spend in the barracks.  Or they'd talk about serious stuff...what they were going to do when they left camp, or how many kids they wanted.

They'd leave their room to eat, and go right back upstairs when they were done.  The bed was extremely comfy...Elijah theorized it had been blessed by Somnus, because he had never slept in a bed like that before.  They'd have more sex, or talk more, or just lie cuddled up with each other, enjoying the comfortable silence of two people in love.  Sometimes these things were beyond words, and even the son of Discordia enjoyed the moments of just silence, his head resting on Jack's left side so he could feel his husband's heartbeat reverberating through his whole body.  It was a feeling he would never grow tired of...that steady beat, and knowing it was all for him.  In the time the two had been together, shortly over three and a half years, Elijah had learned a lot about non-verbal communication...just as Jack had learned a lot about verbal communication.  Once upon a time, the small man would not have been too great at dealing with moments of total quiet.  It would make him fidgety and uncomfortable.  And although it still did at times, he very much enjoyed it at times as well.  His skin against Jack's, the older man's fingers running down his back and all the other little movements...it spoke so much with no words needed.

The sex was fantastic, of course.  Magical in a whole different way.  Maybe it was the whole being married thing, but everything seemed so transformed.  Elijah always loved being with his husband...but this was new somehow...though probably just in his head.  It made the honeymoon.  Even if they weren't in some exotic location, it was easy to forget they were a short walk from their usual abode.  At least, it was for him.  It had been many years since Elijah had slept somewhere other than his room in the Principia, and with the giant, comfy bed at the inn, the man considered it perfect for what he and Jack could do for now.  And really, it was all the man could have asked for...it was sexy, it was sweet, it was loving, it was relaxing...and so much more.  It was the sort of thing that he knew he would never be able to exactly explain to anyone.  The basics were easy...but his and his husband's dynamics were never easy to explain.  They were a one of a kind type of couple, which was reflected in everything they did.  And Elijah figured no one needed all of that anyway.

It had been three months since Elijah and Jack's wedding, and Elijah's mind still drifted there sometimes.  All of it had been so perfect.  The small ceremony, the reception, the honeymoon...with everything he had been through in his life, the small man never imagined he would ever attain that sort of happiness.  Because it had all made up the happiest time of his life.  To have found Jack, no matter how rough a start they had...the older man made him so happy, and sometimes it was still hard to believe they were married, and truly starting their life together.  Elijah never thought he'd get married, especially at such a young age.  But that was what was right for him and Jack.  Things would never be the same.  And so many thoughts drifted through the man's head about it all.  The past couple days, he had been thinking a lot about living with Jack.  The two had been sleeping in the same bed for years...the son of Discordia couldn't exactly remember when his husband pretty much moved into his room in the Principia, but it had been quite some time ago.  It was different somehow, to Elijah anyway, living together as a married couple versus the years they had spent together as boyfriends and even fiancés.

That was all different at camp anyway.  It wasn't like the two could get an apartment to live together in.  In fact, they were lucky they were able to do this at all.  After all, it was only the Praetors of camp that got their own rooms.  Everyone else was restricted to the barracks.  Elijah wasn't sure how they would have done it otherwise, and he was glad he didn't have to worry about that.  He was especially glad, now that he and Jack were married.  Sharing a bed as a married couple...well, sometimes it didn't feel like as big a deal.  Sometimes it did.  The small man would think back to their honeymoon...the first time they shared a bed as newlyweds, and how it felt like a dream.  Returning was still sort of like that...and three months later, it still popped up in Elijah's mind.  Like tonight, as the sun was setting and he was curled up at his husband's side, reading a book.  It was such a normal thing to be doing, and yet it felt so...domestic.  "This is our life now," he offered out of the blue, looking up at his husband.  "Sometimes I forget that we're doing this as a married couple.  It feels so standard, yet so domestic at the same time," he pushed his glasses up his nose.  "I can't make any sense of it sometimes.  Can you?" Elijah knew that Jack saw things differently.  His insight...was invaluable.

((Word vomit post go!))

