Title: Arrangements
Fandom: Donald Strachey Mysteries (movieverse)
Pairing: Donald and Timothy
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: About 3100

References/Spoilers: Can't think of any.
Disclosure: I wish they were mine. Alas, they are not, so I'm just taking them out for a spin with thanks to the men who created them and the actors who brought them to life.
Summary: Financial planning leads to arrangements Donald just can't handle.

Author's Note: Not sure why this story occurred to me, but it did. It's a little depressing, but I believe in ending on a good note, so hopefully you'll smile more than frown.

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ARRANGEMENTS

by

Candy Apple

"Honey, you've got to stop thinking about this like it's cursed. It's just a smart financial planning move," Tim said. "At our ages, the cost will be so much lower to do this now than to do it at the time we need it. And then, when one of us feels the least able to cope with all these details, it'll be handled."

"What happened to just dealing with this...stuff when somebody was dead? I don't want to think about it now." Donald rubbed his forehead, staring out the passenger window of the car.

"This was one of the main things Richard thought we should add to our portfolio of paperwork and legal arrangements," Tim replied, referring to their lawyer. "If something happens to one of us, this will stop either of our families from stepping in and forcing arrangements on the survivor that he isn't comfortable with."

"Your family wouldn't do that to me."

"What about your family? Donald, they won't even have us there for a visit because you're gay and married to a man. And as much as it breaks my heart, that marriage isn't legal. They could take you away from me, keep me away from your funeral."

"They don't care enough about me to do that, Timmy. If it were up to them, I'd probably end up in a bag by the curb on trash day. They're not going to want to lay out thousands of dollars to pretty me up and put me in a box. If you want to do that, they'll be glad to let you pay for it. Now can we please not do this?"

"We have an appointment. You'll see, it won't be that bad. Just signing some papers and deciding how much we're willing to spend." Tim pulled into a parking spot in the funeral home's lot.

"Maybe they can give us a two-fer." Donald sighed, staring at the building that looked more like an office complex than a funeral home. "Just let me crawl in your casket with you and call it good."

"You won't be offended if I don't inquire about those deals, will you?" Tim asked, smiling, trying to cheer Donald up a bit.

Despite the posh, attractive interior of the building, the unmistakable aroma of floral arrangements wafted in the air, and the discreet little signs bearing names of the dead who were laid out in the chapels were visible from the entrance. Donald shivered, even though it was much warmer inside than it was outside.

"May I help you?" A pleasant, attractive blonde woman in a navy blue suit and heels approached them.

"I'm Tim Callahan, this is my partner, Donald Strachey. Are you Linda?"

"Yes, Mr. Callahan. It's nice to meet you in person," she said, shaking his hand. Mr. Strachey," she added, shaking Don's hand, still smiling. "We can go right into my office and get started."

"You have funerals going on today?" Don asked.

"We have visitations beginning at two o'clock. No one's here yet," she said, leading the way into a large, well-appointed office decorated in various shades of cream and white. She guided them to a round glass table where she had various papers and brochures accumulated.

"No visitors, anyway," Donald mumbled, though she didn't seem to catch it. It made sense a funeral director wouldn't be too unsettled by the presence of corpses. Donald had seen plenty of dead bodies in his life, but there was something about the prettied up ones that looked like macabre mannequins in their caskets that gave him the creeps. Maybe it was because dead bodies in their unretouched state didn't pretend to be pretty. They were just natural remnants of live people, and you weren't expected to want to linger in their company. But you were expected to like touching, looking at, and hanging around with these dolled up dead people in their overpriced boxes and fancy outfits.

And that was after someone hung them on a hook, drained them, and then went through some rituals of preparation that made Norman Bates' taxidermy approach look harmless.

"Donald, are you all right?" Tim asked, and he looked worried. Donald wondered if he'd gone pale, or just missed some crucial question about planning for his own death that he should have answered.

"Yeah, I'm just tired. I was working most of last night," he said to Linda, trying to sound apologetic. It wasn't her fault that he viewed her as a nicely dressed Angel of Death in pumps.

"As I was saying, one of the items we discuss with pre-planning are the obituaries. Obviously, that will evolve over time, and you're always free to contact me with updates. Some people find writing a draft obituary a very meaningful experience, and others aren't as comfortable with that. You can even consider sending me an updated resume every few years, and I'll add it to the file."

"I'm not writing my obituary. I'm not finished living it yet."

"The obituary isn't absolutely necessary. It's also something you can decide to add later."

"I have a working version you can keep in the file," Tim said, handing her a sheet of paper with something neatly printed off from the computer. Something about it made Donald want to recoil from the paper as if it were a live snake. As if it could somehow curse Timmy's longevity by summarizing his life as if he were dead now. Timmy must have noticed his stricken expression, because he touched his arm gently. "Honey, it's just a draft - an outline you can use if something happens to me, so you don't have to start from scratch."

