Darryl clears his throat. “I think Marcus–and me, too–are moreworried you're upset because it became really obvious, really fast, that neither of us are straight and we had failed to clue you in on that.”
Tristan shrugs, and his unaffected attitude would completely fool anyone who doesn’t know him. ButIknow him, and I know the stiffened hold of his shoulders and the firm set of his jaw, and even the slightly guarded expression in his eyes are all part of a shield he has on right now.
“Neither of you owes your sexuality to me or anyone else,” he says, and I know his shield right now is our doing, but I’m not used to him having one up around us, and it’s rankling my nerves.
“Tristan, drop the armor, man. I know you really believe that, but there's no way the revelation that we knew about each other but never filled you in didn’t hurt. I get that you know we don’t owe you an explanation, but you are also human and allowed to have feelings,” I point out, wanting him to open up.
Tristan stares at his glass, and I’m not sure what’s going on in his head, but after several moments pass, the shield cracks and he lets out a heavy sigh.
“I know it’s not fair on my part. I mean, really, it’s–I guess, I just thought–” he stumbles over his words before taking a deep breath and trying again. “It's not my place to expect you to have told me, but it was a bit–” he lets out another sigh.
He’s used to being cold and aloof, and we are rarely ever on the outs, even though we aren’t really on the outs, but it’s rare for there to be misunderstandings between us.
“Yeah, it hurt. It was obvious you trusted each other, but didn't trust me. Even when I was going through my stuff and talking to you guys while figuring everything out, you didn't trust me the same way. And it's not that I feel like you needed to, or even had to, just that I'm not sure what I did to have lost that trust, or when I may have lost that, or even if I’d ever even had it. I thought we were equal brothers, and now I feel a bit jostled to the side. But then I also feel really fucking selfish and wrong for feeling that way because–”
“You're a really strong advocate and believe that if we had reasons to hold it from you, then that's our business, not yours,” I interrupthim because listening to him struggle with words hurts more than I expected it to.
He lets out another really heavy breath and fixes his eyes on his glass instead of looking up. “Yeah,” he breathes out simply.
“Youareour brother. You've always had that trust and still do, Tristan. We didn't have reasons to keep it from you,” I reassure him.
Darryl clears his throat and leans into the table. “It's just you were always so uncomfortable around the sex stuff, and we kind of started to keep a lid on it. You knew it happened, but we didn't really show that side of ourselves around you as much. A lot of our trysts happen at parties, which you don't really go to very often, so you wouldn't have seen that as much. Or the few parties you did go to, you didn't really recognize flirting even when it was pretty blatant. So, it wasn't so much hiding it as you just didn't see it before.”
“But we should have taken the time to tell you when we realized we were attracted to multiple genders. It's just so normalized in our families, well, yours and mine anyway, that I don't think it dawned on us to say anything,” I add in.
Darryl nods his head emphatically. “Exactly, it never had anything to do with not trusting you, man. Kind of feeling like a tool right now because, in hindsight, we should have. We don't keep shit from each other, especially something big like this. It wasn't intentional.”
A ghost of a smile twitches at the corner of Tristan’s mouth. “You guys really don't owe me an explanation,” he reiterates, but I can tell from the tension leaving his body that we really needed to have this talk.
“We really do, man, because it had fuck all to do with keeping secrets or not trusting you or even being uncomfortable with our sexuality. It was literally just a huge oversight because we are so much in the habit of keeping the sexual stuff muted down in front of you. I get that people don’t owe their sexuality to anyone, but this isn’t really about that. We weren’t keeping it from you; it just hadn’t come up, even though there’d been ample opportunity when you’d gone through your grey-awakening, or whatever. It’s still something that wasn’t being kept from you, just something we simply hadn’t said.And there was literally no reason why we hadn’t said it, which is why we needed to clear the air,” I reiterate.
Tristan swallows hard before nodding his head. He reaches up and pinches his temples, probably to get his emotions under control, before looking back up at us since he cries easily. Not that we’ve ever faulted him for that, but he tends to try to bottle that in more when we’re in public spaces.
“Okay, so since the sex stuff doesn't bother me as much as it used to…” he trails off, and I know what he's trying to ask without asking.
“Not really sure. Haven’t really put that much thought into it. I just know that I’m attracted to pretty people; gender doesn’t really factor in all that much,” I tell him.
“I'm bi,” Darryl says simply. “And for full disclosure or whatever, we've been together,” he says, pointing between the two of us. “But not like in a relationship or even ‘just us’ together, but like multiple bodies together, but not one-on-one because–orgies are fun–but we aren't into each other enough for one-on-one stuff. Kind of weird to think about, but group sex is awesome, so–” he trails off.
“Well, for us. I can see how that would definitely not be your thing,” I add in, noticing Tristan’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline at the admission.
“But it'sourthing, or well, one of our things, and kind of how we figured out we were into multiple genders, but as I said, it’s afterparty scenes and stuff that you usually didn't go to, so–” Darryl sums up.
Tristan nods. “Yeah, I get it. And knowing all that makes me feel like I made the right choice to not go to them very often,” he laughs, and I’m glad he’s getting his sense of humor back a bit.
“Definitely not your scene,” I laugh with him.
“Definitely not. But I'm glad to know about you guys, though. Maybe not the orgies, but that's a me thing,” he says lightly.
“So, we cool?” Darryl asks.
Tristan nods. “Yeah, we're cool.”
“Just want to reiterate that we’re sorry, man. We didn't mean to negate you or leave you out,” I say for probably the hundredth time, but I really feel like a shit.
Tristan huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, I get it. It's cool. And even if it weren't, I still would have found a way to be cool about it.”
“We know that, but we needed you to know that we’re the same brothers that we've always been. We can just let things become a habit sometimes and forget that there are feelings attached that we took for granted,” I tell him.
