The Cameron Hotel Chapter 9
The Cameron Hotel Chapter 9 -- An Easy Process
A full night of sleep, and a full day of work after Chris & Riddick's uncomfortable moment of truth...the front door of the Cameron Estate swung open, as its owner, Matt Cameron, burst into the entry way, tossing his hat and coat onto the rack.
A room away, Chris sat solemnly, dressed still in his work clothes as he'd just gotten back, himself, and flipping through, but not really watching, the TV.
Riddick was sunken into the recliner, as far away from his father as he could be, and stared at his feet as he shuffled them...just wishing the silence would break, as Matt stepped out and into the living room.
Chris looked up, blankly, "Hey Matt..."
"H-hey Matt!" Riddick looked up too, a good deal happier to see Matt home, "How was your day? Sirrus missed you, I think."
"I'm sure he did, Riddick." Matt coughed softly, still feeling a lot of tension in the room.
Without a word, Chris grunted and stood up. The silence killing him just as much as Riddick, and he padded slowly into the kitchen. Behind him his son just whimpered as he watched the lion leave.
With a long, exaggerated sigh, Matt looked away from Riddick, and turned to follow his friend into the kitchen.
"Chris..."
The lion crushed his empty soda can and turned around, "Yeah?"
"What the hell Chris?" Matt's eyes narrowed, "Are you not even talking to him now?"
Chris didn't answer; he just sighed and looked down as he leaned back onto the counter.
The ottercoon walked farther in, letting the door shut behind him, "I seriously cannot believe this is getting to you so bad! Hell, I can't believe you're even surprised!" He shook his head, "I knew the first day he was here. Didn't you see the way he looked at Luke!"
Chris looked up, a hint of shocked in his eyes, "And you didn't tell me!?"
"Not my place." Matt shook his head, "And, like I said, I thought you knew, too..."
The lion sighed and scratched the back of his paw idly, "Well, I didn't."
"Seriously, Chris..." Matt leaned against the stove, "Why is this bothering you?"
"I...I don't know. He was just..." Chris clenched his fists and looked up at the ceiling, "...just right out there in the living room with it, and..."
"And?" The ottercoon cut him off, "Neither of us have ever gotten so horny that we didn't wait to find an 'appropriate' private locale?"
"It's not like he was pawing himself off, though, is it?" Chris looked back at his friend, "He was getting his dick sucked by a pet!"
"Yeah...MY pet! You know: the pet that I play with..." Matt scratched his neck, "...or did..." He shook his head and got back to the subject at hand, "...it hasn't bothered you that I do it."
"Y-yeah..." The lion grumbled, "But he's my son. He should know better!"
Matt raised a brow, "Whoa! Hold on, now! 'Know better?' What's that supposed to mean? There's suddenly something wrong with it?"
"Matt, that..." Chris put his forehead in his paw, "That's not what I meant. It's just..."
"No." The ottercoon held up his paws, "You said it, so out with it. You have a problem with Sirrus and me?"
"You're a grown damned man, Matt." Chris held up a paw of his own, "And this is your home. It's not my place to tell you how to live your life."
"But if it was?" Matt crossed his arms.
The lion looked away, crossing his own as he thought. After a growl and a huff, he finally responded, "It's...odd to say the least."
"And you'd have me stop it?" Matt tilted his head.
"I..." Chris thought again, looking at the ceiling, "No. It's not like the little guy doesn't like...doesn't LOVE it."
"And you think he felt any different with Riddick?" The ottercoon smiled.
"That's different!" Chris growled, "It's...he's...and..." He tensed up again, finding it hard to really place what he was feeling or thinking into words, and find a way past his friend's rationalizing.
"Fine." Matt shrugged, "Let's say there's something wrong with it, okay? But even so, you say he should 'know better?' Well, who's been there to teach him better? Thanks to Cheyenne, you certainly weren't!"
"I don't know, Matt...it's just..." The lion frowned sadly and looked down, "...he lied to me."
"Okay, I guess I can understand why that would be bothering you." Matt nodded, "But you've also gotta' think, Chris: could you have told your father something like that? Hell, did you even talk to your dad about GIRLS when you were 15?"
Chris sighed, "No...I suppose not...I just..." He looked up, eyes focused, but slightly teary, "He had a perfect chance...but he lied to me. He even made up a girl, Matt."
"And you can really blame him?" The ottercoon laughed lightly, "You've gotta' know you're being too hard on him, here."
"I know...I guess. It's just..." Chris looked up at the ceiling for a moment before looking back down, "Matt...my son's gay."
