[Samuel x Roman]

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"Ugh, fine." Roman rolled his eyes before looking at Evan, though he couldn't turn his head because Allison was busy exploring his pierced and sparkly face with her hands. Currently, she was touching his septum piercing and then touching her own nose as if to look for a similar object.

"Evan, my dear, you are a good father who takes care of his girlfriend and daughter, and that's the most important thing."

Roman's voice had started off jokingly, but somewhere in the middle of his sentence it grew serious. He meant it. Evan was a good guy, and even if it was horribly inconvenient to have impregnated London at such a young age, he had made up for it by being loving and caring towards his girls. And Roman respected him for that.

"And you have nice eyebrows," Roman added in afterthought, before turning his gaze back to his niece.
 
"See now I can accept you holding her because you were nice," Evan said as if Roman wasn't always very nice, especially to Allison, "If you are nice there is no reason to complain about you stealing our baby…. Temporarily."

He added the last part with a stern tone and expression but let Allison stay in Roman's lap just like he had said. The way she was so perplexed by the fact that Roman's face differed from the ones she was used to was very adorable.

"Hey, Allison, do you want as many piercings as your cool uncle?" Samuel chuckled and Allison made an excited little gurgle at the attention from a new person and looked at Samuel with her big green eyes for a moment before going back to playing with the jewellery in Roman's face.

"What no, I changed my mind give her back" Evan reached out his hands from either side of his girlfriend and made a grabbing motion with his hands to gesture to give her to him. Everyone knew Roman would not hand the little girl over to her father though.
 
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"What, no way," Roman retorted, the words coming out a little distorted due to Allison pinching his lip piercing. "If she wants to pursue a pierced and decorated life she can, and you can't stop her, this is a free country."

"Roman, she's eight months old," chuckled London. However, Roman knew she would let Allison pierce her body as a teen, because he knew for a fact his sister had a belly button piercing as well as the nose ring they could easily see.

"So? Stop inhibiting her creativity, London, God. Let her make her own decisions."

"Fine." London stood up and held her arms out for her baby. "You and Evan sit on the floor, and whoever she crawls to gets to hold her for the night. No one else gets to complain."

Roman narrowed his eyes at London, but he saw this as a challenge between him and Evan, so he handed the infant over to her mother and sat on the floor. London backed up a few feet and sat down, and once the two boys were situated, she let the baby go.
 
Samuel stayed on the couch as the other's took their places on the floor for Allison to choose who she wanted to spend the rest of the evening with, even if she didn't have any idea that was what she was doing. For a moment she actually just looked a little confused about what was going on, just looking between her uncle, father and mother on the floor as if asking what to do. And then she started to do her cute little crawling.

Allison seemed to have made up her mind that she wanted the familiarity of her father and crawled over to him, sat down and held out her little arms for him to pick her up. He did so, holding her up in the air for a moment before bringing her down and giving her face a couple of sweet little kisses, which made Allison squeal happily. Then he brought her down to hold her normally, still looking at her fondly and saying a soft little "I love you"

It wasn't only Roman who could be adorable with the baby, Evan was very cute with his little girl as well, always holding her as if she was the most precious and valuable thing on the planet, which she probably was to him. The soft expression his face had gotten once he picked up his daughter was replaced with a huge smug grin as he looked at Roman instead.

"You were just rejected,"
 
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Roman was in shock. He had seriously thought that Allison would come to him -- simply because he saw her less. She didn't get to spend much time with him so logically she would go to him, right?

But he knew it had been wishful thinking. Evan was her father, after all. Her parent. And he was a good one, a good father, a good man. London had done well for herself.

Roman rolled his eyes at Evan's comment. "Yeah, yeah, okay, fuck you," he said, standing up and stretching his long frame. "I think I'm gonna go to bed anyway, I drove all the way here because Sammy's a loser who doesn't have his licence."

"You just want to go away because you can't have her."

"You're absolutely correct," Roman said sweetly. He squatted down next to Evan to plant a sweet little kiss to his niece's forehead. Allison compensated for betraying him by giving him a small little hug.

"You are forgiven." Roman kissed the baby again before standing up and taking Samuel's hand. "Goodnight, dorks."
 
"Yes I know I didn't, mum, I forgot and there's a lot going on, alright" Samuel snapped but kept his eyes glued to the road he had just pulled into, he had forgotten to blink to show what he was doing because he had been too focused on stopping at the stop sign leading into the road.

It was the next day and after an amazing and nice breakfast with the Hemlocks, Samuel had decided it was high time to go over to his mother and visit her. He had of course taken Roman along with him, he wanted him there and by now his mother did too, he was honestly planning on spending as much time as possible driving though, so Roman had had to come along, not that Roman joining in on what was kind of a family moment was something anyone would complain about, seeing as that was how close he and Samuel were anyways.

