Love and Avon

Patrick was sitting on the sofa, flicking through an Avon catalog and occasionally circling an item. Neil was watching him avidly on the other side of the room, a smile playing on his mouth. He thought that Patrick looked so sweet when he was reading, even when reading something like a catalog. He'd flick through the pages, his head resting on one hand as he paused, biting his lip, pulling his hair back behind his shoulders. Patrick brought most his presents from catalogs, and every birthday and Christmas, Neil could expect some cologne or jewelery wrapped up and placed carefully at the bottom of the bed. Sometimes even sexy underwear if the Anne Summers catalog came instead of the Avon one.

And Patrick always looked intense when reading. He always gets so involved with whatever story he reads. He cries each time he finishes the Harry Potter series. He's like it with films as well - he didn't stop weeping for an hour after Moulin Rouge finished, and that was after the second time he had watched it. And Neil supposed it was that which attracted him so much to Patrick - it was that intensity.

Because that intensity was there in the relationship as well. They fought like crazy, but always managed to make up harder. Patrick could stay mad at Neil for days over the smallest things - one time, he was one the verge of moving out because Neil kept refusing to do the washing up. Neil wasn't that much better, he supposed; he always gets irritated beyond belief whenever Patrick left his dirty washing in the corner of their bedroom.

And sometimes, Neil would even deliberately do something he knows will annoy Patrick. Little things like leaving the milk out and 'forgetting' to take the rubbish out. Just to see that spark of intensity again. Just to see if Patrick really cared.

And if Neil was being honest with himself, he would admit that it was the way Patrick reacted to the little things that attracted him to Patrick in the first place. If Patrick didn't get upset over films or at the sight of a rabbit dying on the side of the road, he wouldn't be the same Patrick. And if he wasn't Patrick, Neil wouldn't have fallen in love with him in the first place.