"Ethan, I want to know what's gotten into you!" Marshall cried out, letting one of his arms lift itself into the air with the fervor of his irritation. Their guests had left once dinner and dessert were officially over and it was getting to be ten o'clock on this Thanksgiving night. Marshall was pacing around in the other's living room, watching Ethan where he sat still on the edge of his futon - his eyes averted from his angry partner. "How could you say such things? And in front of your friends? And then to pick those little fights with me -"

"I don't know if I can tell you," Ethan whispered out. He had lifted his head from its earlier position and was now staring at Marshall, whose pacing had ceased and who stood, arms limp and shoulders depressed, down at Ethan. Ethan could only hold that eye contact for so long until he looked away again. "But it was wrong of me to do that. I'm sorry. I guess I wasn't thinking." he muttered. Lifting one of his own arms, Ethan rubbed the opposite with it in nervous habit and flopped back down onto his bed. He pulled his thick quilts over his tired body and nestled his face into one of his fluffed pillows, brown eyes still averted even as his body faced Marshall.

Marshall, still desperate for answers but not in the mood to fight for them, turned his back on Ethan and began to clean up the dinner table. He wrapped the leftovers carefully and with a sort of forced grace, setting things into the refrigerator in neat little stacks to keep himself distracted. The last thing he needed on top of his son's mysterious absence from their dinner was his lover's angry and inexplicable silence, and he felt he was taking it rather well. He had lived with his wife's incessant fits for a good twelve years, he could certainly brave through a boyfriend's fit and come out at least partially unscathed. When all of the leftovers were taken care of, Marshall went to wash all of the dishes almost entirely by hand even when the job was unnecessary; for Ethan had a dishwasher, but that didn't matter now. He was much too stressed out to let machinery take over his idle distractions.

When Marshall returned to the living room, Ethan had already fallen genuinely asleep. Marshall had learned over the past year of their ongoing courtship how to tell the difference between a sleeping Ethan and a fake-sleeping Ethan, and this one was certainly legit. Though Ethan's innocent sleeping face made Marshall smile, the mystery of his anger toward him wiped it from his features as quickly as it had appeared to begin with, and Marshall found himself wondering if he should or should not go home. It was very rare that he and Ethan had little spats like this and most of the time, he ran away home before he could see if Ethan would still be angry in the morning. But the curiosity burned in him and he needed to know - and if that meant he had to spend the night to confront Ethan about it in the morning, then so be it. Curling himself up comfortably on the opposite side of the futon, Marshall let himself fall asleep beside Ethan's frame and carry himself through a stress-free night of slumber, that would only be followed by a stressful awakening.

Marshall would be awake before Ethan the next morning, and would spend the entire morning scrubbing down and cleaning the kitchen counters and sink; all of this in order to make breakfast, like he usually did, with a little smile on his face. It was juvenile to believe that pretending they hadn't fought would make the dark cloud of the other night drift away and Marshall knew that, but even his logic couldn't stop him from trying it anyway. Sure enough, Ethan wandered into the kitchen with a frown on his face and a squint in his eye. "I didn't know you stayed the night," he informed, rubbing the back of his neck. Whenever Ethan went to bed stressed, he woke up with the worst aches in his neck. "Thought you'd have left like usual." Ethan finished in a mildly cynical mutter. Still with absolutely no desire to fight, Marshall took the other's vague verbal abuse with a soft shrug of his sturdy shoulders.

"I thought you might be in a better mood in the morning, so I wanted to stick around and see." he explained, running a soap-bubbling scrub brush under the faucet with a look of determined intent, all fabricated to avoid Ethan's beautiful eyes. With it he continued to scrub down the interior of the sink, adjusting his sleeves to ensure that they stayed rolled up around his elbows every so often. Ethan opened his mouth to say something, but when his mind scolded his harshness he was quick to withdraw and shut it. Marshall, graying blonde hair getting in his eyes, continued to clean and just listen to the sound of Ethan's presence beside him without words. He wondered if Ethan would come out straight with what was bothering him from the night before, but after a long enough and uncomfortable enough silence, it was clear that the younger man had no intention of doing so. Marshall sighed, displeased with the position he'd been put in, and he set the scrub brush away to turn his attention to Ethan. "You said last night that you didn't think you could tell me why you had that outburst that you did." he reminded softly. "Could you tell me now?"

Ethan was a little surprised that the other remembered what he'd said last night and expected him to follow through with the explanation of his earlier, tired words. Shuffling away from his small kitchen and slipping back under his cozy, welcoming quilts, Ethan was quick to curl up in his solace and try not to face Marshall's question. This task proved more difficult when Marshall had set down his own task and escaped from the confines of the kitchen, going to take a seat on the other end of Ethan's futon. Marshall was thoroughly annoyed, yes, but it was beginning to occur to him that perhaps there was something really very frightful bothering his Ethan. It suddenly became more important to resolve this issue than to let either of them bicker and irritate the situation, and though he was still perturbed, Marshall gave a soft and careful smile back down to his recently introverted lover. He would be patient; he had to be. "Is there something that we really need to talk about, Ethan?" he asked, sincere in his honest concern.

