not my characters, but i love them dearly. mild language and romancey shmancey slash.
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"You look absolutely ridiculous." Derby sighs, smirking weakly.
You frown at him, straightening a tie of an impressive and distinctive shade of blue in the reflection of an equally impressive mirror. Derby looks at you through the glass, trying vaguely to laugh.
"Silly." He remarks quietly, halfheartedly, without his normal effortless snap. The black material of your suit jacket contrasts perfectly with the white dress shirt underneath it, and only Derby's smart enough to see how taut and ruined the gorgeous suit is on you. You look heavy, stuffed almost- 'absolutely ridiculous'. Derby's smart enough to know that you're actually notably agile and lithe, too physically smart or powerful for such an embarrassing outfit. You're like a hurricane or a jungle or something equally extraordinary- Derby's told you so. Some overlooked Eden you are, he says, with those shoulders that slope and rise too remarkably to be hidden under such cheap fabric- that must be it. The fabric's just cheap.
Derby voices this option to you as it hits him, while you continue to redo your tie for a fourth or fifth time. You merely sigh, looking down at your immaculate black collar and touching it lightly with your coarse fingertips.
"It's Aquaberry," You say, maybe not boredly but dejectedly a little. It could have something to do with the first two times that Derby had complained of your suit being a cheap material, and it had earned you both an extra hour or so, fighting off the inevitable, hired help scrambling to find a finer replacement. The delay sure annoyed the hell out of Pinky, not that Derby really cared that much. She was just a little more tolerable when she wasn't already mad at him.
He frowns now, grabbing you at the shoulder and turning you enough so that you stand face-to-face, comfortably close but uneven height-wise. You look down blankly. It's frustrating for him, you think, because he knows what you look like under this, under this ugly rigid worthless new suit- and God, the white nearly blanches away all your freckles.
"Stupid, the whole idea," Derby goes, and you figure he's not talking about the suit.
Irritated, he shoves you back like you're both five-years-old and retreats to a seat on the edge of his old king sized bed. He rests his forehead on the mahogany bedpost and you glance away to look back at yourself in the mirror. This really isn't about your formalwear at all. But you agree, yeah, you do look sort of stupid. You haven't worn a suit- a full tuxedo, that is- in God, how long? A damn long while.
It must have been Pinky's sixteenth birthday party.
Yeah, that's right because for her eighteenth her parents took her on that cruise- her family and Derby's, for that matter. Though you guess they'd be counted as one whole same family now, wouldn't they?
No, it definitely was her sixteenth birthday party. Whenever you or the boys had a birthday it went by almost diffidently in passing, modestly extolled, because that's how you suppose boys age- humbly. Girls, judging solely by Pinky, took any opportunity they could to throw fanciful and lavish parties. Especially parties dedicated wholly to the celebration of their very being. Or just especially parties in which they were rewarded with extraordinarily lush gifts, you think.
And it was, God what a stunning damn party that had been. Derby'd gotten you to give gin a whirl- earlier that day, in the Harrington House back when serious adult responsibilities all seemed too far away to matter. You'd sat up in his bedroom, shaking your head and laughing- telling him that was enough- too much, as you held out your glass. "I know what I'm doing Taylor." He'd snapped but laughed a little, pulling the glass back with his free hand and topping you off.
God, it'd tasted awful. But Derby did know exactly what he was doing, setting you up with just enough to make you feel deliciously thicker and even braver- not too much to make you an embarrassment.
You were smaller then. Not height wise, really, still the same impressive measure that your father's genes had blessed you with. But that party had been about halfway through your second year boxing, and you hadn't exactly filled out yet. Back then you still looked reasonable in the black sharp outfit, though you never took to the incandescence quite like Derby managed to. So you always fell wordlessly behind, followed his bold golden posture with almost unconcerned brawn- during the party, at a proud sixteen, and before that for as long as you can remember.
Your families were partners, sort of. No one was on the same level as the Harringtons, and your parents knew that, and never challenged the layout of things. Derby was exalted and blessed and you were just lucky enough to be even vaguely associated with him. Your dad was his father's attorney or something- some big job without much awe. So at five and seven and ten you'd been to dinner parties, merging your family with his over wine, leaving you and him up in his rooms to do whatever you found worth the time.
You both promptly bonded over your indifference towards all the toys littering the playroom, how nothing of any color or size seemed to measure up. Always exquisitely bored, he amused himself in outlandish ways and you were lucky just to be there, as a spectator. At nine he smuggled R rated movies into the DVD player, and at eleven some of his father's foreign cigars. Nothing was consistent with him; just sparks of interest and appeal, always behind your parents' backs.
"Because that's what's exciting, Bif!" He'd whispered hurriedly clutching the tree that scraped his window, convincing you that it'd be excellent to sneak out of his house at midnight and leave behind the adult-dictated sleepover. "If you're supposed to be doing it, it's probably not very fun, right?" And you'd thought of chores and showers and business dinners and Derby was right, exactly right at thirteen and again at twenty-three, here in the old king-sized bedroom in his parent's house. You looked ridiculous because this whole thing was ridiculous, and nothing you're obligated to do is ever very fun.
Only now, older and bigger, you realize that it has to be done. That responsibilities are required and always fulfilled, that Derby never got caught for the movies or the cigars or the alcohol, and that every exhilarating midnight escape ended with the both of you coming back home before anyone had noticed you'd left.
And that you're at the very least, a body guard, at the very most, a best friend, and at all the in-betweens, completely in love with him. You realize that your first kiss- the one you held your breath for, freshman year, sitting too close on the leather couch alone in his room at the Harrington House- that kiss was just a stupid lie and an impossible fucking promise. That all the romantics were vulgar jokes and the sex was just convenient fireworks to pass the time, and to maybe amuse.
And even if Derby has a real heart (which you want to believe, hope against hope, that he does, and that it beats for you), he's obligated to pocket it, because feelings are pitiful things, and love is subservient to the ways of money and families. There's a ring around his finger, sealed today, and it is not for you.
You look over your shoulder at him, still slumped against the bedpost, a little destroyed, jaw clenched and eyes shut in some silent ache you'd normally offer to remedy. But you can only change your suit so many times, and inevitably you'll stand near him broad and callous, near the altar where all his family's expectations are met.
Aching a little, you sit next to him on the bed, wrapping your arms around him dutifully, kissing his pristine forehead privately, behind closed doors, where this will stay.
You tell him he'll be everything Pinky's ever wanted in a husband- rich, gorgeous and completely distracted, and he laughs. You're the only one who gets him to laugh in a way that's not condescending or an attack. He tells you in a warm ruined voice, "Wait a few months, Taylor, and I'll probably be itching around for some torrid affair."
And you both laugh genuinely because you and he both know you'll wait, for years even, and suspicions and rumors will swell and collapse in waves, but you'll never really be concerned. Because he'll always be the only one who ever mattered.
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