Chapter Text
The silence in the apartment had taken on a new quality. It was a morgue. The vibrant, cluttered life they had built together felt like a museum exhibit of a relationship that had ended. Perth moved through it like a ghost, haunted by the echo of Santa’s words in the cafe.
Maybe I should just let him go.
He had tried to talk that night, stumbling over his words, his voice thick with a panic Santa seemed to find baffling. Santa had just looked at him, his eyes hollow, and said, “It’s okay, P’Perth. I understand.” And that was the most terrifying thing of all, that he seemed to have accepted a fate Perth would rather die than face.
Perth was trying. Desperately. The practical gestures had stopped. Now, he tried with words, clumsy and inadequate as they were. He’d say, “I love you,” before leaving for work, his voice too loud in the stillness. Santa would just nod, his reply a whisper. “You too.” It was a reflex, devoid of meaning.
He tried to engage with Santa’s world. He’d ask about his art, about the half finished canvas that sat gathering dust in the corner. Santa would give one word answers. “It’s fine.” “Nothing.” “Later.”
The one year anniversary of their wedding arrived on a bleak, drizzly Tuesday. Perth had been planning it for weeks. He’d booked a table at the tiny, family run Italian place where they’d had their first real date. He’d bought a new ring, a simple silver band to complement Santa’s original gold one, engraved with the coordinates of the spot where he’d proposed. It was tucked away in his sock drawer, a secret hope.
He was rehearsing his speech in his head, trying to find the perfect words to bridge the canyon between them, when his phone rang. His mother’s name flashed on the screen. A cold dread settled in his stomach.
“Perth, darling,” her voice was breezy, confident. “You haven’t forgotten, have you? Dinner tonight. At the club. Seven sharp. We’re celebrating View’s new venture. It’s very important to her father, and you know how he’s helped ours.”
Perth closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool glass of the window. He’d forgotten. Of course he’d forgotten. In the world he came from, business alliances and social obligations always trumped personal milestones. An anniversary was a quaint, private notion. A deal with the Jeenprasoms, View’s family, was a matter of corporate significance.
“Mother,” he began, his voice strained. “I can’t. It’s… it’s our anniversary tonight. I have plans with Santa.”
The silence on the other end was icy. “Plans?” she said, the word dripping with disdain. “Perth, be serious. This is important. The Jeenprasoms are expecting us. All of us. It would be a grave insult not to attend. Your… plans… can be rescheduled. It’s just a dinner.”
It’s just a dinner. The phrase echoed in his head, minimizing his marriage, his love, his husband, into a triviality.
“I…” He was faltering. The old programming kicked in. The need to obey, to not make waves, to fulfill his role. The image of his father’s disappointed face swam before his eyes. “I… I’ll see what I can do.”
“Wonderful. We’ll see you at seven. Don’t be late.” The line went dead.
Perth stood there, phone in hand, feeling like the worst kind of coward. He heard the bedroom door open. Santa walked out, dressed in his favorite soft jeans and a faded band t-shirt. He’d made an effort. He’d even put on the necklace Perth had given him for his birthday. He looked hopeful, a tiny, fragile light back in his eyes for the first time in weeks. He’d heard Perth’s end of the conversation.
“Was that your mom?” he asked, his voice carefully neutral.
Perth couldn’t meet his gaze. He looked at the floor, at his shoes, anywhere but at the hope he was about to extinguish. “Yeah. There’s… there’s a thing tonight. A dinner with the Jeenprasoms. For View’s new business. It’s… it’s kind of a big deal.”
The hope in Santa’s eyes flickered and died. The light went out. His shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly. “Oh,” he said softly. The sound was a world of hurt. “Okay.”
He turned and started walking back toward the bedroom, his movements slow, defeated.
“Ta, wait,” Perth said, the words rushing out in a guilty torrent. “I’ll try to make it quick. We can still go out after. It’ll be late, but we can still--”
Santa stopped but didn’t turn around. His voice, when it came, was so quiet Perth had to strain to hear it. But the words were clear. They were calm. And they were final.
“No, Phi. It’s fine.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Go. Be with the perfect bride they’ve chosen for you. Celebrate with them. I won’t stand in the way anymore.”
The words were delivered with a devastating, absolute resignation. It was the sound of surrender. He was simply letting go.
And in that moment, Perth finally understood the depth of the hurt. It wasn’t about a single dinner or a few cruel comments. It was about a year of being made to feel secondary. It was about his husband believing, with every fiber of his being, that Perth saw him as a consolation prize, a messy secret, an obstacle to the "better" life he was supposed to have.
The realization hit him like a physical blow, stealing the air from his lungs. He finally saw himself through Santa’s eyes. A weak, vacillating man who would always choose his family’s approval over his husband’s heart.
Santa disappeared into the bedroom, closing the door with a soft, definitive click.
Perth stood alone in the living room, the engraved ring in his drawer feeling like a mockery. The silence was suffocating. He had his choice. His family, his duty, the path of least resistance. Or Santa. His heart, his home, his love.
For the first time, the choice was terrifyingly, perfectly clear.
***
The dinner at the exclusive club was a carbon copy of the nightmare at the mansion, just with more polished silver and softer lighting. The same players were there. His parents, beaming with pride, the Jeenprasoms, preening, View, elegant and poised at the center of it all. And Santa, sitting beside Perth, a silent, beautiful ghost in a room full of chattering specters.