A sort of dull noise rumbled in the back of Ethan's throat that could be taken as an attempt at a response, while the young man rolled himself away from Marshall and toward the wall. He wrapped the thick blankets over his cold shoulders and balled up on the slightly uncomfortable futon mattress, debating whether or not he wanted to bring up this discussion. He nibbled idly on his lower lip, his brown eyes cracking open again to stare at the crude little patterns that his mind saw in the wall. His voice was soft and somewhat choked when he finally took a breath and spoke up: "Are you ever going to love me, Marshall?" he asked quietly. He closed his brown eyes and sniffed back tears, pressing his cheek into his welcomingly fluffed pillow. "S'been a whole year, almost, but every time I say it you just nod or say 'I know'. It's really been... starting to hurt."

With his admittance out of the way, Ethan was free to pull his covers up over his head and shield himself from any likely unwelcome responses. Marshall was just frozen in silence, eyes on the little ball of Ethan's body. He hadn't ever really thought about loving the other all the way through -- Marshall himself had figured that it was so obvious it need not be said. He realized, then, that that was just another obstacle so lovingly set up for them by their looming distance in age. Marshall had felt that his words and actions conveyed his love; he didn't know he had to say it aloud. Ethan must have spent a lot of time worrying, Marshall thought distantly. He reached out and touched the man's shoulder, a sad and understanding smile on his face. "I do love you, Ethan." he declared aloud. "I didn't know it was so important to you that I vocalize it. I thought you already knew."

Ethan stirred underneath his blanket and rolled toward Marshall, hoping desperately that the other wasn't just saying that for his benefit. He pulled the quilt down again to watch Marshall, not saying anything just yet and instead inspecting his features. His slight wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, visible due to his soft smile. His eyes were a beautiful green, hauntingly so, and his strands of gray were so endearing to Ethan. "I do love you," Marshall said quietly, though the words felt to Ethan like they'd melted in the air before even reaching his ears. He'd wanted to hear them for so long, ever since he said them himself; ever since those horrible, lonely three months. He rubbed his wet eyes and sat up, eyeing Marshall for a minute and then hesitantly wrapping his arms around him.

"Marshall." he muttered against his throat, stifled by said flesh. Marshall touched the back of Ethan's head, stroking long fingers through soft brown hair. It was a strange thing to think about for the older man; loving Ethan, this younger person so wantonly curled up against him and now in his arms. When they'd agreed to date one another Marshall had thought it a sort of experiment, something to see if he enjoyed or not. He'd never planned on the whole thing becoming serious, loving, or even as intimate as it had. Obviously Ethan had his own interpretations of what was going to happen with their relationship, and they were only just now occurring to Marshall. He smiled at himself while he wondered, what other little things were going to surprise him? It seemed that every few months there would be something new on Ethan's mind, something that had never occurred before to Marshall as a problem or even an idea. He could learn a lot from Ethan, he noted. The man stirred against him and lifted his head, smiling a soft, drowsy smile. "Thank you." he murmured.

There was a quiet moment between the two, Marshall continuing to rub the other's scalp with his fingertips to the sound of Ethan's pleased purr. Ethan, still somewhat drowsy, was attempting to keep himself from falling asleep with a little sort of nuzzling motion against Marshall's jaw. Marshall chuckled at the affections, opening his mouth after a minute to ask, "Do you want to get some coffee? I'm sure your friend is wondering what's happened to us." he said quietly. He was happy that Ethan was pleased with him again, but the question of Ben was still hovering over him; making him still somewhat uncomfortable. He needed to find something else to do with himself, to keep himself busy and avoid it -- that was Marshall's way, after all. Of course, a mocha would be nice, too.

An indistinguishable sort of noise came from Ethan's throat in return, and he opened his eyes up at Marshall and smiled softly at him. "Mmcoffee," he mumbled out, slipping away from the older man's body and shrugging off his light pajama top. "Sure." he finished, smiling. He could obviously use some coffee, as he was stumbling around a bit to find his jeans somewhere on his floor and only noticed once he tried to button them that they were on backwards. "I need a mocha pretty bad." Ethan laughed, sloughing off his jeans to try again.

Smiling at him, Marshall was already dressed for the day. His responsibilities included brushing his hair and getting his keys, while Ethan scrambled around to the bathroom to brush his teeth and make faces at himself in the mirror. "D'you think I'm getting wrinkles?" he asked Marshall, crying out to him while he spit out his stinging toothpaste foam. "I think I'm getting wrinkles. On my face." he murmured, while putting away his toothbrush and watching himself in the mirror with a more critical eye. He ran his fingers through his own bangs, shifting them from one side to the other and then stretching out his cheeks with his fingertips to fully inspect the folds in his young flesh. "I have them on my forehead for sure."

