This was inspired by the great headcanon of .com. The second part will be posted within the next week (probably).
"Will you be my maid of honour?"
"Oh! Lizzie!" Charlotte's squealed response to her foetus-friend's big question was all the conformation Lizzie needed.
Lizzie swung her arms out wide open in time for her new "hire" to safely come crashing in to her without any bruises, sprains or any other physical injury. They were sat side by side on a snug leather couch in the Starbucks on Market Street, and their cries of joy had attracted a few stares from young, techie workers wearing not-too-dissimilar hipster fashion than what Lizzie's fiancé was now famous for (well, amongst techies at least).
"I think we'd better break this before our drinks get cold" Lizzie forced out of her larynx, which was restricted by the tightness of the hugging.
"Or someone spikes them" Charlotte replied as she let go of her friend and reached towards her Pumpkin Spice Latte (or her "Big Whipped Ginger"TM Charlotte Lu).
"Who'd spike our coffees?" Lizzie joked between sips of her Caramel Macchiato (after taking a discreet sniff of it to be on the safe side).
"Well, you're a big successful businesswoman, with a big successful media company, who has just made it clear that she's engaged, and probably to her big successful businessman boyfriend. You should get some kind of security detail now, Lizzie."
"Says the practical boss of an equally successful media company!"
"Ah yes, but not as big. I'm sure more people would rather kidnap the creator of The Vlog of Dorian Gray, or Nick Carraway's Notes than that of Game of Gourds!" Charlotte admitted.
It was true. Whilst Game of Gourds had been a big commercial success for Collins & Collins and had brought a huge smile to their venture capitalist's (fake) pockets, it couldn't compare to the runaway successes of Longbourn Media's modern adaptations of Oscar Wilde's and Scott Fitzgerald's classics. The imaginative use of Pemberley Digital's Domino app, and their new fandom app (designed to give exclusive behind the scenes content and another platform to engage with the characters on) had allowed the viewers to interact with the stories in a ground-breaking way. This combined with the fanbase of the two CEOs (and their relationship) had brought more success than what any of them could have imagined.
"Have you asked your sisters to be bridesmaids yet?"
"Yes I have. You, Jane, Lydia, and Gigi will outshine me and I won't be the least bit upset!"
"Oh stop it!" Miss Lu protested in her usual embarrassed voice. "I could never outshine you and your fine eyes."
At this, the bride-to-be ended up slowly emptying her mouthful of coffee back into the cup from trying to contain her laughter.
"Careful there! You don't want to spill half the cup, even if it is such a weird choice of drink".
"Alright. I'll just take that cheap criticism and accept the perceived inferiority of my taste whilst you sit there, sipping a pumpkin coffee at the beginning of March!"
"Pumpkin doesn't taste worse any other time of year. And anyway, our Spring is the southern hemisphere's Fall."
"And are you in the southern hemisphere?"
"Not anymore. Remember I was in New Zealand on a work/Lord of the Rings trip with Lydia a couple of weeks ago. In any case, you criticised my taste right back. You lowered yourself to my level."
"Only a true friend would attack their moral standards in order to make their buddy seem bad too."
"Well, you just offered me the role of maid of honour. Of course I'm a true friend."
"So when are you gonna start giving me best man duties?"
Darcy looked up from the spreadsheet he was working on to find an afro with a forehead and two eyes attached, peering over the top of his MacBook.
"That would imply that I have given you the role already." He closed the lid to reveal the rest of Fitz's face.
"And haven't you?" Fitz smiled sweetly.
"You do realise I have more than one friend? I'm sorry Fitz but I never thought we were ever exclusive."
His friend (or the only one with him in his lounge at that moment) slumped down in the couch opposite. "Dude that sounded so gay!" He joked.
"I'm shocked Fitz, that you should give me the "no homo"!"
"Ironic is what I'd call it. Now, how about this best man thing? C'mon! You know my speech would blow the pants off of everyone – not literally of course but –"
"That exactly is one of the reasons why I have not yet given you the role. We would never hear the end of the lobster and Newsies references."
"But you're her lobster! You're gonna be crawling along the bottom of the tank together with your claws entwined!"