Curled up next to Elijah, shoulders pressed together, was a beautiful way to spend the evening.  Words weren’t needed to express the happiness and the comfort of being near his husband after a long day in the legion.  Jack smiled slightly as Elijah turned a page in his book, apparently completely absorbed in the story.  The pendant from Venus told him that the younger man was completely content.  He wasn’t about to interrupt that.  Jack flipped his pencil—his husband’s pencil—through his fingers as he studied the cookbook propped open on his knees.  After spending thirty hours reshelving books in the library to pay off his fine for defacing rented camp property, he had finally learned to take his notes in a separate notebook, which, of course, he had stolen from Elijah.  It was so normal, yet so…domestic at the same time.  The two had shared so much before they were married, but after the wedding, something changed.  It was as if the few remaining boundaries between them had melted away.  Jack caught Elijah wearing his clothes more often than ever, and the son of Venus stole his husband’s office supplies whenever he needed.  (Though he never touched the son of Discordia’s “good” pens.  The younger man had made it quite clear that death would be an appropriate consequence for losing a good pen.)  Though their marriage had really only been a formal recognition of their relationship, to Jack, it had been so much more.  Even for a child of the goddess of love, it was difficult to explain.

Elijah looked up, interrupting Jack’s thoughts.  “This is our life now,” he stated.  The son of Venus raised both eyebrows, giving him a quizzical look.  Similar observations had come up numerous times during their honeymoon, but Jack was never quite sure what would follow.  Sometimes it was a serious comment about them being a legally married gay couple.  Other times, it was a discussion about all the difficult legal issues they would have to face as a couple in the mortal world—things like health insurance, rent, and car payments.  Other times still, it was a joking quip about how they were bound together for all of eternity.  And occasionally, it was a theoretical discussion about whether or not married couples got to live together if they both reached Elysium.  This time, Jack had no idea what to expect.  Elijah quickly provided his answer.  “Sometimes I forget that we’re doing this as a married couple.  It feels so standard, yet so domestic at the same time.  I can’t make any sense of it sometimes.  Can you?”

Jack chuckled and absently began playing with his wedding band.  During their ceremony, his rose gold engagement ring had been moved to his right ring finger to make room for the silver band.  He still wore both every day, and couldn’t imagine ever removing either one.  He stared off into space for a few moments, trying to figure out how best to answer.  Finally, he shook his head.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “But there’s definitely something different—something tangibly different—about cuddling up with my fiancé versus cuddling up with my husband.”  The word still sounded foreign to the son of Venus, but it was a beautiful kind of foreign.  It was an Irish accent instead of a German accent.  “Maybe my mother was watching over our wedding,” he offered.  “And she blessed it.  Or maybe your mother was watching over to give us her own ‘blessing’,” he teased.  He leaned in and kissed Elijah lightly.  “I don’t know,” he said again.  “But I know what you mean.”

That was another thing that had changed dramatically over the three and a half—nearly four years—that the couple had been together.  At the beginning, Jack had had no idea how to interpret Elijah.  The younger man was great at posing questions that were impossible to make sense of.  The son of Discordia’s thoughts were too messy, too chaotic.  A question that made perfect sense to him was utterly incomprehensible to Jack, even after a lengthy explanation.  But over time, Jack had learned.  He had learned how to read his husband’s thought processes.  He had figured out how to dissect the questions.  He had discovered how to ask the right clarifying questions.  He had experienced with Elijah, and thus had learned how to feel his thoughts.  The physical communicator had uncovered a whole new kind of physical communication.  Jack stopped playing with his ring and wrapped his arm around Elijah’s waist.  “We’ve done this a million times, but it’s still new,” he mused.  “Maybe it’s because we have a solid future now,” he added.  Though it had been a little difficult at first, Jack had also learned not to hold anything back.  At this point, there was very little he could say to truly hurt Elijah, and he had found that his husband shared a lot of his own concerns.  “Before we got married, there was always that nagging fear that you might leave me for somebody better.  I knew you loved me, but that was my one irrational fear.  Now that you’re my husband, I know you’ll stay.  And I think that’s what’s different.  This is standard, but now I know for sure that everything we do is helping to build a solid future.  Together.”