He had told his mother far ahead of time that he would want to practice a last couple of times to get a hang of things before he actually tried to get his license and she had made sure they had all papers and permits sorted out by the time the break rolled around.

"Yes, but it's the kind of thing they could fail you for"

"You have told me that like a million times, that was the first time I forgot in ages"

"I'm just trying to help you, Samuel, there's no need to be angry" She was right about that of course, Samuel was definitely getting worked up for nothing, but he got very stressed when driving. It wasn't because he was a bad driver, he was actually pretty good and just a little rusty after a long while of not doing it, but the other cars and people in traffic always made him slightly nervous and thus he had an easier time getting upset over such small things. He was also not used to driving with his mum since his dad had been the one who thought him.

Susan turned around a little in her seat to look at Roman in the back, "Roman, sweetie, did you also get this riled up when practising driving?" she seemed to be genuinely curious since she hadn't really had the experience of teaching someone to drive before, she had only tagged along with Samuel and his dad a couple of times and Samuel was a lot quieter then since he hadn't wanted to upset his father.
 
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Somehow Roman found himself in the backseat of Susan Ortega's car, spectating as his boyfriend practiced driving. He had never actually seen Samuel drive before -- out of the two of them, he drove all the time because he actually had his probationary licence, meaning he could drive without supervision. It was interesting to watch Samuel drive, simply because it was something he had never witnessed before.

"Oh, no, not really," Roman admitted, shrugging when Susan asked him the question. "I was always quite good at driving. My dad's parents own a farm near the New South Wales border, and my grandfather would let me drive the ute on the property, so I could drive before I got my learner's licence anyway."

Roman was annoyingly talented with most things. That was just a fact of life, everyone knew it. He was only genuinely bad at a couple of things -- math, sport, not being likeable.

"I would offer to teach you, but I can't, I only have my probationary licence," he apologised to Samuel, leaning his chin on the back of his boyfriend's seat.
 
Had Samuel not been focused on the fact that the car behind him was driving annoyingly close to him because he stuck to the speed limits Samuel would have asked his boyfriend to tell him more about driving at his grandparent's farm.

"Nah, it's good that you can't, I'd just get angry at you too" Samuel chuckled somewhat awkwardly as he basically recognised that his anger was uncalled for and was simply because he was driving out loud. His mother laughed a little too and they continued to drive for a bit, Samuel less angry but more stressed due to the annoying car behind him.

"Sammy, you were supposed to turn right at that light," His mother said after a little while of concentrated silence for Samuel to be able to focus.

"Then you should have told me?"

"You were supposed to look at the signs." His mother was right again but Samuel still shot her a glare, which prompted Susan to add, "I don't remember getting this angry when my father thought me how to drive, either"

Samuel sighed angrily at that, because they were all different people so obviously they would react differently, and his mother had always had a tendency to underestimate how stressed he was "well, I'm sure grandpa didn't tell you when to turn, too late,"

Samuel took the next turn instead, successfully getting away from the car behind him and thus feeling a little calmer and drove the rest of the way to the store, which was what his mother had told him to follow the signs to, without any problems, he parked, perfectly showing that he did, in fact, know what he was doing.

"See, Sammy, You've got this" His mother patted Samuel hair a little before stepping out of the car, "You two wait in the car and I'll just go pick up some stuff while we're here"

Susan closed the door and left and once she had walked away a bit Samuel sighed and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, "I suck I'm never going to get my license,"
 
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"You don't suck," Roman said at once. "Well ... you do, but not at driving," he added with a chuckle.

Roman shifted so he was sitting on the centre console, so he could look at his boyfriend properly. "But seriously, babe, you're not that bad at driving, you just get stressed easily," he told Samuel. "Which I can't blame you for. I mean, out of the two of us, who's on anxiety meds? Me. So I can't give you any shit. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that you're better than you give yourself credit for."

Roman reached over and ran his fingers through Samuel's hands affectionately.

"You'll be fine, I promise. And if you don't have it down by the time we have to go home, we'll sneak out and practice in a parking lot or somewhere no one will see us."
 
Samuel knew Roman was right in that he wasn't as bad as he was saying, but it was frustrating since he had been better the last time he drove, the one year of not doing it really had made him a lot worse. He sighed again and turned his head to look at his boyfriend, who had managed to make him feel better just like he always did.

"that sounds mildly illegal" Samuel chuckled, but it wasn't necessarily the worst idea, the two of them getting in some extra practice if needed, "and so does driving before getting your learner's license"

Now that he wasn't being stressed up by traffic he could ask more about the brief story Roman had told in the car. And they had some time to kill anyways since Samuel knew his mother would probably get stuck in the store for a while, she wasn't the kind of person to just go in and get what she needed, instead she would end up buying everything she thought she might need later on, and thus it always took longer than it should have.