"And?" Matt recoiled a little, "That, of all things, seriously can't be what's bothering you. So am I, and so is Sirrus, and so are all the other kids running around here! Not to...to mention..." He trailed off, his eyes narrowing and head tilting as if examining the lion. This WAS what was bothering him.
"I know...but...but it's different with you and the others." The lion shrugged, "I mean...none of you are my son, y'know?"
Matt just brushed his headfur aside and remained silent, thinking as he peered at his friend, looking him up and down.
"I...I mean..." Chris looked back across at him, catching his friend's eyes, "...that makes sense, right?"
The ottercoon, though, just looked him right in the eyes, still silently taking the lion in.
Chris gulped and averted his gaze, "Matt?"
Matt finally opened his mouth to speak, but just looked down with a grunt and a hum.
The lion took a step closer, "Please, Matt...?"
Matt looked up again, "You DO realize you're gay, right, Chris?"
Chris almost fell over, grasping the counter to keep himself steady, "What are you talking about??"
"What do you THINK I'm talking about?" The ottercoon stared at him blankly, the same cold stare Matt mastered over the years, to hide whatever he might be thinking or feeling.
Chris just shook his head and shrugged, his breaths growing more and more unsteady.
"Chris...not two nights ago you had a cock-" Matt cut himself off and rephrased, "MY cock in your muzzle! What does that say to you?"
The lion looked down again, "I was...I was just repaying the favor..."
"Sure. And you were letting me give you the 'favor' in the first place...why?" Matt leaned forward, "Just having a little fun?"
Chris looked up, "Y-yeah..."
"You've been here for three months. When was the last time you had 'just a little fun' with a girl?" The ottercoon leaned back again, with his arms crossed and his eyes set, "Chris...your first night here you let be me all over you, and since then you've been sharing my bed almost every night, and 'returning the favor' more times than I could even begin to count."
Chris took a breath, but just stared on at his friend, looking lost and confused...and for the first time Matt could remember since a court room twelve years earlier...the lion looked scared.
Matt stood up straight and motioned to the door, "Come on Chris..."
The ottercoon walked out of the kitchen and into the dining room -- trying to distance them from Riddick -- and Chris walked with him, head low and eyes wide. They stepped lazily into the dining room and stopped beside the table. Chris was still staring at the floor, and Matt turned to look at him, dead on and annoyed...almost angry.
"Chris...it's like you're three different people lately. There's the Chris that's sharing my bed at the end of the night, 'having his fun' and not questioning one bit of this. Until yesterday, there was Riddick's father: happy, and boisterous, and absolutely lighting this place up like I haven't seen since high school." Matt shook his head and looked down too, "But I've been watching a third Chris...and he's pulling back, he's withdrawing, and he's scared. Something is ripping you apart."
The lion grunted and looked back toward the kitchen, silent.
Matt looked up again and snapped, "Talk to me, goddamn-it!"
Chris looked at his friend finally, his eyes angry, stern, and focused, "What the fuck do you want me to say Matt? Everyone around me is gay! This shit is just really getting to me, okay?"
"Everyone around you!?" The ottercoon threw up his paws, "YOU'RE GAY, CHRIS!! Listen to yourself!"
Chris clenched his jaw, "What do you mean listen to myself!?"
"What exactly is 'getting to you,' Chris?" Matt grabbed the back of a chair and squeezed it, "What!?"
The lion took a breath, looking like he was about to scream, but then stopped to look away and let out a low, long sigh, "I don't know, alright?"
"No Chris! It's not all right!" Matt shook the chair, "It's not all right what you're doing to your son, or what you're doing to yourself!! I've stood back long enough, but now I'm getting answers out of you! Now you tell me: what's 'getting to you!?' Is it the 6 gay guys around you? The fact that one of them is a pet? The fact that one is your son?" He lowered his voice before it raised to a scream, "Or is it the fact that you can still taste my cum on your lips!?"
"Shut the fuck up, Matt!" Chris roared and slammed his hand on the table, "I didn't ask for your help!"
"Well you're getting it anyway!" The ottercoon pushed the chair against the kitchen table hard enough to push the table aside a few inches, "You're gay Chris. Be a man and deal with it!"
Chris growled and shook, "I'm not."
"You're not? Really? Then what are you? The 'ladies man' still?" Matt stopped talking and looked around, "Where are all the ladies? I don't see any. No wife, no girlfriend, no trophy fuck, hell, not even a secret crush! I do see me, though!" He took a step back, "And from what I remember you telling me a few months ago, I'm not the first...am I?"
The lion let his hand rest on the table and hung his head, "...I..."
"Well?"
Chris looked up, eyes tearing up again, "What the fuck do you want me to say, Matt?"
"I'm just trying to get through to you, Chris. It's pretty fucking obvious, now, what's bothering you..." The ottercoon rubbed his forehead, "...and pretty obvious that you can't see it, either."
