Jericho’s Happy Ending

One of Harinder’s employees called off, so Jericho is antique shopping by himself. Neither he nor Harinder expected their favorite bonding activity to be arguing over old shit, but it sure happened.

Before, Harinder had no place to put things he wanted. Before, Jericho had far too much space to deal with.

Now, here he is, trying negotiating space and design on his own.

Harinder insisted he consolidate his hobbies into two workstations, which was fair. Harinder claimed the bedroom desk—also fair. He still hides often, and it would be wrong to expect him, in only a couple months, to get over his issues with feeling unsafe.

Jericho’s “Cool Things” desk has been sold, replaced with a larger one, boasting high shelves that were an utter bitch to put together. A similar storage technique was applied to the television stand. It’s a marvel Jericho never thought to build up instead of sprawling out. The apartment has a lot more room, even factoring in the ferret cage (which fit in the bedroom) and the promised fish tank.

Harinder didn’t go crazy with the size, though Jericho suspects he would have if he felt he could get away with it. A respectable twenty gallon sits next to the entertainment center. Jericho was forced to admit he enjoyed watching them, and of course, Harinder has kept the tank spotless.

It’s been weird giving up control of his apartment. Their apartment. He’d added Harinder to the lease and informed the landlord they were looking for a two-bedroom when the lease was up.

Jericho’s been making decisions alone since he was a teenager, something Harinder has never had the freedom to do. The arrangement feels strange, but it works.

It makes him happy.

What doesn’t make him happy is Harinder calling him from work when Jericho is already waiting at the downtown market, standing outside the antique store in the early spring wind.

“I have to work a double,” Harinder says.

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry. Annie says she’s sick, and I’m already short-staffed since Josh took medical leave.” He sighs. “This is harder than just doing it all myself. At least I knew what to expect.”

Jericho thinks it’s a massive improvement, though he doesn’t say so. Minor frustrations about unreliable employees are much better than only seeing Harinder at night. They can go to the marketplace together next Saturday.

“It’ll be fine,” is all he says, tone carefully neutral. “What did you want me to look for again?”

“New table for the fish tank—you know the dimensions, right? I’ll text them to you just in case. Make sure it has at least one drawer. No light wood; it won’t fit with the apartment’s atmosphere. Oh, and you should look for a cool lamp. Send me pictures before you buy anything; promise?”

“Promise.”

“Good. I— I’ll see you when we both get home?”

Okay, there’s that flutter in his stomach. It was lost for a second under the disappointment. “Of course. I—yeah. Bye.”

They’ve been dancing around “I-statements” for a while. Jericho feels it’s too early for three-word declarations, and he assumes Harinder is in the same position. It’s awkward. Four months isn’t enough, right? To really grow to love someone?

He scrubs the worry from his mind and walks into the antique shop to browse.

The visuals give him ideas for paintings and illustrations. Harinder bought him a new sketchbook—a small, spiral-bound, pocket-sized thing. It took him a while to start using it. Jericho has always been private about his art; it embarrasses him, but he doesn’t know why.

Now, he takes it out and spends a few minutes, here and there, sketching whatever details catch his eye, things that give him ideas and others Harinder might like looking at.

He still wishes Harinder were here to see for himself.

Jericho does find a tank stand with the perfect dimensions, except it has shelves instead of a drawer, and it is a distressed teal rather than natural wood. At least the bits showing through aren’t light. He sends a picture to Harinder just in case.

Some other pieces have quality wood, but not the ideal dimensions, and Jericho grows bored. It’s hard to decide what Harinder wants without his input, and to make matters worse, all the lamps are ugly. Ugh.

He climbs the narrow, creaking wooden steps to the top floor of the antique shop. He hates this fucking staircase. It’d be perfect for a haunted house. Less perfect for easily transporting delicate antiques. It’s not that he has a fear of heights—it’s just that dark gaps in things make him feel existential.

Jericho stops focusing on the spaces between the stairs and starts squeezing himself through the tightly packed vendor stations. He wishes he had Harinder’s eye. He wishes he had Harinder. He wishes he wasn’t so grumpy about not having Harinder.

Nothing else stands out to him, and his boyfriend hasn’t texted him yes or no on the stand yet, but Jericho expects a “no.”

He’s about to give up and go back downstairs, maybe get a butterbeer soda from the fancy ice cream parlor across the street to soothe his irritable mood, when he notices a dusty chamber behind the dense line of shelving. It’s something he’s never noticed before, so he winds around a midcentury dresser and a curio cabinet, emerging into a long musty hall of old doors, windows, and larger items that wouldn’t fit on the main floor.