"I don't like being angry, tell me about that instead" He mumbled, eyes not leaving Roman, he wasn't really angry anymore but he would still need some peace and quiet for a while if he was going to be able to continue to drive later, "You're grandparents own a farm?"
 
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"Oh, yeah, they do," Roman said, shrugging. It was a lot bigger a deal than he was making out.

"It's a pretty big property, actually. Like, they own a mountain and everything. My dad has a bunch of siblings so the entire family helped out on the farm -- they'd get up at six and milk the cows every day, and in the summer they got to burn off the paddocks and whatnot." Roman smiled. He liked thinking of his dad and aunts and uncles in that nice way.

"We used to go up there every summer, until London and I turned fifteen. So, my dad would let me drive the ute around for practice for when I got my L's. It was fun. Sometimes we'd go spotlighting -- which basically means we'd go out into the paddocks at night and my grandpa would shine this huge light on rabbits and dad and Brooklyn would shoot them. London and I don't like guns so we'd just take turns driving."

It was weird to talk about Brooklyn like that. Like he was still someone Roman considered family.

"I should bring you up to the farm sometime. They're all really cool there." Meaning, not homophobic.
 
Samuel listened to the stories and couldn't help but to smile upon seeing Roman's smile, it was sweet and Samuel was really happy to get to learn more about Roman's family and the fact that they made Roman happy to just think about.

"As long as I don't have to see anyone shooting rabbits" Samuel chuckled when Roman suggested going there, he was seated normally by now, no longer slouched and moping over the steering wheel, "It sounds really nice, I want to see the cows, cows are really cute"

Samuel liked the idea of getting to come with Roman to the farm, it sounded fun, even if the thought of meeting the extended family was slightly nerve wrecking. But they sounded nice from Roman's description, and so far everyone in the Hemlock family he had met had all been amazing and good people, except for Brooklyn. Brooklyn was a piece of shit for the way he saw and treated his siblings.

"I'd offer you to come with me to like my cousins or whatever, but they live in a small three room apartment in Melbourne, it's not very exciting," Samuel added, since they were talking about relatives anyway, "And it'd probably be very awkward,"
 
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"You won't have to watch anyone shoot any rabbits," Roman promised. He didn't really like going spotlighting all that much anyway -- though, he went, because it was one of the few things he could actually do on the farm. Growing up, he hadn't been able to do much when visiting his father's family because of his haemophilia, and the fact that he couldn't risk hurting himself in such a rural area.

"Shut up, I'd love to meet your cousins," he insisted, gently nudging Samuel's shoulder. "I don't care if they're boring or not, they're your cousins and therefore I would like to meet them. And there is no such thing as an awkward situation when I'm there." Except if Matthew was involved, but that wasn't important.

"What are they like? What are their names? I've heard fuck all about them and I'm offended because of it. Tell me everything."
 
"I just got to know about your grandparents having a fucking farm Roman, you can't complain about me not talking about my cousins" Samuel gave Roman's arm a light poke to retaliate the nudge from earlier, he had had a point about him generally making things less awkward though.

"Their names are Holly and Theo, Holly is sixteen and Theo turns like thirteen or fourteen in a couple of months, I think?" Samuel tried to recall, it was always harder to remember the ages of relatives who weren't close to your own age, "I mean they aren't that lame, just not as cool as my cousin María on dad's side, but she lives too far away obviously"

María was the one person on his dad's side that he kept up with on the regular, calling to chat about once every month or so. But his two cousins that actually lived in Australia was pretty okay too, they just preferred playing video games or Snapchatting with their friends over doing fun activities with the family when you visited.

"But like, you just told me your dad has a bunch of siblings, wouldn't that mean you have a bunch of cousins I don't know anything about as well?"
 
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Roman listened attentively. Samuel didn't provide much information but it was enough to get him interested. Well, he'd want to meet the cousins anyway.

"Oh, God," he sighed, when Samuel asked about Roman's extended family. "Right, my extended family is fucking huge, so grab some popcorn, this is going to take a while."

Roman started counting off on is fingers. "My dad has six siblings. He's the oldest. So, it's Stellan, Tracey, Hillary, Patrick, Hadley, Xavier and Annabella. Right, so Tracey has three kids, named Becky, Tate and Willow, they live in Western Australia so I never see them. Hillary never married and still lives on the farm, same with Patrick. Hadley and his wife have five kids -- Claudia, June, Ralph, Dennis and Quinn, and they live in New South Wales, not far from the farm, so I see them a little more often. Xavier has two kids, Julia and Caleb, and Annabella has one, Terry. Xavier and Annabella both live in Tasmania."