Chris looked back down, "Glad someone can..."
Matt pulled that chair out from the table; turning it to face himself, "Sit down Chris..."
The lion padded over quietly and sat down, head hung low as his pulled out another chair, facing it to Chris's and sitting down as well.
Matt sighed and reached out, "Give me your paw." Chris extended a paw and looked up, as Matt took it into his own and continued, "Chris, How long have we been friends?"
Chris reflexively squeezed the paw, "Since high school."
The ottercoon smiled at the squeeze and returned it, "And how long had we known each other before I told you I was gay?"
Chris shrugged, "Only about a year."
"Right...and you didn't run away, did you? You barely even cared. Hell," Matt laughed, "I think your first question was if I thought you were hot!"
The lion laughed for the first time today and nodded, "Yeah...it was."
"Then what are you running from now? When it's your own son...when the boy you've wanted back for twelve years is scared to death...when he needs his father, and was terrified to come to you with this to begin with...why are you acting like this? Can you answer me that?"
Chris looked away with a sigh. "No..."
"You know what you're doing -- you know how you acted about this was wrong then?" The ottercoon leaned forward, "But you can't even begin to tell me why you've reacted like this?"
Chris really considered for the first time what he was putting Riddick through, and let his paw fall down, out of his friend's, "No...I...I can't."
"Then we've at least taken a step." Matt smiled softly, "Now Chris...think about it: what about this could possibly be bothering you? You know the answer..."
The lion growled silently and looked away, "No, Matt. I don't."
"Stop growling at me Chris. I'm just trying to help you."
Chris turned and glared, fists clenched, "How!? By telling me I'm gay!?"
"By trying to make you see what you're doing to yourself!" The ottercoon clenched his as well, "And more importantly: to your son!"
Chris stood, still glaring and a paw on the table, "Fine then Matt! What is it you're trying to show me!? How I'm gay? How I'm a horrible father? What!?"
"Calm the fuck down Chris!" Matt stood up too, pointing at his friend, "Don't you forget whose house you're in! I'm doing my damndest to help you two, because it's obvious that neither of you are capable!"
The lion just growled and looked away.
"No Chris! You look at me!" Matt grabbed the lion's arm, and Chris turned back, still angry, but not saying anything as his friend continued, "You know you have no right to act like this toward your son! It doesn't even make sense! He hasn't done anything I haven't done, and -- more importantly -- very little that you aren't doing basically every night, Chris! And you know that! Don't you?"
"Yes! All right?" Chris jerked his arm away, "Yes, I fucking know that."
"Then why are you!? Why did you?" The ottercoon stepped closer, "What are you angry about?"
"I don't fucking know alright?!" Chris distanced himself again, walking over and standing by the china cabinet, "I thought this is what you were trying to 'help me with...'"
Matt nodded, "It is," and then shook his head, "but I can't just tell you. It's something you have to figure it out for yourself. I'm not in your head, but you are. This is something you have to let yourself realize and accept...but you just won't let yourself see..."
"Why!?" The lion turned around and glared again, "Why do I have to figure it out?"
"You want to stay like this!? Do you?" Matt stepped forward, again, right in Chris's face, "Do you want your son to end up hating you!? Do you want to spend the rest of your life like this? Depressed? Withdrawn? Lying to yourself? I'd like to think you're not so fucking self destructive, Chris!"
"Damn-it! Stop acting like I want to be like this, Matt!" Chris roared, backing his friend up have a step, "I don't fucking know what's wrong! I'm trying, Matt! Goddamn-it, I am! But this whole thing with Riddick just keeps eating me up inside and I can't make it stop! Stop acting like I have a choice!"
"You DO have a choice! And you're choosing to let this rip you apart instead of fucking facing it!" The ottercoon closed the gap again, tired of waiting for Chris to figure this out on his own, "Maybe you're not gay! Maybe you're not even bi! But that's not the point, anymore! Do you want to know what I see, Chris!? Do you?"
"What?" Chris threw up his paws, "What do you see?"
"You've been the same person since high school! The exact same person!" Matt poked his friend's chest, "Beer drinking jock, going from woman-to-woman, city-to-city, even found a job that ships you all over the damned place so you don't ever have to settle down anywhere."
The lion pushed his friend's prodding paw away, "Your point?"
"My point..." Matt lowered his voice, "Is that now you've got a son, and get to deal with the fact that you've got to be a Goddamned adult, for once in your life. And on top of that, you don't even know who you are anymore, do you!? As much as you'd like to deny it, you don't even really know whether you're gay or not, do you!?"
"...I..." Chris clenched his jaw and his fists, looking away.