"Maybe you don't need that mocha after all." Marshall declared from the bathroom doorway, where he'd suddenly appeared after wrapping a lightly cologne-scented scarf around his neck and leaning against the doorframe. "You've picked up chattering an awful lot." he smirked, winking and wandering over to Ethan -- wrapping his arms around his middle, he kissed Ethan's ear and met his eyes through the reflection in the mirror. "Don't talk to me about wrinkles, Ethan, I've had my fair share of discussion on those wretched things. Now, do you think you're almost ready?"

"Yeah, lemme go get a sweater.." he muttered, breaking free of Marshall with a soft kiss to the corner of the man's mouth. He escaped the bathroom in order to head back over to his futon in the living area, picking up a few black turtleneck sweaters and trying to find the one that smelled more clean for the day's wearing. Ethan lamented briefly to himself how he needed to laundry pretty soon, before wriggling his arms up through the fabric and calling out to Marshall that he was finally ready for their excursion. Marshall, chuckling a bit at the other and his uniquely childish ways of doing things, appeared from the hallway with a smirk on his handsome face. He rubbed his hands together and made his way over to the door, grabbing his own coat and offering another to Ethan.

Shuffling into the coat and out of the door, Ethan clapped his hands and rubbed them with a huff of breath. "S'freezing out there," he noted, squinting down the apartment's hallways and toward the windowed doors that lead to the outside. Marshall glanced up and headed toward the doors to the outside, stuffing his hands into his pockets on the way with a triumphant sort of grin.

"Can't be that bad," he informed, shaking his head and slipping out. Sure, it was quite cold; though Marshall was used to the freezing temperatures of his home state and Portland's winters weren't that bad -- not to him, at least. Ethan, however, was curled up against himself and letting his teeth chatter against each other with puffed cheeks. He dug some gloves out of his messenger bag at his side and slipped his fingers into them, then stuffed his covered hands into his pockets. "See?" Marshall asked, hopping down a few flights of the apartment's stairs. "This is nothing!"

Trying not to look like a fool, Ethan nibbled on his lower lip and nodded to that. "Y-Yeah," he muttered, wishing now that he'd brought his own scarf and hat but not about to vocalize that desire. He hurried along forward, keeping himself moving and ignoring the little clouds that puffed from his trembling lips. Thankfully the coffee shop didn't happen to be that far away, and Matthew was pleased to see the two of them when they managed to cross the threshold into its sweet-smelling, warm embrace. Hopping over to the counter, Ethan was still rubbing his hands together when he gave a smirking eye to Marshall. "You're the one who suggested we go out," he reminded. "You gonna pay?" Ethan asked, giving a little wink.

Shuffling his feet on the small welcome mat, Marshall wandered into the coffee shop after another few moments and smiled up at Ethan and his still childish, though amusing, logic. "Well," he laughed a little bit and came up behind Ethan, rubbing the man's shoulders and then going to pull out his wallet. "I suppose, if you say it that way..." Marshall murmured, sticking out his tongue with a hum. Matthew was smiling a bit at them, already starting up Ethan's usual order and obscured slightly by the espresso machine. Glad to see that the two of them were getting along just fine, Matthew lifted his head to ask with an approving smile:

"You getting anything, Marshall?" To which the eldest man lifted his head, letting his eyes scan quickly over the menu while he thought. Matthew finished up Ethan's order, topping it with his traditional whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkled about the creamy fluff. He handed it over to Ethan, who instantly wrapped his icy hands around the inviting heat of his cup while shuffling to the nearest couch.

Marshall's eyes met with Matthew's once Ethan had sat down and he murmured, "Caramel mocha?" while looking for his bank card. He presented it with a shift of his weight on his feet, while Matthew took the Ethan-less opportunity to ask, "How're you two doing? Is everything okay after last night?" Matthew's green eyes were wrought with concern, and he handed the quickly-mixed and tempting mocha over to Marshall with a questioning smile.

Marshall glanced warily over his shoulder and at Ethan, before meeting with his boyfriend's best friend's eyes again and nodding a quiet nod. Really, he wasn't quite sure; he never knew if there was still something bothering Ethan that the boy had yet to come out with. He'd learned at this point to be patient, just to listen and wait for Ethan to open up to him about these things -- but it also kept him ill at ease, hoping silently that Ethan would be okay.

With a little hum, the oldest man reached out to wrap his own cold fingers around his warming mocha. "..at least, I certainly hope so." he murmured. Shoulders heavy, Marshall turned around, approaching his complacent Ethan with gentle silence; regarded by the boy in equal quiet.