One of Darcy's eyebrows rose in confusion.
"You also need to watch Friends again, but we can save that for the stag do."
"Oh god Fitz, what else would you plan for my stag do?"
"What are you expecting from me? A stripper wearing nothing but a bow tie and newsboy cap? I've been to more stag nights than you, my man. I won't ruin it, honestly."
At this Darcy gave him an unsure look, reopened the lid, and returned to the spreadsheet. After a minute of awkward silence between the two, the unmistakable binging sound of a Skype call echoed through the room.
"Bing. How are you today?"
"I'm good…Darcy." His voice sounded a bit unsteady. "How are you?"
"Can't complain. You and Jane are coming on Wednesday, yes?"
"Uh, yeah! Yeah. Hope that's not a problem. I know you've already got Charlotte staying with you…and Lydia of course."
"Lydia has her own place, and no it's no problem at all." After a short pause, he carried on. "Bing, what's wrong? I'm usually the less talkative of us, and you called me."
"Well, nothing's wrong! No no." He looked away for a brief moment, before looking back. "Have you by any chance…considered the benefits of having me in your wedding, as say…your best man?"
At this, Fitz's ears pricked up and he got onto his knees to crawl a little closer to the laptop.
"Go on." Darcy gave a sly smile – a hint of a smile that only moved the one corner of his mouth upwards.
"Well, we've known each other for such a long time now. You've helped me become a much better person who's in control of their own life. You helped me with my relationship with Jane, and I think I've helped you become a better person too. Heck, if it hadn't have been for me you wouldn't have met your fiancée in the first place, nor would she have been able to make you a better person. Can Fitz claim to have done that?"
At this Fitz was roused from behind the screen into his legendary far-too-close-close-up with the webcam. "Hey Bing I helped get Darcy to bump into her again at Pemberley. Without that man we wouldn't be having this wedding at all!"
"You were scheming with my sister behind our backs!" Darcy exclaimed.
"See Darcy, I didn't do anything without your permission." The voice from the speakers responded.
"Exactly Bing!" Fitz got closer to the camera.
"Woah woah. How is squabbling and bringing up past problems going to help either of your bids for the position?" Darcy gave a stern eye at them both. "Next Thursday, you will present to me your bids, and I will make my mind up. You can make a presentation in any format, just as long as there are no digs at your competitor. Is that clear?"
The nods of his friends made it clear that the matter didn't need to be discussed any further here, but they had other ideas.
"So I can't make fun of Fitz's hair?"
"And I can't make fun of how Bing can't stand up to his sister?"
"I protest! I stood up to her over mine and Jane's relationship, and medical school, and calling our cat Pebbles and…you see Darcy? You see how low and unfounded these attacks are? Think of how terrible his speech would be littered with Lizzie's insults towards you."
"Darcy my man, think of all the sugary language you'd get with Bing complimenting you on the colour of the flower arrangements or the napkin designs!"
At this petty squabbling, Darcy decided to put the laptop on the floor and leave the room.
"Lizzie" Charlotte grabbed her bestie's attention as she glided into the kitchen.
"Char! What have you got for me?" She put the knife onto the chopping board. She'd never been the best cook, or the most imaginative (Darcy was always the one to stir up something incredible in the kitchen – and not just when it came to cooking, she would blush to herself sometimes). However, Lizzie was decent enough with dinner, and with Darcy expressing that he would have to stay a while longer this evening (she had no idea why), decent enough would have to do for themselves and their guests.
"Well my dear," she sat herself on the stool next to the one Lizzie had jumped up onto, "I have narrowed down this huge list of bridesmaids dresses down to a smaller list of ten possibilities based on your criteria of style, colour, length, and general suitability for the bridesmaids."
"I'm so glad I have someone so very über organised as you for my foetus-friend!"
"You just said "so very over organised". Do you want to correct yourself?"
"Hey, "so very over organised" is grammatically correct."
"Yes, but the rest of the sentence is in English, and in English "über" is often used as a superlative. A superlative then can't be modified to be even more superlative. That's simply not possible."