Not a single person is back here aside from himself, which gives it a spooky, surrealist feeling. He hopes this isn’t going to turn into some Cabin in the Woods shit.

There are wheelbarrows and a chest of drawers with broken legs, advertised “as-is,” an entire farm plow covered in rust, and piles of worn wood slabs. It’s all cool, but nothing relevant to his goals. He steps around some old bottles and looks for an exit that doesn’t require walking all the way back to the corridor he entered through.

While narrowly avoiding a rusty girder, Jericho bumps something with his hip. He turns to steady it and is perplexed by its unusual shape.

It takes him a second to identify it as a telescope.

Jericho has never seen a telescope in person, which is why his first response is shock at the size. He knows the gist from pictures—a long lens with a narrow end and a thicker one, a scope, and a number of fancy doodads he won’t pretend to understand the function of. The black exterior has seen a significant amount of wear, but overall, nothing looks overtly broken.

Turns out, telescopes are heavier than they look.

“Excuse me?” Jericho says, searching for a vendor. It’s a quiet day and there aren’t many people perusing the second floor, and none of them look to be vendors. Even if he could find one, he doesn’t know the owner of the telescope or even if it works.

He could just leave it. It’s completely reasonable to think, Wow, this is a cool thing! I’m going to snap a picture of it for my boyfriend and then leave since I did not find what he asked me to look for.

Jericho heaves a sigh as he approaches the stairs, which seem twice as precarious now that he is holding a large, expensive instrument. He can’t see the oncoming steps too well, and descends in abject fear of the spaces between wooden slabs finding a way to trip him up and suck him in.

He reaches the first floor unharmed, telescope clutched safely in his arms. He resists the urge to sag in relief at being free of the evils of elevation. No wonder he never thought to build upward. There will be no Towers of Babel from this man.

Once he has collected his wits, Jericho navigates, much more precariously than before, to the desk at the front where the owner and the cashier sit. The owner is a withered white man who speaks mostly of history and doesn’t respond well to other topics. He’s never treated Jericho like a criminal or tried to follow him (would be a bit hard even if he wanted to), so he’s cool in Jericho’s book. The cashier is his perky teenage daughter.

Jericho doesn’t know her name, but she looks exactly the way one would expect of the daughter of an antique hoarder. Blonde hair with teal highlights, a cheerful disposition, and brown corduroy overalls. She has a nose piercing and bitten nails half covered in chipped black polish. He likes her.

“Hey, is this for sale?”

She blinks owlishly at the telescope. “I didn’t even know we had that,” she admits. “Daaaad?”

The owner, who was sorting papers at his desk, looks up. “Yes, Jenny? What?”

Jenny gestures. “Is the telescope for sale?”

He leans forward to peer at the item. Uncomfortable with the sudden attention, Jericho places it on the desk and takes a step back, out of the line of focus. He watches as the guy does his thing, looking over the piece with careful hands and a speculative eye. Finally, he puts his palms on the desk, tapping one finger as he levels the telescope with a perplexed grimace.

“This was the one that Archie took in, thinking it was an antique. It’s a model from nineteen ninety-goddamn-five.” The guy sighs and rubs his hands together. “It has no antique value. Thing’s only, uhh…”

“Twenty-five years old,” Jenny says for him.

“Yes. If anything, it’s obsolete junk. Technology has skyrocketed, not that I know anything about that. No one’s looking for these anymore, not even a collector.”

Jenny eyes Jericho. “No one?” she asks.

“No—”

“How much?”

*

Aquariums & More is open until eight on Saturdays now, so a double shift could mean Harinder is pulling a twelve-hour open-to-close, or he’s going to be there until someone can relieve him. Wanting to be home before his boyfriend, Jericho books it.

It’s 2:30 by the time he gets inside the apartment, and Harinder hasn’t responded to his text yet. So much for wanting to give input on stuff, Jericho thinks with a small trace of bitterness. What was he supposed to do if he actually found something Harinder liked?

Ugh.

In an attempt to distract himself from the moping, Jericho sets the telescope upright by the largest window in the apartment. He has to shove his drafting desk a few inches over to fit it comfortably, but he manages enough room to not crowd the damn thing. A spare comforter, folded in half so the thick fabric obscures the telescope’s shape, drapes inelegantly over it.

Once the gift is hidden, Jericho sits on the futon and fidgets anxiously in his too-neat home.

Times like these, he misses the clutter. Precious stuff to keep his thoughts from running so far he can’t catch them.

Dumpling jumps onto the couch next to him and puts a demanding paw on his leg. Jericho smiles weakly as he strokes her back, running his fingers through soft fur that Harinder brushes every night to discourage matting. He’s got the greatest executive function skills Jericho has ever seen in a person. Like, damn. Some mornings, Jericho has to sit in bed for an hour before he has the energy to go to the bathroom.

