Work Text
Despite Teo dragging his feet throughout the entire process of getting ready, they still get to the pizza place about fifteen minutes early, which gives Hal plenty of time to stew in his anxiety, now magnified by the fast approach of
actually meeting his boyfriend's siblings.
Teo seems to be fighting nerves himself, though, which is slightly reassuring, even if the only outward sign of it is the rapid rate he's going through his nicotine gum. It's the gum, at least, instead of actual cigarettes, and Hal knows it calms him, so he keeps any comments about overconsumption to himself. Hal himself just burrows into his many layers of clothing and tries not to freeze or, worse, explode from anxiety.
Teo sprung this on him last night, while they were doing homework together. Hal was just trying to get through his Calc worksheet when Teo very lightly asked, "Hey, you wanna go out for dinner tomorrow?"
Hal, who had been craving pizza for a week straight, immediately grabbed his phone and answered, "Yes. Aurelio's. I'll call and save a table."
"Make it for five people." Teo said, not looking up from his own work. Hal paused with the restaurant half typed into Google Maps and looked back up at Teo.
"Five?" Hal asked. "Who else is coming?"
Teo shrugged, faux casually, and said, "Oh, you know, just my siblings."
"Your siblings." Hal echoed. Teo nodded, continuing to write on his paper like he didn't just drop a
huge
bombshell on a Thursday afternoon. "Like, the ones you haven't spoken to since you moved out?"
"Faith reached out to me a couple months ago; we've talked a little. They keep bugging to meet you." Teo shrugged.
"Oh." Hal lowered his phone to the table, staring at his boyfriend as he processed all that. "Okay. And that's… okay with you?"
Teo shrugged again, scratching something out on his paper with a little too much force. "It's whatever. It's about time you met them, I guess."
"Yeah," Hal said, "but do
you
want me to meet them?"
Teo's mouth formed a tight line as he thought, flipping the pencil to tap the eraser on the paper with increasing frequency. Hal waited him out, just watching until Teo's nervous energy petered out, and Teo let out a quiet, "I guess I… I never really thought about it. I've never… y'know."
"'Y'know?'" Hal prompted. Teo ducked his head further, black bangs obscuring his face, and muttered,
"I've never gotten this far before."
There was a lot that went unsaid with that statement: Teo's dating history consisting mostly of meaningless flings; his sparse and casual friend group; all the trust and self-image issues they'd slowly been working on the past eight months they'd been together. Hal understood what Teo meant, even without anything else being said explicitly.
"So," Hal began gently, "what are you thinking now?"
"I think," Teo paused, lifting his head to look out across the living room to the window, and set the pencil down. "Yeah. You meeting them… could be nice."
Hal smiled, encouragingly. "Then I can't wait to meet them." Teo looked at him finally, and after a moment, the corner of his mouth ticked up in a smile.
Now, though, Hal is having some second thoughts. For one, he hardly knows anything about Teo's siblings. It took him bugging Teo all night to even basic info like their names, ages, and a one-word description of their personalities. After that, Teo started to shut down, so Hal switched gears and put on Teo's favorite YouTube channel so they could relax before bed. So really, Hal's got nothing to go on except for the haunted past Teo refuses to go too deeply into, and that is definitely off the table of discussion topics. Teo hasn't seen any of his siblings in almost six years; he's been talking to them again, apparently, but honestly, Hal has no idea what he's getting into, here.
Teo tenses, and Hal is on alert immediately, looking up to follow his boyfriend's gaze to a group of three approaching the restaurant. As soon as they make eye contact, the woman in the middle brightens, raising her hand to wave as she calls out, "Teo! There you are!" Teo rises to greet his siblings, and as Hal stands, he looks between them, comparing their features. Teo's hair is dyed jet black where his siblings' are fairer, but the slope of his jaw matches the older of his brothers, the curve of his nose is identical to his sister's, and all of them have the same shade of brown in their eyes with a burst of green in the middle. Teo has tried to cover his lineage with hair dye and tattoos and piercings, but there are some things you can never get rid of, not completely. Hal knows this well.
"Hey, Faith." Teo says, seemingly neutrally. There's a weight in his shoulders, though - a wariness that betrays his casual tone.
"You look well." Faith says, her smile kind but faintly strained, her eyes hinting at a depth of meaning behind those three simple words.
"You must be the boyfriend!" the older of Teo's brothers says brightly, stepping up to Hal and putting a familiar hand on his shoulder. "Teo always has great things to say about you. Which you know, for Teo, is like writing sonnets in your name."