Donald stared at him, then blinked, looking away, nodding. This was something that would give Timmy some peace of mind. He was a planner, and he was walking around feeling like they hadn't crossed their T's and dotted their I's yet in completing all the paperwork that would bind them together. More importantly, that would keep others from tearing them apart at a crucial moment.

"We have three basic packages of services," Linda said, keeping her tone and expression light and upbeat. I'm being forced to plan the most atrocious day of my life, a day that I hope I die before I have to deal with...a day when I'll come back into this place alone, with half my soul torn out, my heart shattered, my life over...and you're smiling at me?

"I think this one would work for either one of us," Tim said, and Don didn't care which one he chose. He could have a brass band and a carriage drawn by four white horses if that's what turned him on. All he wanted to do was get this over with. The only reason he'd agreed to come at all was that he felt guilty about sticking Timothy with this appointment to handle alone.

"Mr. Strachey?" Linda asked.

"Whatever Timothy picks out is fine."

"I wish my husband and I agreed on things that easily," she said, still smiling. Part of Donald wanted to wipe that smile off her face. He wondered if she smiled at bereaved families, or just the poor schmucks who had to wallow through all this pain way before their time. "Okay, if you gentlemen will come with me, we can go into the showroom and select the caskets."

"What?" Tim asked, looking a bit surprised.

"By making a choice when you pre-plan, we can lock in the prices if you choose to pre-pay. Even if you don't, it's helpful to us to have an idea of the style and price range you were interested in when we assist your family in making those final arrangements."

"We're pre-paying, assuming the costs are within our budget," Tim said, recovering from his temporary surprise.

"Let's just take a walk through the showroom, and even if you aren't prepared to decide today, perhaps you can decide on a budget and we can include that in the planning paperwork."

Donald reluctantly followed his partner, who was unenthusiastically following Linda, toward the showroom. It felt like something out of a horror movie, and Donald could feel his lunch churning and jumping about in his stomach. He'd never had to plan a funeral before. When his grandfather died, his grandmother and his parents had handled everything. His parents and his grandmother were still alive, and even when they died, he seriously doubted he'd been included in planning anything. When Kyle died, an open casket was out of the question, and Donald was banned by the family from attending the services anyway.

The room was nicely appointed for a chamber of horrors. Everywhere he looked, caskets yawned open toward him. It gave him the morose feeling they were all beckoning him, "pick me, pick me!"

"This one is nice," Tim said, stopping by a dark metallic forest green casket with an ivory velvet lining. It was nice, and it was in such extraordinarily good taste. It was perfect for Timothy. In an instant, he could see him in his best dark suit, laid out in it.

Donald didn't see the rooms as he fled through them. He barely remembered to open doors and take the correct turns to find the exit, but he had to find it. He burst through the doors and mumbled some unintelligible apology to the incoming mourners he nearly bowled over on his way. He didn't really know where he was going once he was outside, and he wandered over to a bench that was far enough from the main entrance that it took him out of the range of prying eyes of people arriving for the first visitations scheduled that day.

He sat on the bench and worked hard at not vomiting. It was in his throat, tears were in his eyes, beginning to escape...and he'd left Timothy alone in that room full of caskets and death and the smell of flowers. He leaned his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. He couldn't get the swirl of awful images out of his head. Timmy as he looked now, laid out in that casket. Himself, a broken old man, standing on the grassy hill where their cemetery plots were, the tree that was fairly new now, towering over him as he clutched a colorful bouquet of flowers in his gnarled old hand, weeping inconsolably because Timmy couldn't see them, smell them, or bury his beautiful face in them the way he often did when Donald brought him flowers.

"Donald?"

Timmy's voice almost made him jump, he'd drifted so far into the horror of picturing life without him, coping with his death... He felt the warmth of a living Timothy next to him, one of those strong arms around his shoulders.

"Donald, darling, I'm so sorry. I should have never pushed you into this."

He turned in Timmy's arms and buried his face against his shoulder, sobbing the bitter tears his elderly self had been crying, praying they'd wash away the image of that casket, of Timothy in it, because he'd chosen it, and it looked so right and so nice and so tasteful in such an awful way.

"Shhh. It's okay, baby," Timmy whispered against his hair, holding him close, cradling his head the way only Timmy could, or ever had, rubbing his back soothingly.

"I don't want you to die," he said, knowing it was nonsense. Of course, neither of them wanted the other to die, and unfortunately, they were both going to someday. Still, he couldn't help what he felt, and he needed Timmy's arms around him and that soft voice reassuring him.

"Oh, honey, I know that. I don't want you to die, either. We've got a whole lifetime ahead of us."