He pets Dumpling, and flips through his sketchbook, trying to get inspiration from any of the day’s doodles. That fails.

Finally, he gets up, thinking he’ll go to the kitchen and plan dinner for when Harinder gets home, keeping his toes crossed it’ll happen sometime before eight. That’s when the door opens, and Harinder slumps inside.

“Hey, bud,” Jericho says, eyebrows raised in surprise.

Harinder faceplants into his chest, body sagging. “Hey.”

“What’s up? You, uh. You didn’t tell me you were on your way home.”

Groaning, Harinder pushes himself upright again. “I dropped my phone in the fucking backstock tank.”

Jericho’s jaw hangs. “You what?”

“Please don’t ask how. Shit.”

He resists the urge to laugh—not because it’s funny, or because it’s not funny, even, but because he spent the whole day moping around because his boyfriend wasn’t around to look at old baskets with him while Harinder was stranded at work without a phone, more than likely because he was so focused on something he forgot it was in his hand.

“I’m sorry, babe.”

“I hate today,” Harinder grumbles.

That’s when Jericho remembers he did more with his day than sitting around feeling bad for himself.

“I got something that might help you feel better.”

Harinder’s head snaps up, eyebrows furrowed into a suspicious squint. “What’s that?”

Okay, this time Jericho does laugh. “Chill. You look like you’re trying to shoot lasers.”

“Nonsense. I wouldn’t fire anything until I knew what you were about to tell me.”

“Oh, right. Right.”

“Appease my curiosity, you ass. What is the thing?”

“Close your eyes.”

“Not a goddamn chance. Tell me now.”

Jericho sighs dramatically. “You are literally no fun.”

“Zero.” Harinder folds his arms and glares until Jericho gives in.

“Fine. Follow me, jackass.”

“Thank you.”

Harinder practically prances after him as Jericho leads him to the blanket-covered gift. Jericho critically looks over the offering, trying to see if anyone could still accurately identify the shape.

He doesn’t have time to continue his perusal because Harinder looms over it, performing his own analysis. “Tell me I can uncover it,” he demands.

“Go wild, stallion.”

Harinder wastes two precious seconds on giving him a withering look, and then he delicately seizes the comforter and lifts it free of the object underneath. Then he stops.

“Oh. It’s a— Wait.”

Jericho doesn’t know what to make of it when Harinder shoves his face close to the lens and scrabbles at the worn surface as if searching for something. Maybe there’s a part missing? The antique guy didn’t know, nor did he care, if the thing was still in working condition. Jericho paid $100 cash for it and walked out hoping he didn’t get scammed.

Harinder finally steps back from the telescope. His face is expressionless and pale. “Where did you get this?”

“Uh, the antique store? I didn’t find anything you were looking for, but I ran into this—literally, by the way; they pack things so close in that place. Anyway, I thought you might like it because you said—”

“This is it.”

“This is—what now?”

“This is it,” Harinder repeats, so intense he sounds angry.

“I don’t understand. Is something wrong?”

“You fucking idiot.” Harinder’s eyes glisten, but before Jericho has time to lose his entire shit, Harinder loses his. “This is my dad’s telescope,” he says in one long sob, and then buckles against the desk with a hand fisted over his mouth.

Jericho can’t breathe.

“This is—the same model?” It’s still not hitting him.

“No.” Harinder’s trying to support himself on the edge of the desk; Jericho finally processes the visual and moves to help him into the chair like a decent fucking boyfriend.

Tears stream liberally down Harinder’s cheeks. “It’s not the same model,” he blubbers. “This is it. The one that was stolen.”

The words are like getting slapped in the face by a cold, unknown force. It’s a refreshing and utterly terrifying smack of adrenaline. Jericho’s heart starts to pound. “This is—”

Harinder nods, trying to wipe his eyes with a shaky hand. It’s useless. Every patch dried by the corner of his sweater is quickly replaced by a new flood.

“How do you know?”

He flops a hand at the telescope, but it’s so uncoordinated Jericho can’t tell if he was meant to identify a specific part of it or just consider the whole thing.

“The— There’s—” Harinder tries, hiccuping. He swallows, shakes his head, then points with a steadier hand. “There’s an engraving. It’s old, so you can’t really see it, but you can feel it if you know it’s there. It’s my birth date.”

This is the most terrifying thing Jericho has ever accidentally done, up to and including the incident that triggered all this. It’s a much better feeling than watching Mephi run into Shiloh’s dark backyard.

“Wow,” is all he can say. And then: “How would it even have gotten up there?”