"Noah," Teo says warningly. Hal looks to Teo, surprised. Teo talks about him that much? And- is he embarrassed?
Noah grins, unbothered, and leans towards Hal to say, "See, Sy doesn't really
do
emotions like shame and embarrassment, and Faith's got too much dirt on me, so I gotta get all my brotherly teasing in when I can."
"Understandable." Hal says, suppressing a smile. Maybe he shouldn't have been so worried; Teo's siblings seem nice so far. Teo sighs like Noah is a persistent thorn in his side, and turns towards the door to the restaurant, asking,
"Are we gonna eat or what?"
"You can't spare a moment to finish introducing us?" Faith says, but her teasing tone wavers ever so slightly.
Teo lifts an unimpressed brow. "You're all adults now. I think you can introduce yourselves."
"I'm Faith Ellis," the sister says, holding her hand out to Hal. Right, Faith. Teo's twin sister, age twenty-six, described as, "a worrier."
"I'm Hal. Jacobs." Hal returns, taking her hand.
"I'm Noah," Noah says, moving his hand to his own chest, "which you can tell, because I'm the handsome one." Teo actually described him as "annoying," but Hal will keep that to himself. Noah is Hal's age, though, just shy of turning twenty-three.
The smallest of the group, which must be Sy, Teo's newly eighteen-year-old brother (described as "kind of a brat") is nudged forward by Faith. He gives her a flat look, which she responds to with an expectant gesture towards Hal. Sy presses his mouth tightly together and turns to Hal, giving him a long, judgemental once-over.
Sy is the one Hal was most excited to meet: they're both trans, after all. Not that Sy knows about Hal. Hal just happens to know about Sy because Sy asked Teo to make sure Hal would use the right pronouns. Hal himself would rather not have Teo's siblings know about him until he's felt them out more, but he wouldn't mind Sy knowing. Hal puts forward his best face, trying to subtly convey, "hey, I'm trans, too!" without the other Ellis siblings catching on, but when Teo's brother finally meets his eyes, he doesn't look impressed.
"Sy." is all he says. Then he moves past Hal to push through the revolving door into the restaurant. Noah snorts, and Faith lets out a nervous half-laugh.
"Sorry about Sy," she says, "that's… just how- uh- how Sy is. You get used to it."
"No, no, it's fine." Hal assures her, going along as Teo jerks his head for the rest of them to follow him inside.
"Teo said you're studying programming?" Faith says, falling in stride with Hal.
"Yeah, uh," Hal scratches his head, saying, "I dunno what I really wanna do with it, yet, but I've always had a good head for coding, so."
"That's really cool." Noah says as Teo holds up five fingers to let the hostess know how big their group is. "You and Faith are lucky, knowing exactly what you wanna do. I've changed my major like, three times now."
"It'll come to you." Faith says automatically, almost mechanically. Noah purses his lips and shrugs.
Their group is seated at a booth, and Hal makes a point of sitting just outside of Teo's public comfort zone, save for a quick, comeradic bump of their feet under the table. Teo nudges him back, and, reassured, Hal turns his attention to the other side of the booth, where the three remaining Ellis siblings have squeezed together. Sy already has his face buried in the menu, while Noah squints at the drink list and Faith digs in her purse until she produces a glasses case.
"So, Faith," Hal starts as they wait for their server, "What do you do?"
"Oh, I'm a TA at Noah's school." she says, adjusting her blue frames. "I mostly help out with English courses like Composition. I really wanna go into public education, though, hopefully at a grade school."
"That's great." Hal says. "So, you like working with kids?"
"Oh, I love it. Growing up, I was kind of the only mother figure my siblings had, so I got used to taking care of younger kids." She lets out a laugh like it's no big deal, but it just emphasizes the premature stress lines cornering her eyes. Hal's expression must betray his sympathy, because Faith quickly continues, "Oh, but it's alright! Because of that, I found out how much I love helping kids. So it kind of worked out."
"That's great." Hal says, smiling at her. Faith smiles back, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. Hal looks to Sy, who's wedged himself into the corner of the booth and is picking at a loose corner of the laminated menu, and attempts at conversation with, "So, Sy, you're eighteen, right? You finished with high school yet? Any plans for college?" Sy gives him a sidelong look, and Hal tries to come off as pleasant and nonthreatening, but again, Sy gives him the cold shoulder, huffing in annoyance and turning back to his menu.