He had agreed to come after Perth’s desperate, fractured plea. “Please. Come with me. I need you there. I need you to see.” Santa had just nodded, his expression unreadable. He’d put on the emerald velvet blazer again, a quiet act of defiance Perth only now understood.
The conversation flowed around them, a river of business jargon and social gossip. View was, once again, the star. She spoke eloquently about her new tech startup after someone asked, and Perth’s father nodded along as if she were delivering a state of the union.
“She’s incredible, isn’t she?” Perth’s aunt sighed, not for the first time. “So sharp. So accomplished. A real partner. Perth, you two would have made such a powerful team.”
Santa flinched, just a tiny movement, but Perth felt it. He saw Santa’s hands, resting on the white tablecloth, curl into fists so tight his knuckles were white. He saw the way he stared at his untouched water glass, his jaw clenched, breathing slowly as if trying to physically stop himself from shattering.
Perth’s mother smiled, her eyes sliding over Santa before landing back on View with proprietary pride. “Well, one can’t always predict the path of the heart. But it’s lovely to see you both still such good friends.”
It was the final straw. The casual, effortless erasure of his marriage, of his love, right in front of him. Santa pushed his chair back. The sound was soft, but it cut through the conversation. Everyone looked at him.
His face was pale but composed. He looked at Perth, his eyes filled with a bottomless sorrow and a quiet, steely resolve. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “I can’t do this again.”
He turned to leave.
“Santa, wait.”
The command in Perth’s voice was new. It was firm. It was absolute.
Santa stopped, surprised.
Perth stood up. His heart was hammering against his ribs, a wild, frantic drumbeat of terror and liberation. He looked around the table, at the faces of his family, their expressions shifting from polite curiosity to confusion and then to dawning alarm.
He took a deep breath, and for the first time, he chose his words for their truth.
“No,” he said, his voice clear and strong, carrying across the hushed table. “He’s not leaving. I am. With my husband.”
He walked around the table and stood beside Santa, placing himself physically between his husband and his family. He took Santa’s hand. It was ice cold and trembling. He laced their fingers together, holding on tight.
He looked his father directly in the eye, then his mother. Their faces were masks of stunned disbelief.
“This ends now,” Perth said, his voice dropping, but gaining an intensity that commanded the silence. “Santa is my husband. He is not my ‘guest’. He is not my ‘bold choice’. He is the love of my life. He is who I love, who I chose at that altar one year ago today, and who I will choose every single day for the rest of my life.”
He turned his gaze to View, who looked uncomfortable with all this commotion. “View, you are accomplished and intelligent. I wish you every success. I’m sorry my family dragged you into this.”
Finally, he looked at his parents, his gaze unwavering. “Stop. Stop comparing him to someone he’ll never be. He feels everything so deeply it sometimes terrifies me. He cries at dog food commercials and he sings off key in the shower and he leaves paint smudges on everything he touches.”
His voice softened, filling with awe and a love so profound it made Santa catch his breath. “And he is the most beautiful, creative, loyal, and loving person I have ever known. He gave me a life. A real one. And he is already everything I will ever need.”
The silence in the wake of his words was absolute. You could have heard a pin drop on the plush carpet. Shock, outrage, confusion, it rippled around the table in a wave of stunned whispers.
Perth didn’t care. He only cared about the man whose hand he was holding. He turned to Santa. Santa was staring at him, his eyes wide, swimming with tears that spilled over and traced silent paths down his cheeks. His lips were parted in sheer, utter shock.
Without another word to his speechless family, Perth raised their joined hands to his lips and pressed a firm, lasting kiss to Santa’s knuckles. Then, he turned, and with his head held higher than it had ever been, he led his husband out of the dining room, out of the club, and into the liberating night air.
***
They didn’t speak until they were several blocks away, the opulent glow of the club far behind them. The city lights blurred around them, reflected in the wet pavement. Perth was breathing heavily from the adrenaline of what he’d just done.
Santa finally stopped walking, pulling Perth to a halt under the glow of a streetlamp. His face was still wet with tears, but his eyes were searching Perth’s, desperate, afraid to believe.
“You…” he stammered, his voice thick with emotion. “You really mean all of that?”
Perth cupped his face, his thumbs wiping away the tears. He saw the year of doubt, of pain, of feeling less than, etched in the lines of Santa’s beautiful face. He knew words alone wouldn’t erase it. But they were a start.
“Every word,” Perth said, his voice fierce with conviction. “I have never meant anything more in my entire life.” He took a deep breath, finally giving voice to the words that should have been his armor all along. The words he’d said, but never with the force they deserved. “I love you, Santa. I am so sorry it took me so long to be the man who deserves you.”
Santa let out a choked sob, a sound of pure, unadulterated relief, and fell into Perth’s arms. Perth held him tightly, burying his face in Santa’s hair, breathing in the familiar scent of paint and citrus shampoo. The scent of home.
“I love you too,” Santa whispered against his neck, his voice muffled but sure, the words finally filled with their original meaning again. “I love you so much.”
They stood there for a long time, wrapped in each other under the streetlamp, the world finally, blessedly, fading away. The battle wasn’t over. There would be fallout. Angry calls, disappointed lectures, perhaps even the severance of family ties. But as Perth held his husband, feeling the solid, real weight of him, he knew with absolute certainty that he had already won the only war that mattered.
He had chosen Santa.
And he would spend every day of the rest of his life proving it.