Netherfield was a big house. Even with his two bitchy sisters and drunken Mr Hurst, Mr Bingley felt it was so empty. Therefore, when he moved down to Hertfordshire with them, he asked his dear, dear friend Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy to accompany them.
To most, Mr Darcy was a reserved man with an ego far bigger than his penis, but they knew neither the size of his penis, or the truth behind his dark, mysterious character. But Bingley, dear, friendly Bingley, knew everything.
Mr Hurst was out drinking with his mates and Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst were visiting Georgiana Darcy, as Mr Darcy had exploded with anger once whilst writing a letter to her.
"If you are so keen for me to send her your love, Miss Bingley, then why don't you stop admiring the straightness of my handwriting and depth of my English and go and visit her?" he roared. "Then you can tell her in person!"
Mr Bingley had expressed a strong desire to go to the Bennets at Longbourn, but it was in vain. Mr Darcy stopped him.
"No Charles, do not leave with such haste," he begged. "There are a myriad things I wish to discuss with you."
Bingley lost all the colour from his face. He felt his knees go all wobbly, for it was then that he realised that the house with otherwise empty.
"He knows," he thought. "He knows I feel." He slowly sunk down into one of the designer sofas that Miss Bingley had insisted he bought to make them look posher than they really were.
"Come, join me on this fancy, and quite frankly oversized sofa, Mr Darcy," he invited softly. Mr Darcy was not the one to be ordered about, least of all by Mr Bingley, but he did so.
"Tell me what you wish to talk about, Mr Darcy."
Mr Darcy stared at the ground coldly. "I assume that you know about my history with Mr Wickham," he growled.
"Yes yes, how he spent all your money on booze and prostitutes, like Miss Lydia Bennet?"
"No!" Darcy shouted. "That was all the lie we made up. We did not want to be shamed, and Wickham was willing to play along with our story."
"What really happened?" Bingley tentatively asked.
"I could not say, Charles." Mr Darcy tilted his head against a cushion. "Oh, how you would judge me!"
"I would never do such a thing, Mr Darcy." Bingley cocked his head and smiled a little. "I'm too nice." A little unsteadily, he placed his hand on Mr Darcy's shoulder, feeling the heat the reserved man radiated. "Please, I beg, tell me the truth."
Mr Darcy took a deep breath. He was about to reveal the deep secret he kept deep at the bottom of his cool heart, for so long to the man he trusted more than anyone else he was acquainted with.
"We were in love," he confessed quietly. After seeing no waves of repulsion ripple through Bingley's face, he stated more clearly, "George and I, we were in love. But things started to fall apart. I was willing to be humiliated and be take out of Lady Catherine's will, and be shamed by all my friends, if it meant we could be together. Poor Wickham, though, was too scared, so...I let him go." Mr Darcy gazed hazily off into the distance. "This, my friend, is the real reason he has slept with so many women: it was an attempt to convert himself to heterosexuality." The light in Mr Darcy's eyes faded. "From a recent conversation with George, I gather that this idea has not been particularly successful."
Bingley listened attentively, nodding compassionately at his companion's pain.
"That explains the awkwardness and tension that surrounds the pair of you," Bingley said, "but how on Earth did he get into such awful debts?"
"Charles, hear me," Darcy pleaded. "He owes many men money because they agreed to have sexual intercourse with him for a fee, but his inner desire was so strong that he soon found himself unable to pay these men like he promised to. For this reason, he went out drinking, digging himself guinea after guinea into further debt."
"And Miss Bennet? This is why he will not marry her?"
"Dear Charles, you listen well! Indeed, that is quite the reason! He cannot afford to give the child the stable living she requires, nor does he have genuine feelings for her." Darcy sighed, furrowing his brow. "Now I know his reasons, I am no longer angry about his past happenings with my sister, and therefore I shall pay him out of his debt with plenty to spare. Then he shall marry Lydia Bennet, and that shall be a perfect cover story." With a nonchalant shrug, he continued, "Nobody shall suspect a thing, especially since I will lead everyone to believe that it was her uncle, Mr Gardiner, who forced George into marrying her, following their elopement."
Mr Bingley was ever so tempted to reveal his own secret, but let his friend finish before he did. He so wished that his trousers were not quite so tight around a certain delicate area, especially seeing as Mr Darcy had that deep, brooding look on him that Bingley was so fond of.
"I pray that you do not judge me, my dear Bingley. I would hate to lose your friendship."
"Oh! Mr Darcy, you are at no risk of doing that!" he cried, leaping up joyfully and twirling around the room. "Oh, Mr Darcy, you simply have no idea how you have made me the happiest of men!
Mr Darcy frowned his goddamnsexy frown that Miss Elizabeth Bennet oh-so-loved, but would never admit to. "Please explain, Charles."
"Oh! Mr Darcy, I never loved Miss Jane Bennet! I always loved you! Oh! how I have struggled to live with a man as fine as Mr Hurst! Now I no longer suffer alone!
Mr Darcy sprang from his seat and span around the room with Mr Bingley. They embraced each other and waltzed around the furniture delicately, to a tune that Bingley was humming merrily. They could have held each other all day long, but they eventually let go.
Darcy was smiling for the first time in many months.
"Let us be clear: I am not denying my love for you, Charles, but I never had the slightest intention of marrying your sister," Darcy informed him.
"I would never hide my love and deep admiration for you, Mr Darcy, and I would never like you to marry Miss Caroline Bingley. She truly is a vulgar woman."
Bingley thought long and hard, before jumping and then pacing around the room at and increasingly fast lace as he spoke of his hypothesis.
"Everyone expects me to marry Miss Jane Bennet, and that I shall, for if I were ever to love a woman, it would be her. Miss Elizabeth Bennet is furiously in love with you, so you should marry her. By doing this, we will have both married two of the loveliest young women in the country, making them much richer and beautifully happy at the same time!" Mr Bingley winked, then hurried on, "In hushed voices we will tell them the truth of our feelings, and because they are such understanding young ladies, and because we will have increased their statuses so much, they will almost certainly agree for us to see each other whenever possible, providing we give them some money to buy a new silk gown with. Why, we won't have to be in love with them! We can be in love with each other!" Clasping his hands together, he dreamily continued, "Oh, Mr Darcy, it could work! It could really work! Nobody else would ever need to know!"
Mr Darcy took long strides across the room to meet him. He put his hands on Bingley's hips and leaned forwards, so their noses were touching and their manly bulges pressed firmly against one another.
"Mr Bingley, I am so in love with you," he whispered, kissing him lightly on the lips, then the cheeks, then his nose, forehead and eyelids. Mr Bingley loved it, leaning in closer to Mr Darcy's clutch on him, both emotionally and physically.
"As long as you kiss Miss Elizabeth like that, she couldn't possibly refuse our proposal," Bingley gasped.
"Let's go upstairs," Darcy suggested, taking Bingley by that hand and leading him to the staircase. Without a moment's hesitation, they bounded up the stairs, two at a time, eager to fulfil each other's high expectations.