"And your son," The ottercoon pointed toward the living room, "your own flesh and blood turns out to be gay, too. And it was easy to ignore when you were just the old, carefree jock, wasn't it? No need to worry about whatever you were...or were not. Why care? What did it matter? But now you're a father, and suddenly it DOES! And the reason you're so mad at Riddick, Chris...is that your boy just became a reminder of everything that you don't have the balls to man up to."
"Matt..." Chris's voice rose in a threatening growl as he looked his friend in the eyes.
Matt, though, continued unabated, "And you just can't handle that you're life may change!! That maybe you're not the person you thought you were! And you're taking it out on your son! And as strong as you wanna' appear, you can't handle it alone! Can you!?"
"Fine! I'm gay!!" The lion roared, "Are you fucking happy!?"
Matt opened his mouth to yell, not having been done with his rant, but just let it close and stared at his friend. He'd said it.
In front of him, Chris shook, but not the clenched and angry shaking of moments before. Silently he looked down at the floor, his eyes wide and his jaw hung open. He'd said it.
After a bit of silence, both rolling over the lion's confession, Chris repeated himself without looking up, "Are...Are you happy now?"
"Are you?"
Chris looked up, a spark of anger in his eyes at first, but just as quickly relaxed, "I...I don't know."
The ottercoon grew silent, again, not sure what to say at this point. He opened his mouth to speak, trying to figure out how to word what he was thinking, but failing.
Chris stared at him, noticing his muzzle's movements, "Just, out with it Matt..."
"This isn't an easy process, Chris: coming to terms with your sexuality." Matt took a breath and rubbed his forehead, "And I'd assume it's the same for someone who's spent the better part of 30 years believing he was straight."
The lion blinked, "...you'd assume right."
"You're my best friend...my only friend...and you know how much I care about you." Matt moved in closer and hugged him hesitantly, "I'm here for you, Chris. You don't have to deal with it alone, okay?"
Though a little uncomfortable, Chris managed a smile and hugged him back, "Thank you." He only held it for a moment, though, before stepping away again.
"It's not an easy process...it's NEVER an easy process." The ottercoon looked him in the eye, "But take it from someone with personal experience: it's no easier for a confused teenage boy who needs his father..."
Chris's eyes shot open, "I need to talk to my son."
"You do." Matt nodded and stepped aside.
The lion walked past his friend and out of the room, with only a quick glance and a smile on the way, "Thanks again." He disappeared into the kitchen and beyond, as Matt listened to his fading voice, "Riddick?"
The ottercoon made his way on into the kitchen as well, but no farther: leaving Riddick & Chris to themselves. He opened the fridge and freezer, searching for ideas for their dinner for the night, only to grumble to himself after a moment. Cooking was Chris's job.
"Riddick!"
Matt jumped a bit when he heard Chris yell from the living room. He closed the fridge and left the kitchen just in time to run right into the lion near the entry way, "Whoa! Chris? What's going on?"
"Riddick!" The lion moved his friend aside, "He ran away!"
"Hey! Wait!" Matt grabbed Chris's arm to stop him again, as he tried to storm past, "Maybe not. Did you check his room? The back yard?"
"Sirrus said he ran out the front door!" Chris jerked his arm away and continued on his way to the door, swinging it open, "RIDDICK!?"
The ottercoon ran to join him in the doorway, "Is he out there?"
Chris turned back, "I don't see him, Matt!"
"Calm down." Matt grabbed his friend's shoulders, "We'll find him. You take your car and I'll take mine, okay? I know where all three of the boys live. I can check there."
"Y-yeah..." The lion took a deep shaky breath and steadied himself with a nod, "...I have an idea too."
~
There we go! The soap opera, Forbidden, continues!!
* Starring: F. R. Borealis as Eric Matthew Cameron and Riddick Dumar Eden Cecil B. North as Christopher Phillip Eden *
Cecil was a writer here as well, back in the Yiffstar days. If you want to check out the stuff he wrote back then, go ahead and look him up. His username on here is: Cecil_88
And on it goes... So I guess that explains Chris's reactuon last time. Good thing Matt was around to help him figure things out for himself...or more importantly, for Riddick. But, too bad it looks like the damage has already been done. Where's Riddick gone off to now? Alex, Jasyn, or Luke's? Where ever Chris is planning to look? Will they be able to find him? Will everything be okay with him and his father? How will this affect their relationships with one another, Matt, Luke, and the rest of the cast? Tune in next time and beyond to find out!
Anyway, thanks for reading!
I welcome any feedback! Comment or PM me here, or email me at frostborealis[at]gmail.com
See you for the next 31 chapters of Forbidden! ^_^