Harinder wipes at his face more. The tears have finally stopped flowing. “Who knows? Whoever took it must have tried to pawn it.”

Thinking back to what the antique guy said about an employee buying it, thinking it was an antique, Jericho nods, still filled with amazement. “I cannot fucking believe—”

Harinder suddenly grapples for him, seizing the front of his shirt. Jericho doesn’t know what’s happening until Harinder reels him in, yanks him down, and kisses him hard. He’s well used to Harinder’s impulsiveness by now, so Jericho tries to reciprocate with an appropriate level of enthusiasm, but the angle hurts his back. He straightens, and Harinder follows like a lichen, wrapping his arms around the back of Jericho’s neck to keep him from leaving.

Okay, then. He did spend all day bitching about wanting attention.

Jericho gets his hands under Harinder’s ass and pulls him flush, then lifts him a foot and a half to the side until he’s propped on the back of the couch. Harinder responds to this with a pleased little groan and teeth dragging over the line of his jaw.

After about ten minutes, he runs out of steam, which is good because Jericho didn’t drink enough water to be able to survive making out for much longer. His boyfriend’s head comes to rest on his chest while Jericho runs his fingers through his messy black curls and waits for him to catch his breath. Harinder mumbles something that he doesn’t quite hear.

“What was that?” Jericho asks, worming a hand under the hem of both his sweater and his T-shirt so he can rub at Harinder’s back.

Harinder lifts his head off Jericho’s chest and looks at him, not yet repeating himself. Jericho stares back, confused.

“I said,” Harinder begins, enunciating carefully, “I love you.”

Oh.

Jericho’s first thought is, Ah, there it is.

His next thought is something closer to wanting to cry. He refrains.

“I,” he says, but nothing will follow. “Shit. Come here.” He crushes Harinder in an embrace, sweater bunched awkwardly between his forearms. He hopes the message will get itself across somehow.

Harinder doesn’t produce any angry hissing sounds, so he thinks it does.

“How are you so good at bringing me amazing things?” Harinder asks, fingers fitfully stroking Jericho’s jawline.

“I don’t know,” Jericho says instead of voicing any of his internal bullshit.

“You have given me more good than I can count. You keep one-upping yourself. I’m going to hyperventilate.”

“Please don’t.”

“I don’t know if I can stop myself. You’re too perfect.”

“Stop.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“I will light myself on fire,” Jericho threatens.

“That’s okay. You don’t look very flammable. If you did, I would have tested it by now.”

Unable to escape the onslaught of affection, Jericho closes his eyes and hides his face in Harinder’s hair. “I’m gonna run out of good ideas someday,” he grumbles.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Harinder says patiently.

“It’s going to be a rickety bridge. The kind with fraying rope and rotting wood, and gaps bigger than the ones between the antique shop stairs.”

“You’re still scared of those?”

“How could I not be?”

Harinder shrugs, and smiles, and pushes him back by the shoulders, then taps his fingers on Jericho’s cheek until he reluctantly opens his eyes. “Aren’t you going to say it back?”

Jericho swallows. He doesn’t need to ask what Harinder’s talking about. “I’m glad you like the telescope.”

Rolling his eyes, Harinder says, “Yes, that’s totally the response I was looking for, and one that makes sense as a reply to what I just said. How did you know.”

“I’m just magic.”

“Magic me some declarations of affection, you goof.”

Yes, Harinder definitely likes those. Jericho likes them, too, he just— “I don’t know how.”

He expects a flippant remark, but Harinder continues to regard him with that small, gentle smile. It’s starting to feel creepy. His boyfriend doesn’t typically go this long without finding something to snarl at.

“You should try anyway,” he suggests. “You get up to three wrong answers before I find Dumpling’s spray bottle.”

“Dumpling doesn’t have a spray bottle. They’re inhumane.”

Harinder puffs with pride. “See? This is why I love you.”

Jericho goes bright red, blood pumping in his ears. His head feels suspiciously like an egg in a microwave, about to messily explode. He tries to force the words out the way he might try squeezing pus out of a particularly stubborn zit. “I, uh. Love you. Also, I mean. This isn’t too soon, right?”

“If anyone dares say it is, I will punch them in the tit and then curbstomp them.”

“You do that when people mispronounce ‘herbivore.’”

“It’s fucking annoying, okay? Anyway, this is gay.” Jericho snorts. Harinder nuzzles under his chin. “Thank you for the telescope.”

Jericho kisses his forehead. “You’re welcome, babe—no homo.”

Harinder performs an elaborate brutality combo upon him with a throw pillow, but that’s okay. Jericho Adams is twenty-one years old, which is more than old enough to not mind losing every once in a while.