"Sy's graduating in the spring." Faith answers for him, her thumbnail scratching at the chipping polish on her other nails as her eyes dart between Hal and her brother. "Sh-
Sy
has a full-ride to Johns Hopkins; wants to be a doctor."
"Pediatrician." Teo corrects, idly flipping a page. "He wants to be a kid doctor or whatever." Sy glances up at him, surprise briefly breaking through his general apathy before flickering away as he ducks his head back down.
"Oh! That's right." Faith says, trying to hide her own surprise.
"Sy's always wanted to be a doctor," Noah cuts in, his menu set down and the start of a sugar-packet fort now in front of him. "Used to play doctor with Faith's stuffed animals and everything. Always lecturing us-"
"Just you." Teo interjects with a smirk.
"
Us-
" Noah continues, with a pointed glare, "-like: 'you're gonna fall from that tree,' 'put pressure on that to stop the bleeding,' 'that looks broken, go to the hospital,' - y'know, know-it-all kid stuff."
"It
was
broken." Faith says. "You were in a cast for six months."
"It wasn't
that
broken."
Faith puffs up, voice raising as she echoes, "Not
'that'
broken?" Noah immediately deflates, letting out a quiet, 'oh boy,' and Teo heaves a sigh, but the apparent incoming tirade is interrupted by their server appearing to take their drink orders.
"Whatever cola you have," Noah says quickly, jumping at his chance to escape.
"Oh," Faith says as the server turns to her expectantly. She once again seems perfectly pleasant and polite as she places her drink order, and Hal wonders how often she gets all intense like that. Probably a lot, considering Noah's nature. Hal hopes
he's
never on the receiving end of that.
The server leaves to get their drinks, giving them a few more minutes to look over the menu, and Noah and Teo end up bent over a menu, bickering over what toppings to get on the pizzas. Well, it's mostly Noah making passionate arguments for each topping, only for Teo to shoot most of them down immediately and ruthlessly. There's a glint of delight in Teo's eye, though, as Noah gets steadily more frustrated with each rejection. Sy is leaning so far away from Noah's manic energy that his shoulder is pressed against the wall.
While her brothers argue, Faith leans over the table towards Hal, pitching her voice to be heard over them, and says, "So, Hal… can I ask if that's short for something?"
"Ah," Hal's heart drops. "Um, kind of. I wasn't really… a huge fan of my given name. So I shortened it." There's a lot more to it than that, but it's not the kind of thing he likes to get into, especially with people he's just met.
To his relief, Faith eases off, saying, "That's fair. I've thought about changing my name, or going by my middle name. People assume certain things about you based on your name, after all."
"Right." Hal says, putting a hand on his knee to keep it from jiggling. She doesn't know about him; she can't, unless Teo told her, and Hal knows he didn't. It was an innocent question about his name, nothing else. Lots of people change or shorten their name without being trans. Suddenly his binder is stifling where it constricts his chest, and his lungs feel tight. His chest hasn't shifted into an odd shape while they've been sitting here, right? It's still passably flat, he hopes.
Beneath the table, Teo bumps their feet together again, this time letting the contact linger. Hal uses it to ground himself and bring himself back from the beginnings of an anxiety spial. It really is fine. His mind is just making mountains out of molehills like usual.
"I like it." Sy says, cutting across his brothers' argument. "'Hal.' Suits you." He's lounged casually, head resting on his hand, but the look he's giving Hal is purposeful. He knows exactly what he's saying, and Hal gets the message. The last jabs of anxiety ease off, and Hal manages a smile.
"Thanks." he says. Sy nods, then turns to his brothers.
"I want one with just olives." he says.
"Ugh, but that's so
gross."
Noah whines.
"We can get it on half of one." Hal suggests. "The other half can be just pepperoni. I don't mind olives, so if there's any overlap, I'll just eat it."
"Done." Teo says. "The other one will be a meat-lovers, and Faith can order whatever vegetarian crap she wants."
"Nothing wrong with a salad." Faith says primly, adjusting her glasses. Teo snorts, and she rolls her eyes. Across the table, Sy catches Hal's eye. Once he has Hal's attention, Sy gives a slow, deliberate nod. Hal smiles, a little easier this time, and nods back.
As the server comes back for their order, Hal leans a little closer to Teo, who looks at him questioningly, but doesn't move away, instead shifting subtly, just enough to brush their arms together. Reassured, Hal allows himself to relax fully and listen to the siblings bicker over their order with amusement.