Over the time that Jack and Elijah had been together, Elijah had learned a lot about himself.  And, possibly more than anything, he had grown.  Once upon a time, the man thought he would never find himself in this sort of situation.  Happily settled with someone who loved him...who he loved, too.  More than anything.  He couldn't imagine cuddled up with the man of his dreams, everything fitting together just as it was meant to.  Such a homey life, the life of a married man.  Sure, there were differences between being married at camp and being married in the mortal world, or so the son of Discordia assumed, but what he and Jack had...there really weren't any words for it.  Sure, they could try, and Elijah was pretty sure that both of them did a decent job with it, but some things just...well, maybe they couldn't be put into words at all.  It was something that the man was sort of...coming to terms with.  And for as much as a verbal communicator as he was, he was pretty much content with that.

Seeing Jack play with his wedding band made Elijah want to do the same.  He had opted to keep his engagement ring and wedding band on the same finger...his engagement ring was simple enough that he could do that.  A plain metal band with a small diamond in it, the man still loved his engagement ring extraordinarily, even compared to his fancier wedding band.  "I know what you mean," he said simply, but pensively to his husband's words.  "Everything about it just..." it was a lot to think about.  The two had been engaged for just over a year before they were married, and a few of those months, Jack had been in the mortal world.  But they had been together for about two and a half years before they were engaged.  Sure, the two were young, but this was the right way to do things for them.  "Being with my husband like this is one of my greatest joys," Elijah said softly, playing with his rings.  "I think I even like the word husband better than the word fiancé," this was definitely true.  Husband just...felt better.  Rolled off his tongue nicer.

With a laugh, Elijah took his husband's hand, lacing their fingers together.  "I think both of of our mothers were there in some way, honestly," obviously Venus and Discordia hadn't showed up at the wedding, as they couldn't really do so anyway, but the man was pretty sure they had been watching over somehow.  Maybe from above or that sort of thing.  When he really thought about it after the wedding, he sort of had a feeling about it anyway.  There was no way even Goddesses would just sit back and ignore their children's weddings, especially Venus.  And Elijah had had enough run ins with Discordia to know that she did care in her own way.  "Some sort of presence.  Especially your mother.  How could the Goddess of love pass up a good wedding?" he smiled.  At the moment, it was all a lot to think about.  And the son of Discordia didn't want to deal with the heavy stuff, as this had potential to be.  He just wanted to be happy in bed with his husband...the two doing their own things, but doing so together.

And that was really just the thing with the two.  Elijah and Jack were so different.  They always had been, though in the end it didn't matter much...they still fit together like those two puzzle pieces that didn't look like they belonged together, but they actually did.  It was something the man really loved.  People didn't understand them.  In all honesty, Elijah hadn't understood it at first, either.  Not that he let that stop him in his relationship with Jack.  He wasn't entirely sure he understood it even now, but that didn't matter.  Not anymore, if it even had in the first place.  "A solid future..." the son of Discordia tasted the words.  He was pretty sure that made sense.  Jack's next words cemented that feeling.  "I think I always felt the same," he gave an anxious chuckle.  "That you could do so much better than me.  I always figured it was only a matter of time before you realized that," the man glanced at his wedding ring, and then his husband's.  They fit the men perfectly, the diamond half a heart on Elijah's and black inlay half a heart on Jack's.  He knew that there was no one better for Jack than him...just as there was no one better than Jack for him.

"We're stuck together," Elijah teased, leaning up to kiss Jack gently.  Despite his light tone, the words held some weight.  Not anything too serious, really.  The two loved each other too much to ever separate.  There would be challenges, of course...as there was with any couple.  But for Jack and Elijah...the love certainly won out.  There was no way they could ever be with anyone else.  "You've always been my future, Jack Emmanual-Wheelan," the man smiled.  "It's always been written in the stars," it was one of those things that Elijah knew was out of his hands.  The two were meant to be...nothing could ever change that.  "And I can't think of anyone I'd rather do it with."