"I hate having someone so very ÜBER intelligent as you for my foetus-friend."
"No you don't."
"No I don't, let's see these dresses then."
"Well, you said that the colour scheme was going to be red and yellow, so I've found these," she presented her friend with the booklet she'd compiled, "and these all come in both red and yellow."
"That's great Charlotte." She began to dive into the possibilities. "Wow, that is good. That way, you and Gigi could wear the red versions, and Lydia and Jane could wear the yellow."
"Exactly." Charlotte's pride was evident in her smug smile. "And mine and Gigi's flowers would be yellow, and Lydia's and Jane's would be red."
"Oh my god this is fantastic. Thank you so much!" She gave her maid of honour a hug before perusing again. "So this is the same halter neck in red here, as the one in yellow here?" She pointed.
"It sure is. Is that one your favourite?"
"Yeah, it's gorgeous!"
"Then I will order two in each colour in our sizes."
"Thank you so much! I don't know how I could've managed this without you. Everything's been made so much easier knowing you're already so on top of this."
"Yeah well August 15th isn't that far away when you've only just started to organise it all. I dread to think what would've happened if you hadn't decided on someone by now."
"Welcome Bing." Darcy guided his friend into the small conference room. "I hope you're not too nervous."
"Sheesh Darcy, what is this, some kind of job interview?" He joked.
"Yes." Darcy replied matter-of-fact-ly. Wasn't that a bit obvious? For him at least it was.
"Oh well," Bing tried to compose himself as he plugged in his flash drive to the computer-audio-visual system, "then yes. But I'll try my best not to be."
Darcy smiled at the awkwardness in his friend. As he'd noted during their Skype call, Bing seemed to get very awkward when discussing matters of the wedding; more awkward than Darcy himself is on a number of occasions. Perhaps it was just his modesty shining through. Darcy had always considered himself ill-qualified to recommend himself to strangers. Maybe Bing was too sometimes (though Darcy is anything but a stranger to him)?
Once Bing had the PowerPoint up and running and everything in place, he cleared his throat and began, "Thank you Mr Darcy, for considering my application for the position of best man at the Darcy/Bennet wedding of August 15th 2015. I am very honoured."
He clicked the zapper onto the next slide. "As you are probably aware, we have been very close friends since our first year of college, and during this long acquaintance and friendship, you become as close as friends can become to me." A photo of them both from their graduation gradually appeared. "You offered to me valuable love and understanding, and I hope I gave to you much needed support and guidance during a difficult time of your life. Who could forget our long and deep conversations overlooking the bay when we were supposed to be studying, or the nights out on the town when I tried and sometimes succeeded in getting you out of your shell?"
At this, Darcy clearly did not have the fondest memories, and scrunched up his nose and tucked back his chin at the thought.
"Ah, well." Bing clicked onto the next slide with a picture of the Gibson wedding. "Remember it was I who introduced you to Lizzie in the first place-I mean, ok, technically it was all down to the luck of the throw but you wouldn't have been forced to endure the most awkward dance ever if I had never decided to quit medical school and take up Netherfield in the first place!"
"By bringing you to Netherfield, you met your wonderful fiancée, who no doubt made you a better person. And you Darcy," he clicked onto the next slide with a photo of him in New York with Jane, "made me a better person. You taught me to get a grip of my life, to stop being far too modest most of the time, to not give up with Jane, and to follow my dreams."
At this Darcy rolled his eyes with a hint of a smile on his face.
Bing went on to the final slide, with a recent photo from Lizzie and Darcy's trip to New York, with the four of them standing in front of the Statue of Liberty. "If you choose me as your best man, you will have chosen someone who will give you all the support and reassurance you need on your big day. Someone who will listen to what you need and will think ahead to what you don't need yet but will need. Someone who will remind you of how perfect you and Lizzie are together, and above all, someone who will make you proud of having such a best man by your side on your special day." He gave a short bow. "Thank you," and switched off the projector.
"Thank you very much Bing. If you'd like to stick around a little while longer whilst I listen to Fitz's presentation and make my decision. Can you call in Fitz on your way out of the room? Thanks."