Roman took another deep sigh. "My mother has three sisters, and she's the youngest. Linnea, she lives in Sweden and has two kids, named George and Florence. Agnes, who lives in New Zealand and doesn't have any kids and Elsa, who lives in Sydney and has no kids either. So I have --" Roman quickly counted on his fingers again "-- thirteen cousins."
 

"I will literally not remember any what you just told me Jesus Christ"Samuel half laughed as Roman was done telling him what felt like a million names, Samuel's dad had two siblings, one of which was María's dad and the other had two kids, but that was as many as they got and that was nothing compared to Roman's ridiculous amount of thirteen cousins "how do you even remember all that?"

Roman didn't have a chance to answer though as Susan chose that moment to come back to the car, she left a couple of bags in the trunk and then went back to sit in the passenger seat.

"I bought ice cream, you get to eat in the car this once, because it's cold out" Susan said, somewhat sternly as she handed the boys one ice cream cone each, she was usually pretty strict with her no food in the car rule but Samuel knew it was letting the rule go today to compensate for accidentally making her son angry, even if that was no one's fault but the stress that came from driving.

"Hey mum, when's Theo's birthday?" Samuel spoke after unwrapping his ice cream and taking a bite.

Susan gave her son a puzzled expression but told him the information anyways, "October fourteenth"

"Are you going coming to Melbourne to celebrate? "

"Yes, and I expect you to come with as well" she gave Samuel another stern look and Samuel rolled his eyes because he really wasn't asking to get out of the celebrations, "You don't get an out just because you don't live with me anymore"

"Yeah well if you had given me the chance I would have asked if we could come with"

"Both of you?"

Samuel just made a careful "mhm" sound and looked at his mother expectantly, she seemed to be hesitating just a tad, her and her sister had been raised by the same parents and had the same values after all so it wasn't that weird that his mother would be worried about it. But Samuel had talked with his aunt plenty of time's since moving to Melbourne and she'd pop in by her friend's restaurant where Samuel work to say hi sometimes so Samuel doubted it was something to worry about anymore.

"Yeah of course," Susan said finally with a small smile and Samuel smiled too.
 
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"Oooh, ice cream, thanks, Susan," said Roman sweetly, accepting the frozen treat and returning to his place in the back seat. He opened it and immediately dug into the dessert, happy to be eating something, since he had had nothing in the past hour or so.

He stayed quiet while Samuel was talking to his mother. He was vaguely aware that Samuel's aunt had similar values to Susan -- or, well, Susan before Samuel had come out. But clearly that wasn't something that inhibited Samuel from seeing his family members so he didn't see the problem with going to the little cousin's birthday party.

"Susan, I meant to say before, I love your hair," Roman complimented the woman, to make up for the slight apprehension he had just caused. And he wasn't lying. Susan's hair always looked lovely.
 
"Thank you sweet heart" Susan gave Roman a genuine smile, Roman was the kind of person most people liked so it wasn't surprising that she had ended up being able to see past the whole into guys thing, even when she had met him the first time back when Samuel and Roman weren't dating yet, "I'll let you in on a little secret, I'm not a natural blonde"

It wasn't really a secret but she gave her son's boyfriend a playful wink and gestured for him to scoot back into the back seat so Samuel could go back to driving.

"Okay, I hope you're in a better mood now sweetie, because I really want you to get that license so you two can come visit more often"

Susan ruffled Samuel's hair and they drove off to make sure Samuel got in as much practice as possible, and now that Samuel had gotten a chance to calm down and when Susan had gotten a chance to reflect over how her son had reacted to driving when she was alone in the store. And so, Samuel felt a little more confident that he would end up getting his license in the end.
 
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Roman watched Samuel drive and occasionally congratulated his boyfriend on how well he was doing, and how much he had improved since before. He was a good driver, and simply didn't give himself the credit he deserved.

When they arrived back at the Ortega house, Roman carried in all the groceries had purchased from the store and refused to let either Ortega help him. He carried everything inside and began to unpack them too, simply because he was being nice. He didn't need to think about it.

"Would you like tea or coffee, Susan?" he asked sweetly, putting the kettle on to make hot drinks.
 
"Tea please, it's healthier than coffee" Susan smile and went over to the counter to find everything needed to make the tea and coffee, she wasn't the type of person to let her guest do all work but she also wouldn't say no to the help.

Samuel sighed because he knew what she was leading up to, "Marginally"

"You drink to much coffee, Sammy, it isn't good for you" and there it was.

Samuel glared at his mother and then turned to smile sweetly at his boyfriend, "make me coffee please?"

After a little while their drinks and they were seated at the kitchen table, it kind of made Samuel think back to that first time he came home after his dad got arrested, only a million time more pleasant of course. Things were nice and everyone at the table were happy.

"How is life in Melbourne then, boys?" Susan smiled, she got regular updates whenever she called her son to check on him but those were just phone calls, "Samuel tells me your working at Lush, that sounds like fun?"
 
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