He didn't tell Timothy about old Donald at the cemetery crying with his useless bouquet of flowers. He didn't even want to plant the image in Tim's head of Timmy laid out in his best suit. All of it was insane. Timmy was alive and healthy and holding him in his arms. He squeezed Timmy's body tighter, some part of him knowing it probably wasn't all that comfortable for Timmy, and not being able to stop clinging anyway. Timmy gave as good as he got, holding him tighter, too, rocking them a little.

"I can't go back in there."

"We won't. It's okay, honey."

"Do you think my family would do something so awful as try to take me away from you? Not let you decide where to bury me?" he asked against Timmy's shoulder, the thought of being torn away from him, even in death, being to horrible to consider.

"Probably not. But that's why we're doing this. So no one can ever come between us, even in death. I could never rest easily, even in the next world, if you weren't resting next to me." He felt Timmy's lips on his temple, giving him a little kiss to reassure him. "It's the last part of tying our legal knot, honey, that's all. It's not cursed, and it won't make us die any sooner because we do it."

"I know it's dumb."

"No, no, it's not dumb," Timmy hastened to add, still holding onto Donald, who hadn't looked up from his shoulder since he'd turned to him and hidden his face there. "How could it be dumb for someone to love me so much that he can't even bear to prepare for my death, years and years before it happens? You loving me so much that you can't endure the pain of doing this isn't dumb. It's beautiful, and touching, and it makes me feel like the luckiest man in the world."

"But you're strong enough to do this."

"Donald, you said yourself that my family wouldn't shut you out, wouldn't do anything to hurt you if something happened to me, and they wouldn't. They'd rally around you and love you like one of their own - they already do. But I don't know what your family would do, and I have to get through this to make sure they can't take you away from me at the very end. I couldn't live through that, Donald. I couldn't be shut out of your funeral, or have you torn away from me and buried somewhere else. I have to do something to be sure that you're always mine."

"Okay," Donald said, nodding, understanding what Timmy was afraid of. His family were a bunch of jerks who wouldn't even meet Timothy. They might ignore Donald's death with the indifference they showed to him now, or they might use it to strike some blow against his homosexuality, and against the man he loved. "I'll sign anything you want me to. I just don't want to talk about it anymore."

"I'll finish up the paperwork, and then you can sign your part of it, and I'll sign mine, and we don't have to talk about it anymore."

"I'm sorry, Timmy." He pulled back a little, knowing he'd left a healthy little splotch of tears and snot on Timmy's pristine topcoat. But that wasn't why he was apologizing. After all, loving someone the way they loved each other came with gallons of assorted bodily fluids in all sorts of situations through every stage of life. What bothered him most was that he was weaseling out of being there for Timmy through a very difficult, but very worthwhile, bit of future planning.

Timmy just smiled at him, handing him a handkerchief, and then kissed his forehead while he was laboriously blowing his nose and mopping himself up.

"With all the love and joy you bring into my life every day, every minute we're together, you have nothing to apologize for because you love me too much to bear planning for my death. The only thing I ask is that you try not to feel so bad, honey." He hugged Donald again, letting it linger into a little cuddle. "I'd give all my earthly possession just to see one of those beautiful smiles of yours right now."

"All of your earthly possessions?" Donald pulled back, grinning a bit.

"You have a particular one in mind?"

"I don't want your 'stuff'," he said, touching Timmy's face, relishing the healthy, living warmth of him. "I just want to go home and make love until we're too tired to move."

"I think I can pencil that in," Tim replied, and they both shared a watery chuckle.

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On the way home, Donald insisted that Timmy pull off the road to the curb in front of a florist shop. He rushed inside looking a bit like a madman, and gathered up an enormous bouquet of multicolored flowers from the buckets in the cooler. There were roses, carnations, daisies...a slightly psychotic jumble of blooms, so many of them that it took the young woman at the counter a long time to count and ring them up.

"Would you like these...arranged?" she asked, still staring at the huge array of flowers in his arms.

"Nope, just like this. Can you put plastic around them or something?"

"Of course," she said, finding a way to bind and wrap the bottom of the giant bouquet so it didn't leak.

A moment later, he was standing on the sidewalk with the flowers, and Tim spotted him and got out of the car, laughing affectionately.

"Are there any flowers left in the store?" he asked, joining Donald on the sidewalk, accepting the armload of flowers.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Timothy Callahan, and there aren't enough flowers in the world to show you how much I love you."

And then Timothy did it, dipped his face into the middle of all those flowers and inhaled, smiling, his eyes filling. His beautiful living blue eyes, the flowers held in his warm, strong, live arms.

"They're beautiful. Thank you, honey," Timmy said, kissing him on the mouth, right there on the sidewalk, blissfully unconcerned with what any passerby might think. "You didn't have to get me flowers."

"Oh, yes, I did. Let's go home," he said. And now he was picturing old, bent Donald with his scraggly little bouquet, but he was also seeing old, frail Timmy accepting it, smiling and kissing him the way he just had. Holding hands on the way home in the car, Donald couldn't stop smiling.

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THE END