"No problem." He exited, and a moment later, Fitz came bounding into the room.
"Darcy! My man!" He grabbed hold of Darcy's hand; shaking it viciously before striding up to the computer and logging to a cloud. He seemed to be completely caught up in that part that Darcy dare not respond with the simple pleasantries he'd exchanged with Bing just a few minutes before.
Once the Prezi had loaded, Fitz faced Darcy again and began, "Darcy. Darcy Darcy Darcy…Darcy. You and me…we're just inseparable, aren't we? I mean, we first met in first grade when you offered me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because I'd dropped my lunch money one the way to school, and man, a beautiful friendship…nay, brotherhood began. Because to me dude, you are like a brother. My older brother is off working here there and everywhere most of the time, and he was already legal by the time I was just learning to use the potty! So he was never really a brother to me in a sense. But YOU Darce, have been. Now, you've probably heard all this "been through it all" crap from Bing-"
"Uh, I said no digs."
"and this isn't a dig! No, no. That was merely just pulling up a bit of turf. Anyway, you've probably heard all of that, so I'm just gonna remind you of all the times I've shown good Best Man qualities." He clicked, and the presentation zoomed in on a collection of photos. The first photo of the two of them as young children playing with toy figures came to the fore. "Look at us there man. Look at us! You remember what happened that day? Lisa G had taken your Action Man, stuck long hair on him, dressed him up in a skirt and halter top, and painted on lipstick and blusher. You know what I did? I came to your defence by yelling at her to give it back, and then explaining to her that laughing at a man dressing up in clothes and makeup that are often seen as stereotypically "female" is just perpetrating misogyny by equating femininity with humiliation and weakness, and doing so does no good for women everywhere by unnecessarily assigning genders to material objects!"
"You always did have a very precocious interest in social justice issues."
"Damn right I did! My mother taught me well. I came to your rescue then, and man did I come to your rescue later on." He clicked onto the next photo of the two of them graduating high school. "Aah, the great diploma debacle. You must remember that huh? They had you down on the register as "William Darvid" (ironic of course) and you needed to provide ID in order for it to be changed, but your leg was in a cast from the er…car…accident, so I ran to your home, found your driver's licence and ran all the way back in time to change the name on your diploma before you were called up. Yeah. I earned my stars that day."
"And you were a huge support to me and Gigi during the aftermath of the accident."
"Exactly! You could count on me like one two three, and you knew it!" Fitz clicked on to the next photo, of Lydia and Jane visiting Pemberley Digital the first time with their sister. "And dude, just a couple of years ago when the Bennets were maligned by he-who-shall-not-be-named, I was there, working out IP addresses and trying to get past proxys and the whole shebang, and I helped save them! I also consoled you when you'd finished watching Lizzie's videos and you thought it was all hopeless, but you came back fighting, and I helped you through it, didn't I?"
"Indeed, you did."
"When you're in trouble, who are you gonna call? That's right. Mr Fitz Williams. So choose me, and damn! Will your big day be in safe hands." The Prezi finished. "Thank you very much dude."
"Thank you, Fitz. If you would like to wait outside with Bing until I've called you back in."
As Fitz left the room, Darcy sat back in his chair; staring down a difficult decision. It's true, Fitz had been there in all the big crises of his life so far (the Lisa G business was less of a crisis, but still a challenge nonetheless), and he had made things much better. But, Bing had also been there during difficult times, and if Fitz was his brother, then Bing was almost like a son. A son who was becoming more and more like a brother as time went on (in some strange, incestuous way that he didn't want to contemplate). Two very different, but very strong bonds that he couldn't rate above the other. Nope, it was just too difficult. He would have to figure it out some other way…and he had an idea.
"Fitz, Bing, would you please come back inside?" Darcy poked his head out. Once they had placed themselves down at the table opposite Darcy, he began again. "You are both very, very dear friends to me. So this has been a very tough decision to make. However, I have decided…that I cannot yet decide who should get the role. I have come up with a plan to decide though." The other two looked at each other in confusion. "My office, 11am, Sunday morning…and wear your running shoes."
So who do you think should be the best man? Thanks for reading the first chapter!