"Orange juice is too acidic, and candy will just make it worse right now," he said, gagging a little as he pushed the glass of orange juice away. "I'm not diabetic, I just get hypoglycemic a lot," he panted. "I need something to absorb the acid in my stomach first. A glass of milk or some crackers..."

Romeo nodded and took everything away to come back with milk and some crackers. Romeo started chastizing himself in his head. This wouldn't have happened if he had bothered to cook dinner before passing out. He knew it too. He sighed and handed Gavin the glass of milk and the package of crackers. Sitting down on the floor with his back toward the couch.

"This should help then." He paused for a moment. "I'm sorry..."

"What are you sorry for?" he asked, propping himself up a little and opening the package of crackers.

"You wouldn't be in this condition if I had thought to make you some dinner before I passed out... " Romeo took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, scratching the back of his head and not even turning to look at Gavin. "I mean it was so simple, I just should have made sure you had enough food that your blood sugar didn't drop off like this and..." He stopped, turning to look at Gavin, unknowingly showing him the unshed tears glistening in his eyes. "I feel like I've failed you.."

"You asked me if I was hungry in the car. I told you the absolute truth; food was the farthest thing from my mind. I was too sick to my stomach to eat anyways. That's not your fault. You at least asked me if I was hungry." He didn't mention the tears; he wasn't sure if Romeo was the macho 'men don't cry' type or not, and didn't want to embarrass him.

"Are you feeling better now at least?" Romeo tilted his head, bit his lip and gave Gavin one of his signature sad half-hearted smiles. "I can cook you anything you feel like eating that we have available if you're still hungry or you need more food. I really wouldn't mind at all. It will help keep me from thinking that I'm not taking care of you well enough."

"Give me a little while," he said, drinking some of the milk. "I have to let my stomach settle. But would you mind sitting with me for a little bit?"

Romeo stood up and sat himself down on the couch beside Gavin. He wouldn't look at him. He was concentrating so much on his own internal dialogue that he was certain he wasn't going to make very good company. He granted Gavin's request anyway and pursed his lips in thought. They twitched to a smile for a few seconds when he realized he was still in nothing but boxers.

"Is there something in specific you wanted to talk about? Or can you just not get enough of my sexy half-naked form?"

"As attractive as you might be," he said, glancing over at Romeo from the corners of his eyes. "That's not why I asked." He sighed a little, then drank some more milk. "I'm living under the same roof as you now... I just... Kinda feel like we should know each other better than this."

"I couldn't agree more." Romeo turned to face Gavin, his eyes still cautious, a small soft smile playing along his lips. He stretched his arms up and dangled his hands behind his head, using them as a support. "What do you wish to know about me?"

"I don't really know," he admitted, looking down at his own thigh for a few minutes. "I guess anything you're willing to share with me..."

"I don't think I ever told you that I had a brother once..." Romeo smiled at Gavin, "I know what you're thinking. No, he's not dead. But...I'm dead to him. I'm not even completely Vietnamese. My father was half Spanish. It's how my last name came to be Riviera. Three-fourths Vietnamese is enough to make me look full blood though. People in this country tend to respect Asians more than they do Spaniards. So I've only told my closest friends. My brother... was the bastard son of a lady my father worked with.

He was a good brother at first. And we managed to keep in touch even after our father died. But the day he found out I was homosexual... I'll never forget the look on his face. So much hatred and disgust. He was afraid I was going to develop a brother complex too. Fat chance in that. Even if he was what I was looking for physically, which he wasn't, he was still an asshole and on top of that the IDEA of a brother complex makes me uneasy..." He sighed. "So after that day we went our separate ways and never spoke again."

He smiled weakly. "My little brother is gay. He refuses to admit it and insists on dating women, but he's miserable... The moment he found out I was gay he shunned me, as though it were infectious. So I guess I kinda know that you mean... But there were only five of us, all of us had the same parents, so I don't know what it's like to have a half-sibling."

"It's rough knowing that the only real family you have alive out there... is refusing to talk to you because of your sexual preference. Sometimes I wish I had never told him. There are other days when I sit back and look at it from another angle. Surely if he was worth keeping in contact with he would have stuck around." Romeo gave Gavin the kind of shrug that meant everything and nothing all at the same time. "Your turn."

"Alright..." he said, taking a deep breath. "My dad is a drunk, always has been. After I got thrown out the window I returned home for about a month before my father was arrested and I was removed from the house. I bounced around from foster home to foster home for a couple years, then ended up being taken back home after my father had been 'rehabilitated'. Of course, back then, that meant sent to jail for a year or two and then forced to take a handful of parenting classes."

He took another drink of milk, then leaned his head back against the couch. "I also refuse to smile in photographs because of my mother. Whenever someone would try to talk to her about how I was abused, she'd pull out pictures of me and start saying 'look how happy Gavin is; I must have raised him well'. Or something always extremely close to it. It taught me to never smile if there was a camera around. I skipped my college graduation because I was so happy I couldn't stop smiling. I didn't want her to see me happy. She didn't deserve it."

Romeo thought over the new information he received and pulled out one of his mischievous grins. "Maybe one day I'll be deserving enough to get you to smile with me in a picture." He chuckled. "Then again, just seeing you smile without the picture is enough to let me know I'm making you happy enough." He ran the palm of his hand lightly up and across Gavin's cheek and ended up combing his fingers through the other man's hair. "Or you could just keep calling me a masochist, that's when I know you're REALLY happy. When you can whip out sarcasm without thinking about it." He smiled, his own voice dripping with said sarcasm.

"I forgot myself once in college and was caught on photograph smiling." He eyed Romeo in mock-suspiciousness. "I think you hold the tendencies of both a sadist and a masochist. But it's your turn to talk."

Romeo stretched again and crossed his arms over his bare chest, keeping his hands to himself once more. "I'm a switch in all but one sence of the word dear Gavin, but yeah... My love for books is only rivaled by my love of movies and System of a Down. Italian food comes next in line I think."

"My main loves are my oldest sister, my cat, reading, writing, and learning."

"Reading which kinds of books in specific? Learning about anything in specific or just learning in general? And... what do you write?"

"I like reading anything, to be honest. I also like learning anything and everything I can. I write whatever comes to mind, really... Mainly lame stories that are inspired by a minute and unimportant details of things that've happened in my life. Just... Memories... Or things inspired by the most random, stupidest encounters and observations in day to day life."

"Hold on just a minute, there's something I want you to see..." Romeo got up and disappeared into his bedroom for a few moments. There was what sounded like a lot of books and papers crashing on the floor all at once, Romeo cussing, then he immediately came back out with a scowl on his face. "I need to reorganize that shelf a little better..." He placed a couple three-ring notebooks and two canvases on Gavin's lap for him to take a look at them. It was a lot of art, watercolor, oil, chalk, colored pencil, pretty much every medium. And they all looked extremely good.

"Does this mean I have to show you mine?" he asked with an awkward laugh and equally awkward smile.

Romeo laughed loudly and shook his head, still grinning, eyes bright and merry. "Only if you want to. I'd love to see your work myself, I understand how people can be sentimental about these kinds of things and not want others to look. I'll never let anyone see an unfinished piece. However. I did come to the conclusion that you might be someone who could actually appreciate them. They're not much....just stuff I threw together in my free time." It wasn't something that looked like it was thrown together in a short amount of time. The attention to detail was astounding.

"It's not that I'm sentimental about them... It's just that I'm uncomfortable with people seeing it... Just because I feel I lack in skill and that some things might be misunderstood..."